Stanford University used to be considered a top-tier institution. But like much of the Ivy League, its focus on Woke indoctrination and social justice and equity has superseded educational excellence and producing qualified industry leaders. In 2023, former Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned from his post after being investigated by the board of trustees. His crime? Doctoring academic research and manipulating data, which is on par with plagiarism. 

Manipulating data and information in order to create consensus seems to be a disease in the academic and scientific community, and Americans, especially our children, continue to suffer because of it. The latest on the list of eroding excellence in the name of equity is Jo Boaler, a Stanford University professor and part of Youcubed, a Stanford education center that supposedly inspires, educates, and empowers math teachers and offers groundbreaking research on tailoring mathematics to be more accessible and practical. Boaler's studies, workshops, and contents have influenced math education from K-12 all the way into the California UC system. 

But like Tessier-Lavigne, Boaler's research is coming under scrutiny. Many years too late for the students who learned (or not) math using the methods crafted out of her findings.

A Stanford University professor, whose research was credited with inspiring San Francisco’s failed experiment to ax 8th grade algebra, is facing allegations of "reckless disregard for accuracy" in her work, according to an official academic complaint filed Wednesday with Stanford’s provost and dean of research.

The anonymous complaint, backed by a California-based group of math-and-science focused professionals, alleges that Professor Jo Boaler—the most prominent influence on California’s K-12 math framework that nudges schools away from accelerated math pathways—has in 52 instances misrepresented supporting research she has cited in her own work in order to support her conclusions. These include the notions that taking timed tests causes math anxiety, mixing students of different academic levels boosts achievement, and students have been found to perform better when teachers don’t grade their work. This pattern of "citation misrepresentation," the complaint alleges, violates Stanford’s standards of professional conduct for faculty, showing a disregard for accuracy, and may violate the university's research integrity rules.

"[D]ue to the potential impact and influence Dr. Boaler may have upon the math education of CA K-12 public school students … it is imperative to investigate the allegations of citation misrepresentation in Dr. Boaler’s work," the complaint states.

The San Francisco School Board only recently axed this policy after 10 years of declining student math scores. And that supposed racial inequity? Didn't do a darned thing about it. In the presentation given by the school board, the math scores over the entire district fell by 11 percentage points, from 51 percent to 40 percent. Proficiency among Black students fell from 11 percent to four percent. It took 10 years of failing scores and, more critically, failing young people for them to reverse this. Tells you so much about the true priorities of these San Francisco elitists who run the education apparatus.

San Francisco eliminated algebra to promote equity. As a result, Black and Hispanic 11th-graders lost out, earning "appalling" math scores the same as or lower than the typical 5th grader in the state. Wealthy families just hired private tutors. https://t.co/nAkVJVucPY

— @amuse (@amuse) April 15, 2023

And minority and lower-income students continue to pay for elitist and Woke indoctrination. "Woke Kindergarten" is another recent example. Glassbrook Elementary in Hayward (an Oakland suburb) paid $250,000 to implement this program, which was supposed to help boost low test scores and poor student attendance. The program trains teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression, and remove those barriers to learning.

Worked out as expected, as my colleague Bonchie wrote:

The move was made to boost test scores and increase student attendance, problems which were blamed on "racism and oppression." The results have been abysmal. 

It should have been a surprise to no one that test scores dipped even further, and kids still weren't all that keen on coming to school. Gee, I wonder why? Bonchie continued:

What a great excuse, right? Who needs actual personal responsibility when you can just claim everything is a form of oppression? The reality is that the low test scores at this school are almost certainly a result of bad teachers (shockingly, not made better by "Woke Kindergarten") and parents who have raised kids to not apply themselves. Those are the two things that should have been tackled when looking to fix the problem. 

Instead, Glassbrook Elementary blew a quarter of a million dollars paying DEI scammers to make things worse. 

Boaler's lack of personal responsibility and honesty in her research are very much reflective of this. Hard work produces true results, and flawed and lazy work gets exposed in the end. Sadly, that exposure leaves many damaged young people and adults in its wake. This uprising in San Francisco education is a direct result of the boilover from the parent's rights movement, but it is too little, too late for the children they failed. Let's hope with the removal of the likes of Boaler and her manufactured math research, the educational future of the current crop will turn out better.