‘Heroic’ teacher launches campaign to eradicate non-white ‘math bias’
By Laura Green
Flip through the textbooks used by every Palm Beach County Algebra I student and take a look at the faces in the pictures.
Forest Hill High School resource teacher Karen Cook did that. What she found among the lessons on graphing linear equations and calculating slope was what she calls a hidden curriculum.
Most of the photos were of white men or women. And when a black man was shown, chances are he was throwing a football or swinging a golf club instead of sitting behind a desk.
The images or lack thereof send a subliminal message to students, said Cook, who reviewed district-approved Algebra I texts as part of her doctoral study at Florida Atlantic University.
“Our textbooks are basically the window to our society in that classroom,” she said. “If our textbooks are not reflecting opportunity and diversity in society, then I wonder how it’s affecting our students and how they perceive our society.”
Cook took on the textbook study last year as a project for a six-week summer course called race, class and gender issues in education. Her results were based on a small sample, the two district-approved Algebra I books. She chose math books because previous research on racial representation focused primarily on social science textbooks. She zeroed in on Algebra I because it is a required course for Palm Beach County students.
Cook’s findings sparked a lively discussion in class at FAU. Next week, she’s headed to Chicago to present the results at a conference sponsored by the American Education Research Association.