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'Diversity' Is a Formula for Failure

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  March 03, 2026 8:00 PM

Math was never my favorite subject, nor was it my strong suit. I got the basics down, thanks to elementary school teachers who pounded the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables into our heads on a daily basis. But when I got to high school, I could've done without algebra, and still think whoever added letters to math was an evil person. Geometry, a more visual math, was better suited to my right-brained mind.

But I will say this about math: it's consistent. Two plus two always equals four, and any number multiplied by zero is zero (unless you're doing higher-level math like infinity, but let's be real — most of us aren't). You need math, even that pesky algebra, to function in the real world. That's how you balance your checkbook, do your taxes, count change if you work as a cashier, and basically function in the world.

The Left, however, sees math (and a decent education in general) as an obstacle to their political agenda, which is something that a Canadian professor says is a good thing.

Why?

Because it means we're "diversifying our mathematics awareness and understanding."

There's nothing to "diversify." Two plus two equals five is the same whether you're White, Black, Hispanic, or Asian. 

What this is is a prime example of the "soft bigotry of low expecations" so prevalent on the Left. They believe — as Gavin Newsom himself said the other day — that other races are intellectually inferior to White, woke Leftists. Keep in mind, it's largely White, woke Leftists who think gender is fluid and that women can have penises, so I'd take their assessments on intellect with a grain of salt.

This decline is a choice, and it's not just in Canada. Public schools across the United States are facing similar declines in educational standards and outcomes.

In Illinois, more than 100 schools have students who are not proficient in reading or math.

How can these students grow up to function in the real world? How can they get decent jobs that pay their bills? The short answer is they can't, and that's what the Left wants. Having a generation of illiterate individuals who can't do math means they'll have to rely on the government to support them.

In Chicago Public Schools, only one in four students can read. 

And at one Chicago school, there are only 28 students. Despite a one-on-one staff-to-student ratio, none of those students can read.

As I said, this is a choice, and it's one that's happening in blue cities and states, including my home state of Wisconsin. But in red states, those supposed bastions of ignorant, stupid MAGA voters, schools are teaching children how to read, and test scores show what places like Mississippi are doing is working.

In the Magnolia State, 52 percent of students can read on grade level. Compare that to just 28 percent in Gavin Newsom's California, and it's clear this is a policy preference.

Math is not racist. Reading is not oppressive. Standards are not exclusionary. They are the foundation of upward mobility, and that's why the Left opposes them. The real cruelty isn’t expecting children to master multiplication tables — it’s pretending they don’t need to, and that math is "diverse" and reading is not important to a successful future. A society that lowers standards in the name of equity doesn’t produce justice; it produces dependency. And no amount of academic wordplay can change the fact that two plus two will always equal four.