“Let's Talk about Bias and the Mathematics Classroom,” reads the title for a lecture at a major math conference that took place in Los Angeles this week.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was woven into this year’s convention of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM), which boasts 30,000 members and calls itself “the premiere mathematics education leadership organization.” During the conference, which concluded Wednesday, teachers were instructed at every turn to incorporate the tenets of DEI into math instruction in their K-12 classrooms, according to conference materials reviewed by National Review.

The Los Angeles event included seminars addressing four key “strands” of teaching, one of which was titled, “Impact Systems for Equity and Social Justice.”

Of the 179 sessions offered, 28 included in their promotional descriptions the word “equity,” seven included “diverse,” seven used “systemic,” six used “social justice,” five used “marginalized,” three included “bias,” two used “antiracist,” and one used “oppressive.”

Two workshops focused on black people specifically, with one honing in on “disruptions in the Black STEM teacher pipeline.” Another workshop was titled, “Making Black Girls Count in Mathematics Education: A Black Feminist Vision of Transformative Teaching.”

“Much is lost when we do not politicize Black girls' math education. Centering Black girls as knowledge producers through a critical analysis of their experiences is necessary,” Nicole Joseph, an associate professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University, wrote in her pitch to attendees.

In another session, called “Transcend Awareness of Social Justice – Take Action!,” presenters told teachers to explore a social justice “toolkit,” which includes implicit bias/racism role play exercises to be used in classrooms.

Teachers were encouraged to adopt “disruptive leadership” in another session and provide “Social Justice Mathematics Lessons” to students.

“In exploring reading and writing the world through mathematics, we will establish critical consciousness as an equity issue,” the memo read.

One session touted the San Francisco Unified school district’s commitment to “detracking” in math, a policy which effectively lumps all students together under the same curricula umbrella regardless of performance and aptitude levels.

“San Francisco continues our journey of working towards equitable outcomes based on a premise that all students are brilliant….We'll discuss resources for anti-racist education that shape our thinking and our work,” the session blurb declares.

Another session, on “equitable” math instruction, was sponsored by calculator manufacturer Texas Instruments. In fact, among the professional association’s sponsors, the technology company ranks at the highest “platinum” level, accompanied by other less recognizable education company donors.

The conference’s prioritization of DEI over meaningful math pedagogy comes as math proficiency plummeted to lowest levels in decades.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has dubbed itself the "nation's report card," reported in early September math scores for nine-year-olds had declined for the first time since the test was first administered in 1973.

On Tuesday, new test score data revealed that New York City’s middle and elementary schoolers suffered an eight-point drop this year in math achievement since 2019, when Covid-19 emerged and districts responded by closing schools for nearly two years. While 46 percent of those students passed the math exam in 2019, only 38 percent passed in 2022.Only 25 percent of the city’s eighth graders have obtained grade-level competency in math. The racial disparity in math between white and black kids did not improve, holding at roughly 38 percentage points.

The NCSM’s was not the only progressive national math conference this week. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference began Wednesday and features hundreds of sessions on similar topics.

The program book for the NCTM conference, also located in Los Angeles, lists seven “focus strands” that sessions fall into, four of which involve either anti-racism, equity, or social-emotional learning, which is regarded by its opponents as a means to infuse formerly apolitical curricula with critical race and gender theory.

According to the NCSM program book, the sessions are designed to instruct teachers in how best to be “antiracist; nurture students’ positive mathematical identities, disrupt systems of oppression by challenging spaces of marginality and privilege within classrooms; respond to and sustain students’ cultural and linguistic resources, and foster all students’ mathematical agency, belonging, and joy.”

An example session is, “The Power of Networks: Building Cultures of Improvement for Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning.” Another session explains the project of five first-year teachers to “humanize math instruction” through “restorative justice.”

On its website, the NCTM has an entire page dedicated to Social Justice and Equity Resources. With nearly 90,000 members, NCTM claims to be “the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving mathematics education in grades prekindergarten through grade 12.” Its corporate donors also include Texas Instruments at the most generous philanthropic tier, as well as textbook producer McGraw Hill.