Boaler has drawn praise from many educators for advocating for math instruction that, broadly, emphasizes real-world applications, de-emphasizes memorization, and aims to reduce gender and racial disparities. It is a vision she’s laid out in popular books like Mathematical Mindsets and Limitless Mind, and through Youcubed, a Stanford research center that she co-founded to provide free teaching resources. Education Week recently named her one of the country’s most influential scholars.
The complaint reportedly filed on Wednesday lands as Boaler has drawn criticism for how her stances have affected math education in California and across the nation. For example, she praised San Francisco schools for adopting a policy of not teaching algebra during middle school. A decade later, the district is undoing that policy, following research showing that it did not reduce racial disparities as hoped.
It's worth noting that this "influential math educator" has zero actual degrees in mathematics. Her Bachelors degree is in Psychology, and her PhD in Mathematics Education.
The complaint reportedly filed on Wednesday lands as Boaler has drawn criticism for how her stances have affected math education in California and across the nation. For example, she praised San Francisco schools for adopting a policy of not teaching algebra during middle school. A decade later, the district is undoing that policy, following research showing that it did not reduce racial disparities as hoped.