Reparations: A Real World Context
for Modeling with Mathematics
California Mathematics Council Southern
Section Conference
Palm Springs California
November 1, 2013
Kyndall Brown
Executive Director
California Mathematics Project
Carolee Huratdo
Director
UCLA Mathematics Project
Overview
 Equity in Mathematics Education
 Culturally Relevant and Responsive Education
 Common Core Standards-Modeling
 Reparations
 Definition
 Timeline
 Examples
 Calculating Reparations for African-Americans
NCTM Principles and Standards for
School Mathematics (2000)
Equity Principle
 Excellence in mathematics education requires
equity-high expectations and strong support for
all students
 Equity requires high expectations and
worthwhile opportunities for all
 Equity requires accommodating differences to
help everyone learn mathematics
 Equity requires resources and support for all
classrooms and students
NCSM PRIME Leadership Framework
(2008)
Equity Principle
 Every teacher addresses gaps in mathematics
achievement expectations for all student
populations
 Every teacher provides each student access
to relevant and meaningful mathematics
experiences
 Every teacher works interdependently in a
collaborative learning community to erase
inequities in student learning
California Math
Percentages of Economically Disadvantaged & Not
Economically Disadvantaged Students Scoring at Proficient and
Above, 2010
80%
61%
41%
60%
43%
34%
35%
27%
African American or
Black
Hispanic or Latino
Economically Disadvantaged
White
Not Economically Disadvantaged
Asian
Culturally Relevant and Responsive
Teaching (Gay, 2000)
A very different pedagogical paradigm is
needed to improve the performance of
underachieving students from various ethnic
groups-one that teaches to and through their
personal and cultural strengths, their
intellectual capabilities, and their proven
accomplishments. Culturally responsive
teaching is that kind of paradigm.
Culturally Relevant and Responsive
Education
•Empowering students to achieve
scholastically without abandoning their
culture
•Using cultural referents as aspects of
the curriculum
•Developing relationships with students
CRRE and Equity
 Equity does not mean that every student
should receive identical instruction. Instead,
equity demands that responsive
accommodations be made as needed to
promote equitable access, attainment, and
advancement in mathematics education for
each student-(Aguirre, Mayfield-Ingram,
Martin, 2013)
Characteristics of Culturally Relevant and Responsive
Teaching in Mathematics (Jones, 2004)
Pedagogy
Knowledge of subject
matter
Beliefs
An understanding of, and
respect for, student’s
cultural beliefs and
values
An ability to listen to and A respect for student’s
question students to learn ability and competence
about their thinking
A willingness to use
cultural knowledge to
make connection to new
knowledge
An ability to be reflective
Classroom Atmospheres that Provide Equitable Learning
Environments for All Students
(Jones, 2004)
Student’s Choice
Effective multicultural
classrooms offer students
choices in their
assignments, with whom
they work, how they
respond, and how they are
assessed
Cooperative Learning
Effective culturally
responsive teachers
frequently use cooperative
groups in their mathematics
classrooms
Classroom Communities
Effective culturally
responsive teachers create
communities within their
classrooms that are safe
havens, places where each
person feels cared about and
cares about others
Culturally Relevant and Responsive
Pedagogy in Mathematics
Moses (2001)-Algebra as a civil right
experiential based mathematics, mathematical
literacy
• Gutstein (2006)-Using mathematics to “read
and write the world”, social justice lessons
• Frankenstein (1997)-Ethnomathematics:using
cultural referents to teach mathematics
•
CaCCSS-M Standards for Mathematical
Practice
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in
solving them
2. Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively
3. Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the
Reasoning of Others
4. Model With Mathematics
5. Use Appropriate Tools Strategically
CaCCSS-M Standards for Mathematical
Practice
6. Attend to Precision.
7. Look for and Make Use of Structure.
8. Look for and Express Regularity in Repeated
Reasoning.
Standard for Mathematical Practice
#4
 Model with Mathematics
 Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they
know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the
workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an
addition equation to describe a situation. In middle school, a student
might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to
describe how one quantity of interest depends on another.
Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know
are comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify
a complicated situation, realizing that these may need revision later.
They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation
and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way
tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. They can analyze those
relationships mathematically to draw conclusions. They routinely
interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation
and reflect on whether the results make sense, possibly improving
the model if it has not served its purpose.
Mathematical Modeling
Reparations
 The making of amends for wrong or
injury done; compensation in money,
material, labor, etc., payable by a
defeated country to another country or
to an individual for loss suffered during
or as a result of war.
Reparations Timeline
 1865 Special Field Order Number 15
 Issued by General William Tecumseh Sherman
providing forty-acre tracts of captured land
for 40,000 former slaves
 1866 Congress passes the Southern Homestead
Act to provide freedmen with land in Southern
states at a cost of $5 for eighty acres
Reparations Timeline
 1867 Representative Thaddeus Stevenson
proposes H.R. 29, a slave-reparations bill
which promises each freed adult male
slave forty acres and $100 to build a
dwelling
• 1989 Representative John Conyers
proposes H.R. 3745 to form a commission
to study reparations for American slavery.
Reparations Timeline
 1994 Florida agrees to pay $2.1 million in
reparations to the survivors of the 1923
Rosewood massacre
 1995 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
rules in Cato v. United States, holding that
the claim for $100 million in reparations
and an apology for slavery lack a legally
cognizable basis
Reparations Timeline
 1999 Representative Conyers proposes
H.R. 40 seeking a formal apology for
slavery and providing for a commission
to study reparations.
 2000 Representative Tony Hall proposes
H.R. 356, a formal resolution to
acknowledge and apologize for slavery
Reparations Timeline
 2009 Senator Mary Landrieu sponsors
S.R. 39 apologizing for the victims of
lynching and the descendants of those
victims for the failure of the Senate to
enact anti-lynching legislation
H. R. 40
Findings
 Congress finds that
 The institution of slavery was constitutionally
and statutorily sanctioned by the government
of the US from 1789 through 1865
 The slavery that flourished in the US
constituted an immoral and inhumane
deprivation of Africans’ life, Liberty, African
citizenship rights and cultural heritage, and
denied them the fruits of their own labor
House Resolution 40
Findings
 Congress finds that
 Sufficient inquiry has not been made
into the effects of the institution of
slavery on living African-Americans
and society in the US
House Resolution 40
Purpose
 The purpose of this act is to establish a
commission to
 Examine the institution of slavery,
including the extent to which the Federal
and State Governments supported the
institution of slavery
 Examine discrimination against freed
slaves and their descendants from the
Civil War to the present
House Resolution 40
Purpose
 The purpose of this act is to establish a
commission to
 Examine the lingering negative effects
of the institution of slavery and
discrimination on living AfricanAmericans and on Society in the US
 Recommend appropriate remedies in
consideration of the commissions
findings
Examples of Reparations
Year/Country
Amount
Group
1952 Germany
$822 million
Jewish Holocaust Survivors
1971 United States
$1 billion + 44 million acres of land
Alaska Natives Land Settlements
1980 United States
$81 million
Klamaths of Oregon
1985 United States
$105 million
Lakota of South Dakota
1985 United States
$12.3 million
Seminoles of Florida
1985 United States
$31 million
Chippewas of Wisconsin
1986 United States
$32 million
Ottawas of Michigan
1988 Canada
$230 million
Japanese Canadians
1988 Canada
250,000 squares miles of land
Eskimos and Indigenous People
1990 Austria
$25 million
Jewish Holocaust Survivors
1990 United States
$1.2 billion
Japanese Americans
Japanese Americans
 110,000 people
 Interned for 4 years, land confiscated
 $20,000 per survivor
 $1.2 billion total
How Should Reparations be
Determined?
 Given the examples of reparations that
have been paid in the past:
 What amount and/or form should
reparations take?
 What assumptions will you make?
 What calculations will you perform?
Traces of the Trade
 http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/30/filmmaker
_uncovers_her_familys_shocking_slave
The United States’ Debt Owed to
Black People
What does America owe Native Americans and
Black people?
What is the current worth of America? Or
Count the stars in all of the galaxies and
multiply in dollars by 100 billion,
For a reflective start
-Haki R Madhubuti
Reflection Questions
 What mathematics did you use to come
up with your answer?
 What Standards for Mathematical
Practice did you use to come up with
your answer?
 What are the language demands of this
task?
 How would you engage your students in
this task?
Comments/Questions
Creating Balance in an Unjust World
 A conference for mathematics and social justice
 January 17-19, 2014 at University High School (Los
Angeles)
 www.creatingbalanceconference.org
 Kyndall Brown
 kyndallb@math.ucla.edu
 www.cmpso.org
 (310) 794-9885
 Carolee Hurtado
 koehn@gseis.ucla.edu
 www.uclamathproject.org
 (310) 206-7351