Reparations: A Real World Context for Modeling with Mathematics

California Mathematics Council Southern Section Conference

Palm Springs CaliforniaNovember 1, 2013

Kyndall BrownExecutive Director

California Mathematics ProjectCarolee Huratdo

Director UCLA Mathematics Project

Equity in Mathematics Education Culturally Relevant and Responsive

Education Common Core Standards-Modeling Reparations

Definition Timeline Examples

Calculating Reparations for African-Americans

Overview

Excellence in mathematics education requires equity-high expectations and strong support for all students

Equity requires high expectations and worthwhile opportunities for all

Equity requires accommodating differences to help everyone learn mathematics

Equity requires resources and support for all classrooms and students

NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000)

Equity Principle

Every teacher addresses gaps in mathematics achievement expectations for all student populations

Every teacher provides each student access to relevant and meaningful mathematics experiences

Every teacher works interdependently in a collaborative learning community to erase inequities in student learning

NCSM PRIME Leadership Framework (2008) Equity Principle

California MathPercentages of Economically Disadvantaged & Not Economically Disadvantaged Students Scoring at Proficient and Above, 2010

African American or Black

Hispanic or Latino White Asian

27%34%

43%

60%

35%

41%

61%

80%

Economically Disadvantaged Not Economically Disadvantaged

Culturally Relevant and Responsive Teaching (Gay, 2000)

A very different pedagogical paradigm is needed to improve the performance of underachieving students from various ethnic groups-one that teaches to and through their personal and cultural strengths, their intellectual capabilities, and their proven accomplishments. Culturally responsive teaching is that kind of paradigm.

•Empowering students to achieve scholastically without abandoning their culture

•Using cultural referents as aspects of the curriculum

•Developing relationships with students

Culturally Relevant and Responsive Education

Equity does not mean that every student should receive identical instruction. Instead, equity demands that responsive accommodations be made as needed to promote equitable access, attainment, and advancement in mathematics education for each student-(Aguirre, Mayfield-Ingram, Martin, 2013)

CRRE and Equity

Characteristics of Culturally Relevant and Responsive Teaching in Mathematics (Jones, 2004)

Pedagogy Beliefs

Knowledge of subject matter

An understanding of, and respect for, student’s cultural beliefs and values

An ability to listen to and question students to learn about their thinking

A respect for student’s ability and competence

A willingness to use cultural knowledge to make connection to new knowledge

An ability to be reflective

Classroom Atmospheres that Provide Equitable Learning Environments for All Students

(Jones, 2004)

Student’s Choice Effective multicultural classrooms offer students choices in their assignments, with whom they work, how they respond, and how they are assessed

Cooperative Learning Effective culturally responsive teachers frequently use cooperative groups in their mathematics classrooms

Classroom Communities Effective culturally responsive teachers create communities within their classrooms that are safe havens, places where each person feels cared about and cares about others

• Moses (2001)-Algebra as a civil right experiential based mathematics, mathematical literacy

• Gutstein (2006)-Using mathematics to “read and write the world”, social justice lessons

• Frankenstein (1997)-Ethnomathematics:using cultural referents to teach mathematics

Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy in

Mathematics

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them

2. Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively3. Construct Viable Arguments and

Critique the Reasoning of Others4. Model With Mathematics5. Use Appropriate Tools Strategically

CaCCSS-M Standards for Mathematical Practice

6. Attend to Precision.7. Look for and Make Use of Structure.8. Look for and Express Regularity in

Repeated Reasoning.

CaCCSS-M Standards for Mathematical Practice

Model with Mathematics Mathematically proficient students can apply the

mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation. In middle school, a student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another. Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know are comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify a complicated situation, realizing that these may need revision later. They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. They can analyze those relationships mathematically to draw conclusions. They routinely interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation and reflect on whether the results make sense, possibly improving the model if it has not served its purpose.

Standard for Mathematical Practice #4

Mathematical Modeling

The making of amends for wrong or injury done; compensation in money, material, labor, etc., payable by a defeated country to another country or to an individual for loss suffered during or as a result of war.

Reparations

1865 Special Field Order Number 15 Issued by General William Tecumseh

Sherman providing forty-acre tracts of captured land for 40,000 former slaves

1866 Congress passes the Southern Homestead Act to provide freedmen with land in Southern states at a cost of $5 for eighty acres

Reparations Timeline

1867 Representative Thaddeus Stevenson proposes H.R. 29, a slave-reparations bill which promises each freed adult male slave forty acres and $100 to build a dwelling• 1989 Representative John Conyers

proposes H.R. 3745 to form a commission to study reparations for American slavery.

Reparations Timeline

1994 Florida agrees to pay $2.1 million in reparations to the survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre

1995 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules in Cato v. United States, holding that the claim for $100 million in reparations and an apology for slavery lack a legally cognizable basis

Reparations Timeline

1999 Representative Conyers proposes H.R. 40 seeking a formal apology for slavery and providing for a commission to study reparations.

2000 Representative Tony Hall proposes H.R. 356, a formal resolution to acknowledge and apologize for slavery

Reparations Timeline

2009 Senator Mary Landrieu sponsors S.R. 39 apologizing for the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation

Reparations Timeline

Congress finds that The institution of slavery was constitutionally

and statutorily sanctioned by the government of the US from 1789 through 1865

The slavery that flourished in the US constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans’ life, Liberty, African citizenship rights and cultural heritage, and denied them the fruits of their own labor

H. R. 40Findings

Congress finds that Sufficient inquiry has not been

made into the effects of the institution of slavery on living African-Americans and society in the US

House Resolution 40Findings

The purpose of this act is to establish a commission to Examine the institution of slavery,

including the extent to which the Federal and State Governments supported the institution of slavery

Examine discrimination against freed slaves and their descendants from the Civil War to the present

House Resolution 40Purpose

The purpose of this act is to establish a commission to Examine the lingering negative

effects of the institution of slavery and discrimination on living African-Americans and on Society in the US

Recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the commissions findings

House Resolution 40Purpose

Year/Country Amount Group

1952 Germany $822 million Jewish Holocaust Survivors

1971 United States $1 billion + 44 million acres of land Alaska Natives Land Settlements

1980 United States $81 million Klamaths of Oregon

1985 United States $105 million Lakota of South Dakota

1985 United States $12.3 million Seminoles of Florida

1985 United States $31 million Chippewas of Wisconsin

1986 United States $32 million Ottawas of Michigan

1988 Canada $230 million Japanese Canadians

1988 Canada 250,000 squares miles of land Eskimos and Indigenous People

1990 Austria $25 million Jewish Holocaust Survivors

1990 United States $1.2 billion Japanese Americans

Examples of Reparations

110,000 people Interned for 4 years, land

confiscated $20,000 per survivor $1.2 billion total

Japanese Americans

Given the examples of reparations that have been paid in the past:

What amount and/or form should reparations take?

What assumptions will you make? What calculations will you perform?

How Should Reparations be Determined?

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/30/filmmaker_uncovers_her_familys_shocking_slave

Traces of the Trade

What does America owe Native Americans and Black people?What is the current worth of America? OrCount the stars in all of the galaxies and multiply in dollars by 100 billion,For a reflective start

-Haki R Madhubuti

The United States’ Debt Owed to Black People

What mathematics did you use to come up with your answer?

What Standards for Mathematical Practice did you use to come up with your answer?

What are the language demands of this task?

How would you engage your students in this task?

Reflection Questions

Comments/Questions

A conference for mathematics and social justice

January 17-19, 2014 at University High School (Los Angeles)

www.creatingbalanceconference.org

Creating Balance in an Unjust World

Kyndall Brown kyndallb@math.ucla.edu www.cmpso.org (310) 794-9885 Carolee Hurtado koehn@gseis.ucla.edu www.uclamathproject.org (310) 206-7351