Read the proposal before you comment on it. The authors of the letter have an agenda. The authors of the proposal may have an agenda, but they're basing their proposal on peer-reviewed research rather than "gut feeling".
That turns out not to be the case, and egregiously so.
A review of much of the research cited, however, reveals that what the Framework describes as “clear” is often actually pretty murky, hotly disputed, or contradicted by other research, misleadingly stretched to cover situations for which it was not intended, or, in some instances, just plain wrong.
Consider how the Framework supports one of its overarching principles, namely its rejection of the “ideas of natural gifts and talents.” The text refers to a paper by a New York University psychologist Andrei Cimpian in 2015 to support that proposition, but the only work of Cimpian listed in the footnotes is a paper written with a Princeton University psychologist, Sarah-Jane Leslie.
“This isn't a question that my own research was designed to address.” Leslie said in an emailed response to questions about the Framework's citation of her work.
And so on and so forth.
Lying about having research that you do not actually have is very much worse than not having research.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/07/14/...
Reviewed by who exactly?
Letter Claims: "Distracts from actual mathematics by having teachers develop students’ “sociopolitical consciousness.”"
Referenced Section in Proposal: "Ms. Ross teaches fifth grade at the Jackie Robinson Academy. She has been focusing on developing her students’ sociopolitical consciousness through language arts and wants to bring mathematics into their thinking"
The letter uses an anti-pattern of redefining something and arguing against the definition, rather than doing the hard work of discussing the actual something. Bringing mathematics into a subject where it can be applied is not 'distracting from actual mathematics'. Whether or not the sociopolitcal consciousness element of the curriculum is appropriate for fifth grade is a red-herring as that's not what's being proposed.
The general agenda of the proposal is quite clear. It is to advance this social Marxist agenda through the teaching of Mathematics. Why is this a good thing? Maths can be purely neutral. Why do you have to infect everything with this shit?
To quote the referenced section in full:
> Ms. Ross teaches fifth grade at the Jackie Robinson Academy. She has been focusing on developing her students’ sociopolitical consciousness through language arts and wants to bring mathematics into their thinking (SMP.1, 2). To begin the process, the class is led in an analysis of word problems from their fifth-grade mathematics textbook (NF.1, 2, 4, 5, 6). Ms. Ross selects three word problems to connect with the class’s current read-aloud of George, a novel by Alex Gino that shares the story of a 10-year-old transgender fourth grader and her struggles with acceptance among friends and family. In doing so, the teacher is reflecting the recommendations of California’s Health Framework, which suggests that sensitive discussions of gender are important for students (https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/he/cf/).
Really? We are now teaching fifth graders about about 10 year old TRANSGENDER FOURTH GRADER. I don't want my kids to learn about gender from social constructionists whose views are divorced from reality.