Ling Huang

My articles and presentations on how progressive education dogmas have corrupted K-12 math education in the US and beyond: •Jo Boaler’s Fame, Stanford’s Shame; Students’ Gloom, America’s Doom: rb.gy/amoc52 •Jo Boaler's Reform Math Fallacy: bit.ly/38oASeE •Stanford Professor Jo Boaler’s Math Revolution and War Against Algebra 2: nonpartisaneducation.org/blog1/2020/10/… •Why Have American Schools Failed in Closing the Achievement Gap? A Case Study of California’s Palo Alto School District: nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Testimo… •Letters from Mathematicians: nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Resourc… Letters from R.James Milgram and Wayne Bishop on the deterioration of K-12 math education. •是谁夺走了美国人的数学能力? 美国百年数学战争演义 (Who Deprived Americans of Their Math Ability? A Saga of Century-long American Math Wars) rb.gy/xvg3cf

The terrible policy of eliminating eighth grade algebra, happily reversed, illustrates how bad policies can emerge from confusion about the ethical demands of egalitarianism. Such thinking creates a false opposition between equality and efficiency. What type of egalitarianism was the algebra ban supposed to promote? Responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism? If this the background reasoning, there are a host of policies, e.g. enhanced early childhood investment, that can address skills differences among 8th graders. The algebra ban is a good example of a egalitarian policy that is appropriately subject to the levelling down objection. The levelling down objection is best understood as an object lesson as to untenable implications of the unthoughtful reification of equality as the primary social good. Suggestions that holding more skilled students back in learning so other can catch up, else skills gaps remain permanent have no empirical support to justify the policy over alternatives that attempt to level up. There is a second problem. This type of policy treats egalitarian objectives as the only social good. Fulfillment of potential is a good for everyone, not just those starting with disadvantages. This is a good example of a policy that does not, to steal an argument of Kant's, treats individuals as ends rather than means. And of course, there are a host of social objectives, aggregate productivity, for example, where the most favorable distribution of math skills, can benefit everyone. The ban is a prima facie example of a policy that traded off the variation in 9th grade math skills against the average skill level. As such, it plays into the idea that egalitarian policies are inefficient. Once one considers the dynamics of socioeconomic environments, policies that achieve greater equality of opportunity can be dynamically efficient (under conventional efficiency criteria). I discuss the ways that equality and efficiency can positively comove from the vantage point of meritocracy in education in "Meritocracy and its Discontents" Public Choice 2025 and "Retrospective and Prospective Meritocracy," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, forthcoming. nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/…

Teacher's unions pushing pedagogy that only hurts students? Surprise!

Huge news! Not public yet, but the PENTAGON has already made a move that will break the SAT/ACT duopoly that has controlled American education for generations. Starting in 2027 any college or university with ROTC will be required to put the Classic Learning Test on equal footing. People in the educational world know this is a huge deal because standardized testing, especially college admissions, inevitably drives curriculum. This could signal the beginning of the universal adoption of the CLT. We’re talking 1700 institutions. What’s tested is taught, and now a classical test will be on equal footing with SAT/ACT

A fascinating listen about education reform in Northern Ireland. @paulgivan is right—a vague curriculum hurts disadvantaged students most (less access to outside support). A clear, knowledge-rich curriculum that stresses critical content & strong assessments are non-negotiables.

New York is a cautionary tale. You can invest millions in “science of reading,” but if the wrong people are leading it, you risk recreating the same failed systems under a new name. Leadership isn’t optional. It’s everything. hechingerreport.org/new-york-ten-m…

@CatherineCook58 @effortfuleduktr x.com/FightFuzzyMath…

After looking at 8 studies on seating arrangements and student behaviour, @effortfuleduktr found that students completing independent work did better in rows than in groups.

@CatherineCook58 @effortfuleduktr x.com/FightFuzzyMath…

San Francisco eliminated 8th-grade algebra in 2014. The stated goal: give minority students extra time to learn basic math. 8th-grade math proficiency in 2017: 51%. By 2023: 40%. It took a ballot initiative and a 4-3 vote to reverse it. Ten years. One generation of students. A measurable, documented decline across every group the policy was designed to help. This is what equity policy looks like in practice — not equal outcomes, just equally worse ones. The board just rediscovered that teaching algebra is how children learn algebra. That’s the whole story of liberal governance in one school district.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ So much for equity.

This is a hugely important article by my two heroes: E.D. Hirsch and Dan Willingham. Anyone interested in education policy should read it.

Schools don’t just transmit knowledge. They model norms. If students learn that rules are optional and consequences negotiable, we shouldn’t be surprised when disorder follows—first in classrooms, then everywhere else. thedispatch.com/article/public…

To try to achieve equity by lowering the bar harms everybody. And math has been a sad subject for this type of failed experiments. But I would say even more: to lower the bar to defend failed ideology and self interests - with the false pretext of achieving equity

"Our lack of a systematic, sequential, & shared curriculum induces low literacy & low wisdom. That poses a deep danger to civic competence and thus to democracy itself." Tour de force by Willingham & Hirsch. educationnext.org/rediscovering-…

Stanford's education research center, YouCubed, revised a paper after I pointed out incorrect data. The new version revealed bigger problems.

Learning academics isn't natural. Knowledge enables thinking. There are no silver bullets. tinyurl.com/bdzhhns5 #reading #knowledge #teaching

Good morning, Sir Nick Gibb. I asked AI to compose the following poem to extol your brave and unwavering crusade against the destructive, insidious poison of progressive education — a pernicious force that has wreaked havoc on global schools and children for far too long. Enjoy! 💐 ************** In halls of Westminster, a steadfast knight arose, Sir Nick Gibb, with vision clear and bold, He journeyed far beyond his island home, To sow the seeds of knowledge, pure as gold. From England's shores he carried forth the flame, Where once progressive mists had dimmed the light— Child-led whims that left young minds untamed, And rigor fled into the fading night. He walked the classrooms, saw the ruinous tide: Skills proclaimed o'er facts, discovery's guise, Where facts were scorned and teachers stepped aside, And generations lost their hard-won prize. Yet he reclaimed the ancient, proven way— Phonics marching, knowledge rich and deep, A curriculum of substance, not mere play, Where every child, regardless, dares to leap. Now Sir Nick travels continents afar, To Sydney's halls, to Paris and beyond, Through UNESCO's forums, under every star, He speaks of England's rise, of truths profound. In Australia, New Zealand's distant lands, He warns of fads that hollow out the core, Of "progressive" chains that bind young eager hands, And lifts the torch for mastery once more. He tells the world: abandon empty trends, The child-centered fog, the skills-without-base, Return to rigor, where the intellect ascends, And every pupil claims their rightful place. No longer shall the weakest bear the cost Of ideologies that feign to set them free; With knowledge's power, barriers are crossed, And equity blooms in disciplined decree. O traveler bold, reformer unafraid, Who battles ruin with evidence as shield, May nations heed the lessons you have laid— A world of minds awakened, bright and healed. For in your wake, the standards rise anew, England's example, shining far and wide; Sir Nick Gibb, the herald of the true, Brings rigor home—to every nation's side.

Good morning Budapest! Here for a panel session and discussion, at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and the Danube Institute. ⁦@MCC_Budapest⁩ ⁦@InstituteDanube⁩

It's not just phonics: Schools have failed to teach reading because they ignore 50+ years of findings in cognitive psychology that reading depends on general knowledge. ED Hirsch has been banging this drum for a long time but Ed Schools shut their ears because the whole idea was unromantic & had a vaguely right-wing aroma. Now he joins with Dan Willingham to make a strong case that kids can't read if they don't have the background knowledge that makes sense of the rarer vocabulary, allusions, and understandings that allow us to read between the lines - which all reading requires. educationnext.org/rediscovering-…

A sentence I never expected to see in print: "A very old idea -- knowledge matters -- is the latest fashion in education, write Daniel Willingham and E.D. Hirsch in Education Next."

Twelve years ago, San Francisco killed 8th-grade Algebra in the name of equity. Advanced math enrollment (including AP Calculus) dropped, and racial gaps expanded. China graduates ~1.3 million engineers yearly vs. just 130,000 in the U.S. Last night, the SF school board finally voted 4-3 to bring math back. When DEI overrides academic standards, America falls behind. nytimes.com/2026/03/24/us/…

New from yours truly and Annika Hernandez, a recap of last week's @AEIeducation webinar with @Doug_Lemov & Co. on teaching with whole books: the why and the how. aei.org/education/the-…