Childhood and Education #18: Do The Math
Zvi's AI Roundups · Zvi Mowshowitz · 2026-05-12
Zvi Mowshowitz surveys the systemic failure of US math education, documenting fraudulent methodology in influential research by Stanford's Jo Boaler, widespread grade inflation, and a UCSD report showing 12% of incoming students require remedial math despite holding high school GPAs of 3.7 or higher.
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Extraction
Topics: math-educationgrade-inflationeducation-researcheducation-policy
Claims
- Stanford professor Jo Boaler's highly influential math education research contains fraudulent methodology, including comparing incompatible student populations and using tests with below-grade-level content that had no predictive validity.
- Grade inflation has produced a system where students arrive at UCSD's remedial math class with 4.0 GPAs yet cannot answer basic arithmetic questions, with 42% of remedial students having reported completing calculus or precalculus.
- The elimination of SAT/ACT requirements from UC admissions in 2020 removed the last objective check on inflated transcripts, and the problem has continued to worsen.
- So-called 'math anxiety' is largely a symptom of missing foundational skills rather than a psychological condition requiring accommodation.
- Accelerated math curricula allowing calculus by 8th grade are achievable for a wide range of students, demonstrating that current pacing is far slower than necessary.
Key quotes
The whole math educational system is a fraud. Once the SAT and ACT were eliminated as requirements for the UC system in 2020, there was no 'reality check' on any of it, and that was that.
These kids were not doing anything wrong. They were lied to. They were told that they were prepared for classes they were not prepared for.
Cargo cult equity needs to die.