Name Names — Radical of the Week

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE LARGEST PROGRESSIVE INDOCTRINATION MOVEMENT IN THE U.S.

RADICAL OF THE WEEK

Cathy Wilkerson

Cathy Wilkerson is a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground Organization, along-side Bill Ayers.

In 1970, Wilkerson, who was out on bail for her part in the ‘Days of Rage’ riots in Chicago, was helping to construct a powerful nail bomb that was intended to be detonated at a dance attended by US military personnel and civilians at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The bomb exploded prematurely, killing three fellow Weather Underground members. Wilkerson escaped unharmed and went underground for ten years. After resurfacing, she was arrested and served less than a year in prison.

For the last 30 years, Wilkerson has taught math at several schools, including Bank Street College and El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, a Coalition of Essential Schools member school.

The Coalition of Essential Schools is the progressive education reform movement behind both CSCOPE and Common Core.

Specifically, Wilkerson teaches ‘RadicalMath’, which was created by Jonathan Osler, lead math teacher at CES’s El Puente Academy.

As I wrote in ‘Radical Math’: Social Justice Indoctrination in Your Child’s Math Class, RadicalMath integrates issues like racism and social justice into the lesson.

For example, rather than simply teaching children to calculate the cost of food, ‘radical math’ teachers like Wilkerson make it clear to students that, “in a truly just society, food would be as free as the air we breathe”. Another example is a math project titled, “Mortgage Loans – Is Racism a Factor?”.

The Coalition of Essential Schools refers to this teaching strategy as “making math personal” and boasts that their teachers use these methods to deepen their relationships with the curriculum and with each other.

Go to Name Names to see other radicals behind CES schools.