1 + 1 = 11

There was a time when math was taught using....mathematical concepts. Those days are now long gone.

First came "new" math. Then, in the 1990s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics got behind "new, new" math, also called "rainforest algebra" - using politically correct word problems. Now the Wall Street Journal reports yet another new method, "ethno-mathematics."

Educators calling themselves "critical theorists" believe students learn math best if it is taught "in ways that relate to their ancestral culture." In their view, traditional math (i.e. the math taught in all serious universities around the world) is the "math of the oppressors."

One textbook, Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers, has topics like sweatshop accounting, the unequal distribution of wealth, and environmental racism.

The current generation of children won't know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply, but they will know liberal talking points. In other words, they will be dumb as rocks.

Mathematics is a discipline of "absolutes" and is not subject to individual interpretation or "shades of gray." Most serious industrialized nations of the world, particularly those in Asia, understand this. However, there are those in the United States who are more concerned about making a political statement than educating the country's future scientists, physicists and engineers.

The only people that ethno-mathematics will benefit are engineering student from Asia who will have unlimited employment opportunities in the United States. And you wonder why the U.S. economy relies upon cross-border outsourcing.