Dr. Carol M. Swain appeared on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends Weekend Edition with host Pete Hegseth Sunday morning to discuss the lunacy of the Oregon Department of Education’s new teacher training claiming mathematics is racist and encourages white supremacy by infiltrating the classroom.
Hegseth: Get this story. The Oregon Department of Education promoting a training program for teachers that seeks to undo racism in math. The pathway to equitable math instruction toolkit explains how white supremacy allegedly infiltrates math classrooms arguing the concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false.
Meaning two plus two does not equal four and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers. Perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. I’m exhausted. Here to react former Vanderbilt University professor Dr. Carol Swain. Doctor help me. History, politics, and social studies I get you can have debates. Math? Help me here.
Swain: I have a question. I wonder if those board of education members would want their own children taught that two plus two equals nine? And the problem with their racism is that it ensures that minority youth that are taught by teachers who follow that curriculum will be turning out students who can never be mathematicians. They can never be scientists. They can never be engineers or pharmacists because engineering requires mathematical precision otherwise buildings and bridges collapse.
Pharmacists, if they don’t understand math they would kill patients because they’d never be able to fill the prescriptions. And so it is lunacy of the political left. And so I would encourage White people that are on board with that kind of diversity training, ask yourself, do you want your children taught that way? Because I fear that everyone’s child is going to be taught that nonsense.
Hegseth: Of course.
Swain: And the only hope we have comes from homeschoolers as well as those people who have their children in schools that are teaching traditional
education. Basic principles.
Hegseth: Basic math. You said it right it’s lunacy. But the education department in Oregon is defending it in a statement to FOX News yesterday saying the equitable math program helps educators learn key tools for engagement. Develop strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latino, and multilingual students and to join communities of practice. That’s a lot of gobbledygook doctor. Ultimately what they have also said is that white supremacy manifests itself by focusing on finding the right answer. How can finding the right answer be white supremacy?
Swain: The thing about it is that it is so racist…
Hegseth: Yes.
Swain: Because they’re saying that minority students cannot learn the same concepts that white students and everyone else can learn. And so they
are doing the opposite of what they say. And we were moving towards an equitable society before the restorative justice regime and before the Marxism and critical race theory that started on steroids during the Obama administration. It had been around before but it is destroying American education and the opportunities not just for minority students but for everyone’s child.
Hegseth: Dr. Carol Swain, always spot on. Thank you so much for breaking this down.
Swain: Thank you.
Hegseth: I don’t get it but you called it what it is, lunacy.
