I’m starting a petition for the Math Reform Initiative

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

UPDATE — JULY 2023: After talking to some representatives of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics, I decided to pause the petition and change my strategy a little bit. Stay tuned for more news!

A little over a year ago I started the Math Reform Initiative. The goal is to reduce amount of math that high school students are required to learn in high school and add courses that teach them skills that they’ll actually use as adults.

I met with my State Senator and House Representative to talk about turning this idea into a bill to introduce into the General Assembly, did some research, had more meetings, and seemed to be gaining momentum.

Unfortunately, that momentum quickly disappeared as the Senators and House Reps I spoke to lost interest and stopped responding to my emails, calls, and texts. While that was definitely frustrating for me, I don’t hold a grudge or take it personal. Given how early in the process I was/am, I understand that my proposal wasn’t at the top of their list of priorities. That’s life and, like I said, I take no offense at it.

That said, I am obviously frustrated about how things are at the moment because I’m very passionate about this idea. But instead of feeling sorry for myself and getting angry at the powers that be, I decided to use a different method to achieve my goal: through a petition.

Initiated Statute

To be exact, the technical term for what I’m starting is an initiated statute. There’s a great explanation on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website — link — about what it is and what you need to successfully do one, so I’ll refer you to that page to learn more.

Given the long list of rules for starting and successfully operating an initiated statute, I decided to talk to an attorney who specializes in such initiatives and has worked with other Ohio petitioners in the past.

I’m going to ask my attorney to write the petition itself because I obviously don’t have the legal expertise to do that. But a rough draft of the petition, and what I’ll be collecting signatures for, will be this:

To amend division ©(3) of Section 3313.603 of the Ohio Revised Code and reduce the graduation requirement for Mathematics from four units to two units and remove the Algebra II requirement. Students may still take one unit of advanced computer science instead of one of the Mathematics units.

To amend division © of section 3313.603 of the Ohio Revised Code to add graduation requirements of half credit units in Media Literacy; Entrepreneurship; Sex Education; and Mental Health. Students may opt out of the Sex Education requirement and instead complete a half-credit elective course.

That last part is very important, so much so that I’ll probably write a separate post at a later date explaining why I included it. Remember, this is a first draft. My attorney will make sure that this is written in good “legal” language in the final version, but I wanted to share this so that people have a general idea of what the petition will look like.

Note: In a previous post, I wrote about adding a section to the Ohio Revised Code about teaching high school students about the effects of marijuana, psychedelics, and other psychoactive drugs on the brain. I’m not including this in the petition because it’s already covering a lot of content (probably too much) so I think it would confuse people and be too much to read if I included this. I plan to either have this change implemented through a regular government bill or try something else in the future (if I have the time).

Money

My attorney told me that initiated statutes often take at least a year (if not longer) to complete. As a result, you need a lot of money to run what’s basically a political campaign — running ads, marketing, making and sharing flyers, doing fundraising events, political rallies, storing petitions at a safe location, paying for legal counsel, and much more.

Unless you’re in the top 1% of the nation and have that type of money casually sitting in your bank account, you’ll need to raise a lot of money to do/pay for all of this. While I will gladly do fundraising if I need to, the problem is that I can’t just raise money and put it in my personal bank account. There are strict laws regarding fundraising, especially when it’s related to politics, elections, ballot initiatives, and government affairs.

As a result, my attorney told me that it’s best to create a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.

Social Welfare Organizations

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the following to say about social welfare organizations:

“To be tax-exempt as a social welfare organization described in Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 501(c)(4), an organization must not be organized for profit and must be operated exclusively to promote social welfare… To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements).”

Without going into too much detail about the tax code, the three main differences between a typical nonprofit organization — a 501(c)(3) — and a social welfare organization — a 501(c)(4) — are that:

• Social welfare organizations can engage in unlimited political lobbying as long as it furthers their social welfare purpose.
• They may carry out political activities as long as it’s not the majority of their operations. In contrast, a 501(c)(3) is generally not allowed to do this (besides encouraging people to vote and register to vote).
• With a few very specific exceptions, if you donate to a 501(c)(4), you cannot deduct this from your taxes. Donations to 501(c)(3) organizations, on the other hand, are tax-deductible.

You can find a few examples of common 501(c)(4) organizations at this article and this one.

Logistics

It’s going to cost roughly $1,500-$2,000 to pay my attorney to launch the organization, set up the bank account, and file the necessary paperwork with the IRS. I don’t have that money, so I’m going to have to figure something out there — i.e. finding a donor who can provide the seed money to start the organization. I also need to come up with a name for the organization because Math Reform Initiative just doesn’t do it for me.

I started a GoFundMe to raise money for this. Click here to donate!

While I wait for $1,500 to magically fall out of the sky, the one thing I can do is share a first draft of the mission, vision, and core values of the organization I hope to start.

Mission

Our mission is to reduce the math credit requirement from 4 to 2 credits and add half-credit courses in mental health, sex education, entrepreneurship, and media literacy.

OR

Our mission is to ensure that public and chartered nonpublic high school students are ready for adult life by learning skills they’ll use as adults.

Vision

Every public and chartered nonpublic high school graduate in Ohio will understand the fundamentals of mental health and neurodiversity; how to successfully start, operate, and exit a business; how to critically analyze online and offline content; and understand their sexual and menstrual health.

OR

A world in which public education is the most effective tool for solving society’s problems before, rather than after they happen.

OR

A world in which every high school graduate has the skills (s)he needs to succeed mentally, physically, financially, and emotionally as an adult.

Core Values

Public education is the most effective tool we have for solving society’s problems before they happen. We only attack arguments, not individuals. If someone’s argument is better supported by research, data, and logic, then no matter how controversial it is or how much it upsets us, we will concede.

We focus on upstream, not downstream solutions.

We believe that ideas, not money, are the most important resource needed to improve society; entrepreneurship is the best way for people to turn their ideas into reality.

We believe that we should take care of our minds just as much as we take care of our bodies. We believe that since the world is made for neurotypical rather than neurodiverse people, kids need to learn about their neurodiversity as soon as possible in case they happen to not be neurotypical.

We believe that our democracy will fail if people don’t know how to analyze all forms of media and how to spot bias, misinformation, and disinformation, in the news they read.

We believe that understanding one’s sexual and menstrual health is a public health issue, not one of politics or religion. We believe it’s more important to teach kids how to be life-smart rather than book-smart.

We make decisions based on reason, logic, and data, not emotions or dogmatic beliefs. We’re respectful but firm and assertive. We know that ideas will never be perfect; we focus on making significant improvements to the status quo.

How you can help

Even though nothing has been formally established yet, there are a few things we can do to prepare. Here’s a list of (free!) things I need:

• Someone who can design a website, graphics, flyers, and a logo for the petition and 501(c)(4) organization.
• A campaign treasurer who can maintain the books of both the petition and the organization as a whole and ensure that all income and expenses are tracked.
• Filing boxes to store blank and completed petitions.
• People who can double check that each petition was completed correctly (basically a quality assurance person).
• Startup funds to launch the 501(c)(4) from someone, somewhere, somehow. I can’t do any fundraising until the organization is established.
• Suggestions for a name for the new organization.
• Someone who can help me do research for this petition. I’ll need data to make a case for supporting this petition and the organization.
• Circulators, which is a term used to describe the people who go out to collect signatures for the petition. Note: there are some rules you need to know about if you want to be a circulator but my attorney can explain all of that.
• An experienced fundraiser.
• Someone with experience organizing and operating (peaceful!) rallies/protests.
• A marketing expert, for both digital and offline marketing
• Any other creative skills you might have. If you’re a poet, write a poem about this initiative; if you’re an artist or musician, make a painting or song. I want anyone and everyone with a gift to be a part of this movement. Every talent is worthy!
• Anyone passionate about the topics in this petition and who wants to be a part of something meaningful. If you’re passionate about sex education, entrepreneurship, mental health, and media literacy, I would love to have you be a part of this. We’re going to (eventually) need to collect roughly 175,000 signatures, so I need all the help I can get.

Instead of complaining about problems in society, this is an opportunity for you to be part of a solution. So if you’re interested in volunteering and being a part of this petition, please contact me. Make sure to include in your message what you would like to do and what skills you have.