Chgo Teachers Union Chief Wants Math Corrupted With ‘Social Justice’ Propaganda

by Warner Todd Huston | March 26, 2014 1:31 pm

Did you think that math was a subject that is by its very nature free of political ideology? Did you think that math was just, well, math? Maybe it won’t surprise you that Chicago teachers union chief, Karen Lewis, disagrees with you and thinks that math isn’t just math but should also be a platform to push left-wing “social justice” propaganda on students.

The rotund Lewis made her pronouncements at an education conference[1] called the Network for Public Education conference held on March 1, 2014 in Austin, Texas.

During her remarks Lewis praised the efforts of extremist left-winger Bob Peterson who is unfortunately in charge of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin teachers union. Peterson wrote a book that is used in the classroom to push left-wing ideology on kids and Lewis thinks everyone should emulate that.

“You want to talk about organizing? You want to talk about social justice?” Lewis bellowed.

“People always talk about how that there’s no politics and values in math. That you can teach math and there’s no place for social justice. So let me tell you how Bob deals with that,” Lewis gurgled from the stage.

Peterson’s book, titled, “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers,” inserts “social justice” propaganda into math problems in order to expose kids to an anti-capitalist, anti-American agenda at as young an age as possible all in order to prepare them for further propaganda as the years roll on.

Lewis went on to discuss the example of adding up the cost of buying pencils and said, “That’s a very political statement because it’s all about consumerism–it’s about buying stuff, right?”

Lewis then celebrated Peterson’s anti-capitalist spin on math with this example: “Bob Peterson tells them about José working in a factory making piecemeal clothes. He uses the same numbers and gets the same answer. And yes, math is political, too.”

Peterson’s idea is that capitalism can be made unpalatable to kids by having the well poisoned at an early age. As the man explained in his book:

“I figure that if kids start questioning the ‘official story’ early on, they will be more open to alternative viewpoints later on. While discovering which presidents were slave owners is not an in-depth analysis, it pokes an important hole in the godlike mystique that surrounds the ‘founding fathers.'”

So, get to the kids early, teach them to hate capitalism and the founding fathers in every type of class, even math. That is how the left works.

And, guess what, conservatives? This is your fault. You’ve sat back and allowed the anti-American, anti-intellectual left to take over education for the last 100 years. Time to take it back.