More evidence that math is x-ist: Algebra is a "civil rights issue"

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Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of California Community Colleges, made the argument while speaking with NPR. He pegged algebraas overly burdensome due to the disproportionate rate at which it prevents students from graduating from community colleges; nearly 50 percent of community college students do not complete their math requirement.

“This is a civil rights issue, but this is also something that plagues all Americans — particularly low-income Americans,” said Oakley. “If you think about all the underemployed or unemployed Americans in this country who cannot connect to a job in this economy — which is unforgiving of those students who don’t have a credential — the biggest barrier for them is this algebra requirement. It’s what has kept them from achieving a credential.”

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O'Neil, who has a PhD in mathematics from Harvard, has done stints in academia, at a hedge fund during the financial crisis and as a data scientist at a startup. It was there -- in conjunction with work she was doing with Occupy Wall Street -- that she become disillusioned by how people were using data.

"I worried about the separation between technical models and real people, and about the moral repercussions of that separation," O'Neill writes.

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