After a great conversation with a few representatives of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM), I’ve decided to pause the Math Reform Initiative. The discussion with the OCTM gave me some good ideas about how to implement the courses that I want — Sex Education, Media Literacy, Entrepreneurship, and Mental Health — without necessarily reducing the Math credit requirement.

I plan on taking some time to change my strategy a little bit, which is why I’m pausing both the petition and this initiative for now.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Pausing the Math Reform Initiative was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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.

I’m starting a petition for the Math Reform Initiative was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sex education is one of the most controversial topics in American public and private education. Some parents consider it vulgar and don’t want their kids learning such material in school. Others oppose it for religious reasons. And yet others consider sex education part of the liberal agenda to take over American schools and the hearts and minds of our kids.

But what does the data tell us about the efficacy of teaching sex education in high school ? What are common arguments in favor of and against it? What are some myths and, crucially, what are the most controversial aspects of this debate?

What follows is a list of a few popular arguments in favor of and against sex education. While this list is comprehensive, I’m sure I missed something so please let me know in the comments section about what I may have missed.

In favor: Your kids will learn about sex no matter what you do, so they might as well learn it in school

The majority of high school kids (and adults) these days have supercomputers the size of their hand in their pockets. Yes, I’m talking about smartphones. Not only does the average teenager have a smartphone, but (s)he also has almost unlimited access to knowledge on the Internet; the good, the bad, and the very ugly. According to some estimates, 80 percent of teens have already seen porn, although estimates of this figure vary.

I feel bad for parents here. They’re already overwhelmed with work, maintaining a household, keeping their kids safe, teaching them to be good human beings, and making sure they do well in school. It’s impossible for parents to do all these things and monitor every webpage they visit on the Internet, even with the strictest Parental Controls settings.

Given that teenagers have access to the Internet at almost every second of the day, it’s impossible to prevent them from learning about sex, whether it’s outright pornography or an article in the Cosmopolitan or Men’s Health magazine about sex toys and how to have incredible sex with your partner. And kids are smart these days; they know about VPNs and similar tools that they can use to hide their activity on the Internet.

So given that it’s basically inevitable that your kids will learn about sex sooner rather than later, would it not be better for them to learn about it from the qualified, professional teachers that you entrust with your children every day?

“Most young people have access to the internet. So if we are not providing them instruction that is medically accurate and age-appropriate, we are leaving it to chance for them to find something on the internet, i.e., porn, and then they think that’s what sex and sexuality is.”

— Michelle Slaybaugh, director of social impact and strategic communications at SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change

Against: Teaching kids about sex is vulgar.

For a lot of people, talking about sex is taboo. This is odd because without sex, the human race would cease to exist (assuming that we can’t keep all of humanity going with IVF).

Nevertheless, many people oppose sex education because they think kids shouldn’t be exposed to sex at such a young age. I have multiple thoughts on this.

First, I think the crux of this argument is that people are concerned about how age-appropriate the content is. That’s a fair point and should be considered when making/choosing the curriculum. You probably don’t want a 7-year old learning about syphilis.

Second, as I mentioned earlier, most kids have access to the Internet at a young age, so they can find out about sex within 0.57 seconds (which is how fast Google just gave me results to a random query). They’re on social media, they talk to their peers, they watch movies/shows on streaming services; like I said, it’s effectively impossible to prevent them from being exposed to sex in some form or the other.

Lastly, and most importantly, I think this argument shows that people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what sex education may or may not be.

Is it vulgar to teach kids about puberty and human anatomy? Should we tell the roughly 1 million women whose pregnancies end in a miscarriage or stillbirth that learning about miscarriages, stillbirths, or other complications during pregnancy is vulgar? Should we tell the millions of men and women who have been raped or suffered from other forms of sexual violence that it’s too vulgar to learn about consent and how to detect the signs of a potentially violent partner?

Should we tell the women who have had health problems as a result of hormonal birth control and are, consequently, twice as likely to have attempted suicide that their health issues are too vulgar to learn about?

Sex education isn’t about telling kids to go wild and have sex with every person in their class. Done well, it’s about helping them make healthy sexual choices as they grow up and become (young) adults.

In favor: Sex education results in healthier outcomes for kids

Eva Goldfarb and Lisa Lieberman studied 30 years of research on the efficacy of sex education and found “strong support for comprehensive sex education” and that there’s “evidence for the effectiveness of approaches that address a broad definition of sexual health and take positive, affirming, inclusive approaches to human sexuality. Findings strengthen justification for the widespread adoption of the National Sex Education Standards.”

Crucially, and in contrast to abstinence-only education, which has been shown to have no effect on teen birth- and abortion rates, sex education reduces “the rates of sexual activity, sexual risk behaviors (eg, number of partners and unprotected intercourse), sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancy.”

Against: It is parents’ responsibility to teach their kids about sex

This is a moral argument and moral arguments, by definition, have no right or wrong answer. So while I’m not morally or philosophically opposed to this argument, I think that, in practice, its consequences are problematic.

As we all know, knowledge is often passed down through generations. Taking the example of sex, your parents taught you certain things about it that you then teach your kids, who will teach it to their kids and so on.

But what happens if your parents taught you things about sex that are objectively, medically, and scientifically false? This false knowledge gets spread down generations and generations. For example, a recent survey found that 60% of American parents were raised thinking sex was “taboo”.

So following this logic, that means that they’ll teach their kids that it’s taboo, who will teach their kids that it’s taboo, and, well, you get the point. To take a less controversial example, I see the same thing happen with financial literacy and money habits: parents teach their kids bad money habits, which passes down through generations. This is why so many states have (finally!) passed laws mandating financial literacy in high school.

Lastly, I would have no problem with this argument itself if it was actually the case that parents taught their kids about sex. It’s fine if it’s their responsibility to do so, but do they actually execute their responsibility? The research on this is mixed: this article claims that only 58% of parents have spoken to their kids about sex, while this research finds that 82% of parents have done so, but that it’s not always about tougher, complicated topics with sex.

Furthermore, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (with the very user-unfriendly acronym of SIECUS) found that over 90% of likely voters (both Democrats AND Republicans) support some form of sex education in high school. A 2017 study by Kantor and Levitz supports this finding.

Against: Opposition to sex education for religious reasons

Religious parents oppose sex education because their religion forbids premarital sex. While I respect this belief, this argument makes an incorrect assumption (which I’ll address more in the next section). Namely, that teaching kids sex education causes them to have (premarital) sex. There is no evidence that proves this causal relationship. Moreover, it incorrectly assumes that sex education tells kids to have sex, which seems like quite a stretch to assume that.

That said, there is one part of this argument that proponents of sex education have to recognize is (at least somewhat) valid. Specifically, we live in such a polarized society that if proponents of sex education have their way, there is a (perhaps justified) fear that they will choose a sex education curriculum that goes beyond teaching the science of sex and will discuss the political, moral, and social aspects of it. For example, I can understand why parents are uncomfortable with their kids learning about different sexual positions, sex toys, or how to have “amazing” sex with your partner.

This points to what will likely be the biggest point of contention regarding sex education: the curriculum. Opponents want the curriculum to be 100% transparent and nothing done behind closed doors (pun intended?). Another very heated and politically-charged issue is whether sex education should include instruction about gender orientation, abortions, and other contraception.

I don’t really know how to handle this. In principle, I think the key is to stick to evidence-based, age-appropriate, and medically accurate content. But then again, given how polarized society is today, I can easily see people object to teaching kids anything about abortion, even though it is simply a part of women’s reproductive health (I know, I just lost all anti-abortion readers. Oh well.) or about gender orientation, even though there’s research that objectively discusses this.

Myth: sex education will cause kids to have more sex and start having sex earlier in life.

This argument is a complete myth that has no research whatsoever to support it. As stated earlier, the research strongly suggests that sex education results in fewer teenage pregnancies, less underage sex, and fewer instances of sexually transmitted diseases.

But there’s an assumption that is the foundation of this argument that I would like to address. Specifically, the people that believe this myth assume that it is the knowledge of sex that is harmful and will cause kids to have more (unsafe) sex and become teen parents.

Here’s why this logic doesn’t make sense. After the mathematics prodigy Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, killed all those people with his horrific bombs, nobody said that we should stop teaching kids mathematics or chemistry in school out of fear that somebody might use that knowledge to become the next Unabomber.

Nobody says that we should stop teaching kids about World War 2 in case someone reads about Hitler’s atrocities and says “you know what, he’s not too bad, I should try the same thing.” And nobody claims that we should stop teaching kids biology in order to avoid a situation where someone uses that knowledge to create some horrible type of biological warfare. And I could go on and on.

Since there’s no logic or evidence to support this myth, the only reason that I can think of that it still exists is purely due to emotion. It’s an argument that targets parents’ deepest fears.

And I don’t blame parents, honestly. Your kids are the most precious, beautiful creations in your life. You would do anything to protect them, both physically and mentally. But it’s intellectually dishonest for people to perpetuate this myth, which is why I felt a strong need to not only discuss it, but strongly rebuke it.

Summary of Sex Education State Law

SIECUS created a very comprehensive document that lists the sex education laws in each state in the U.S. in 2022. The interesting thing is that while many states mandate sex education, very few require it to be comprehensive, medically-accurate, taught by a teacher who is specifically trained in the subject, and so on.

Get involved with The Math Reform Initiative

If you agree that comprehensive, evidence-based sex education should be a mandatory course in high school, then you should support the Math Reform Initiative. You can do this by writing your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President to let them know about what you think. Check out this link to find templates and more information for this. You can also check out the other articles I’ve written about the Math Reform Initiative at this link.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

Why is sex education so controversial? was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you should know that I launched the Math Reform Initiative at the start of the year. This initiative follows from the Financial Literacy Movement I worked on in 2021.

The goal of this initiative is simple: reduce the amount of mandatory (advanced) math credits that Ohio’s high school students have to complete and replace them with the following mandatory classes, which are classes that teach them skills that they’ll actually use as adults:

1. Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship
2. Media Literacy & Critical Thinking
3. Mental Health & Substance Abuse
4. Life Skills

But after a lot of thought, I decided to make two small changes and two significant changes to this initiative. But first, a little bit of background.

Risk

When I started this initiative, I initially wanted to add Sex Education (SE for short) as one of the mandatory classes. However, I decided not to do so — and ended up adding Life Skills instead — for one simple reason: I thought it was too risky.

What do I mean by “too risky?” Well, unfortunately a lot of people find SE to be an incredibly controversial topic for kids to learn.

I thought it would be too risky to the success of the movement to add such a political hot potato in with less controversial topics like entrepreneurship and media literacy (though you could argue that mental health and substance abuse is somewhat controversial too?).

In other words, I thought that some/enough people would dismiss the entire initiative just because it included SE. So I decided to leave that battle for another day and include Life Skills instead.

What changed?

First, let me discuss the small changes. I’m renaming Media Literacy & Critical Thinking to just Media Literacy. It’s cleaner, easier to say, and focuses on the goal of that class: teach kids to critically read news articles, understand bias in the news, think about where they get their news from (social media vs. regular media), local media sources, and so on. I’m also renaming Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship to just Entrepreneurship, again for simplicity.

Now let’s talk about the big changes.

I removed the “Substance Abuse” part of Mental Health & Substance Abuse. I’ll discuss why in the next section.

I decided to reverse my initial position on SE, eliminate the Life Skills class, and put SE back in again. So in the updated Math Reform Initiative, I propose to reduce the current math mandate from 4 credits to 2 credits and require students to complete the following courses instead:

1. Mental Health (0.5 credits)

2. Entrepreneurship (0.5 credits)

3. Media Literacy (0.5 credits)

4. Sex Education (0.5 credits)

Mental Health & Substance Abuse

After doing more research, I found that most of what I’m trying to achieve with Substance Abuse instruction is already covered in Health Education class.

Specifically, I found that Section 3313.60, division (5)(b) of the Ohio Revised Code requires the health education curriculum for high school students to include instruction about “the harmful effects of and legal restrictions against the use of drugs of abuse, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco.”

However, I said most, not all of what I wanted. I believe that health education is still missing instruction in psychoactive drugs like marijuana and psychedelics.

Various states — such as Oregon and Colorado — and cities — such as Oakland CA, District of Columbia, Ann Arbor, MI, Denver, CO, and many more — across the nation have either decriminalized, legalized for therapeutic use, made marijuana and/or psychedelics the lowest law enforcement priority, or have planned/are planning legislation looking into to do one or all of the above.

It seems like a matter of when, not if these drugs become common in society, so our kids need to learn about this now in order to be ready when this change happens. But I don’t think this requires creating a new course. Hence, a rough idea of what I propose to address this is the following:

Strike division (5)(c) of ORC Section 3313.60 (note: this will be covered in sex education anyway) and replace it with something like: “Evidence-based instruction on the effects of marijuana, psychedelics, and other psychoactive drugs on the brain. The instruction offered must be approved by the Departments of Education, Mental Health and Addiction Services and Public Safety.”

Sex Education

I first excluded SE because I was being pragmatic. I thought, “let’s win this battle step by step rather than being too ambitious from the start.” Moreover, and I hate to admit this, I was scared that stepping into such a controversial topic so early in my career would be risky for the future of my career.

But I realized that this was cowardly. I was putting my career and a somewhat irrational fear about it above the greater good of high school students.

And last but not least, the more I learn about the most serious problems in the world, the more I realize that there’s no time to wait or waste on being risk-averse. My wife worked in the social work field for a large part of her career and the more she taught me about sexual abuse and single/teen parenthood, the more I realized how serious these problems are, how they continue over generations, and why we simply cannot waste time anymore.

Sure, teaching kids SE won’t magically solve these problems, but based on the research I’ve read it would be a huge step in the right direction.

How do I get involved?

If you want to support the Math Reform Initiative, then please write to your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President to let them know! Check out this link to find templates and more information for this. Make sure to also read the other articles in this series at this link.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

The Updated Math Reform Initiative was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I had a great meeting and discussion last week with Senator Romanchuk’s team and the Legislative Liaison at the Ohio Department of Education as we talked about the next steps for the Math Reform Initiative.

One of the most interesting points of our discussion was when we talked about which organizations we would have to persuade in order to get this proposal approved.

Based on my conversations with regular people across the state, it seems like the everyday person is in favor of the proposal, which means that the key to getting this over the line is knowing who has the real power to make this initiative a reality.

What follows is a short list of the key organizations that we need to persuade to achieve this. We jokingly called these The Alphabet Organizations because of all the acronyms that they use.

Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT)

The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) is essentially the teachers’ union of Ohio. According to the website, it is “a union of professionals representing 20,000 members in 55 locals” across Ohio. This includes public school educators and support staff, higher education faculty and support staff, and public employees.

Like any union, OFT focuses on issues at the statewide level that affects its members including, but not limited to, political advocacy, public policy, education-specific policy, and more. They advocate for “sound, commonsense public education policies, including high academic and conduct standards for students and greater professionalism for teachers and school staff.”

It should be pretty obvious why the OFT is a key player when it comes to the Math Reform Initiative and, frankly, any education-related legislation. Any proposal that changes the curriculum, affects teachers’ jobs, or changes the day-to-day life of Ohio’s teachers will immediately be on their radar.

It’s naive to think that this proposal won’t do any of these things, if passed. Most importantly, it will directly affect teachers’ jobs. Will schools have to hire more teachers for the mental health, life skills, entrepreneurship, and media literacy classes? What about the math teachers, will they lose their jobs and/or be shifted to other jobs?

Ohio Education Association (OEA)

The Ohio Education Association (OEA) is an organization that represents more than 121,000 teachers, faculty members, and support professionals from Ohio’s schools, colleges, and universities. The OEA also provides members with professional education services.

Given that both organizations represent teachers, they’ll have a big say in anything that will change the curriculum or affect teachers’ jobs.

Buckeye Association of School Administrators — Ohio’s Superintendents Association (BASA)

The Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA) is a private, not-for-profit organization that represents school superintendents and other administrators in Ohio. Based on my understanding, superintendents are the highest ranking members of a given school district so anything that affects their schools will definitely grab their attention.

Board of Education (BoE)

The Board of Education (BoE) is responsible for many things, but its key responsibilities are to create educational goals and standards, approve curricula, and implement standardized tests required by state and federal law. The BoE is composed of education experts across the state, so any legislation that has their blessing has a significantly greater chance of passing than proposals that don’t.

Note: I’m aware that SB 1 of the 135th General Assembly will, if passed, essentially remove all significant tasks and responsibilities of the BoE.

Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM)

Since the Math Reform Initiative aims to cut the required math credits in half, and the vision of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics (OCTM) is “a world where everyone is enthused about mathematics, sees the value and beauty of mathematics, and is empowered by the opportunities mathematics affords”, there’s a good chance that OCTM won’t be in favor of this proposal.

You might even argue that they’re the most important organization that needs to be persuaded.

State Legislators

At the end of the day, Ohio’s Senators and House of Representatives are the ones with the final word on whether a bill passes or not. An important point, however, is that legislators represent their constituents and (in a perfect world) look to experts to consult them on the merits of a particular bill. If, for example, many teachers and other constituents in their district protest against a bill, then they’re pressed to vote against it.

Honorable Mention — Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA)

In my previous article, I touched on how this initiative might worry some people who want to see more, not less, STEM-related content in our high school curriculum. One of these people — or rather, the organization that represents them — could be the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association (OMA).

For example, with the production of electric vehicles growing every year, OMA has a huge demand for highly-skilled labor in order to fill STEM-related jobs. Also think of chip manufacturers and other such high-tech manufacturing jobs. If they can’t get a skilled labor force, the survival of their businesses is at risk.

They’re already struggling to fill job positions in their companies so they’re probably (understandably) worried that if fewer kids are exposed to math, they might be less interested in pursuing careers in these fields.

How can I support this movement?

As you can see, there’s a lot of work to do to move this initiative forward. And I can’t do it alone.

If you want to support the Math Reform Initiative, please write to your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President. I made a few sample letters that you can use, just check out this link to find all that and more.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

Persuading the Alphabet Organizations was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s always useful to learn from other states and how they run their education systems to see how we can improve ours. In this case, the guiding question is the following:

Which states, if any, have eliminated Algebra II from their required curriculum to graduate high school?

With help from Senator Romanchuk’s research team, we have the answer to this question. Only 12 out of the 50 U.S. states require Algebra II for high school graduation. This equates to only 24% of all states.

Clearly, this means that the vast majority of America doesn’t think Algebra II is a necessary and/or fundamental preparation for high school students before they graduate.

Better yet, it means that the proposal to scrap Algebra II from Ohio’s high school math requirement isn’t a revolutionary or controversial idea at all.

West Virginia — Math III STEM

In my conversations with Senator Romanchuk, we talked about how the main argument against this proposal is that given how important Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Design, and Mathematics education (STEAM) is, removing Algebra II could hinder America’s push to increase its skilled workforce and thus make it fall behind other countries.

This is a valid counterargument and is one that I’ll explore in detail in future articles because I think there’s a really interesting debate here — how important is STEAM education really? Are we too obsessed with it? — that deserves to be explored in detail.

But for now, I want to highlight an interesting aspect of West Virginia’s math requirements. Specifically, the option for kids to take Math III STEM to fulfill part of the math requirements for graduation.

I wasn’t able to find out what this course entails or what the syllabus looks like, so I don’t want to say too much yet (note: if there’s anyone from West Virginia reading this that knows more about Math III STEM, please contact me and/or leave a comment!).

But I think allowing kids to take a STEM-focused math course, whatever that might look like, instead of algebra is an interesting idea that could be a good compromise between keeping math in the high school curriculum while making it more relevant to 21st-century careers and adding more relevant courses to the syllabus.

What do you think?

How can I support this movement?

If you want to support the Math Reform Initiative, please write to your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President. I made a few sample letters that you can use, just check out this link to find all that and more.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

Which states have eliminated Algebra II from their required high school curriculum? was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m extremely grateful to State Senator Mark Romanchuk and his research team for doing this useful research for me about the federal & state requirements for math in Ohio’s public high schools. Some thoughts on this:

• There is no federal or state requirement that public schools in Ohio administer an assessment in Algebra II. And yet, Ohio makes it mandatory for kids to take one unit of Algebra II in order to graduate. Why?
• There’s also no requirement for an end-of-course exam in Algebra II. So, once again, why does Ohio require students to take one credit in the course in order to graduate?

• The Northeastern University sociologist Michael Handel found that only 22% of U.S. workers report using math any more complicated than basic fractions and percentages in their jobs (see link in first comment). So, again, where’s the need for forcing kids to take Algebra II (or geometry and trig for that matter)?
• Technically, the Secretary of Education/the federal government doesn’t have the authority to tell states what to do with respect to their education. But they’ve done a clever workaround with this through the federal “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA), which gives states federal grants if they adhere to certain educational standards.
• So they’re not explicitly telling states what to do… but they really are. It’s like telling your kid he can do whatever he wants, but if he does exactly what you want, you’ll cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner; buy groceries; pay the gas, water, and electric bills, etc.

• Ohio Revised Code Section 3301.0712(B)(2)(b) states that the geometry end-of-course exam is no longer required for students who enter ninth grade for the first time on or after July 1, 2019 subject to a waiver from the U.S. Secretary of Education (which has not been granted yet). Combined with the fact that there’s no end-of-course exam required for Algebra II, and I see this as the state quietly admitting that advanced forms of math like geometry and algebra aren’t THAT important.
• Last but not least, students are currently allowed to opt out of the Algebra II requirement if they take one unit of advanced computer science. Is this a sign that the state is willing to relax this algebra requirement?

If you also think this situation doesn’t make sense, write to your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President to let them know! Check out the links below to find templates and more information for this.

• Write to your elected Representatives
• Here’s how little math Americans actually use at work
• Math Assessments in Ohio
• Ohio Board of Education members
• Ohio Revised Code on end-of-course exams
• House Bill 170 on Computer Science in high school

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

Why are students required to take algebra in high school? was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

UPDATE ON NOV 7, 2022: The Math Reform Initiative has been updated! Click here to learn more.

In October 2021, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 1 into law, a bill that requires high school students to complete a semester-long course in financial literacy before graduation. I strongly advocated for this bill so I’m extremely happy that it has been passed. Kids in Ohio will now graduate high school with the knowledge they need to manage their money as adults.

So what’s next? Well, it starts with a few simple questions.

Did you know that 78% of Americans say that they use no more than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in their jobs? So why do our schools continue to teach kids skills that kids won’t use as adults? Isn’t the purpose of education to prepare kids for adult life?

Introducing: The Math Reform Initiative

This thinking has led me to my next project: the Math Reform Initiative.

Ohio currently mandates high school students to complete 4 units of math to graduate. I suggest reducing this mandate to 2 units and requiring students to complete the following courses instead.

1. Mental Health & Substance Abuse (0.5 credits)

An April 2015 article in the Economist reported that “estimates from several rich countries put the economic cost of mental illness at 3–4% of GDP” and that “put together, mental illnesses account for more suffering and premature death in rich countries than heart disease and strokes, or than cancer.”

The World Economic Forum estimated that between 2011 and 2031, “mental health conditions alone will account for the loss of an additional US$ 16.1 trillion [globally].”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug overdose deaths in the United States surpassed 100,000 in a 12-month period for the first time ever during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2019-April 2020).

It’s fair to say, therefore, that teaching high school kids about mental health & substance abuse will provide far more benefits to society than teaching them about algebra (more on that later).

Moreover, with marijuana and many other drugs slowly being legalized in various states/countries, it’s important to give kids the evidence-based knowledge they need to make healthy choices.

Lastly, after Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower and former employee, testified to the Senate Commerce Committee in October 2021 about how the social media giant is fully aware of the psychological damage it causes its users, it’s more important than ever to educate our kids about the mental health dangers of social media.

2. Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship (0.5 credits)

Almost every politician in his/her lifetime has probably said the phrase “small business is the backbone of America”. Mandating a half-credit course in which students learn the fundamentals of small business and entrepreneurship is the opportunity for us to prove how much we truly believe in that statement.

A 2019 article in The Balance reported that there were “30.2 million small businesses in the U.S. accounting for 99.9% of all businesses — leaving roughly 30,000 businesses labeled as large.” Clearly, small businesses aren’t a niche aspect of the American economy; they’re the overwhelming majority.

Here’s another useful summary of why small businesses are so vital to the economy.

3. Media Literacy & Critical Thinking (0.5 credits)

Since the main argument against removing Algebra II is that the course teaches kids critical thinking, let’s teach kids real critical thinking.

In the 21st century, critical thinking includes skills like reading news articles and assessing the bias of the journalist/article, understanding cognitive biases, understanding the difference between primary and secondary sources, how to analyze government policy, understanding how social media skews our perception of the world, and so on.

4. Life Skills (0.5 credits)

A catch-all class that would teach skills like how to fill out your taxes, apply for a job, write a resume, fill out health insurance, pay for and transfer utilities to your name when you move, and other practical life skills like these that every adult needs to succeed in their daily lives.

How do I get involved?

If you want to support the Math Reform Initiative, then please write to your Senators, House Representatives, and Ohio Board of Education President to let them know! Check out this link to find templates and more information for this.

Sources and extra reading

• Find your Ohio House Rep
• Find your Ohio Senator
• https://sapienlabs.org/mentalog/the-cost-of-poor-mental-health-in-the-workplace/
• https://ceoroundtable.heart.org/mentalhealth/executive-summary/
• https://bit.ly/3lb0G6F
• https://econ.st/3it4caM
• https://www.economist.com/international/2015/04/25/out-of-the-shadows
• https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/heres-how-little-math-americans-actually-use-at-work/275260/
• https://www.thebalancesmb.com/small-business-impact-on-the-economy-4175064
• https://financialliteracymovement.com/
• https://www.richlandsource.com/business/shop_small/shopping-local-has-an-incredible-ripple-effect-that-impacts-our-community/article_f80e6174-4199-11ec-8eae-63380e278238.html
• https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Mathematics/Resources-for-Mathematics/Math-Graduation-Requirements
• https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Mathematics/Ohio-s-Learning-Standards-in-Mathematics
• https://pewrsr.ch/3l53xhk
• https://allsidesforschools.org/ and https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
• https://www.studyfinds.org/survey-americans-use-37-percent-knowledge-learned-high-school/
• “It’s true that mathematics requires mental exertion. But there’s no evidence that being able to prove (x² + y²)² = (x² — y²)² + (2xy)² leads to more credible political opinions or social analysis.” by Andrew Hacker
• https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen
• https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/yearly-drug-overdose-deaths-top-100000-first-time-rcna5656
• https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
• https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA132-HB-170
• https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3301.0712

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

The Math Reform Initiative: What it is and why it matters was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Unfortunately, racism in sports has been a hot topic for many years.

Things have been particularly bad in football. The organization Kick It Out, English football’s equality and inclusion organization, reported in its 2017/18 study that there was an increase in reports of discrimination for the sixth consecutive year (and an 11 percent increase from the previous year.)

It was my pleasure to chat about this and more with Scot Kirk of the Columbus Dispatch on his podcast The Other Side.

We talk about the potential causes of racism in football, why Black football players so often find themselves the object of hate and abuse, why players still kneel in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and how, as I’ve always said before, racism isn’t a football problem, it’s a societal problem.

It was a great conversation that perfectly captures the intersection between society and football.

Make sure to share with your friends!

Link 1

Link 2

See You, Space Cowboy.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

Racism in football: My Interview on “The Other Side” podcast was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Writing is an extremely fulfilling profession, but it isn’t easy. Even though I’ve written and published two books in three years — Community Heroes and You Say Soccer, I Say Football — it took me roughly ten years to be skilled enough to write those books.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by best-selling mental health author Jessi Beyer. She asked me to share some tips on how to write a book, make your writing appealing to readers, and other tips on how to make writing less scary. We talked about topics like:

• How to make writing a book less intimidating by writing it one chunk at a time
• What to do with ideas that aren’t good enough to include in the final version of your book
• The psychological barriers I had to overcome to write my book
• How I use the First Principles framework of thinking in my writing
• And much more!

Many thanks to Jessi for this great interview. Check it out and make sure to share it with other aspiring writers!

See You, Space Cowboy.

I’m the author of the books “You Say Soccer, I Say Football” and “Community Heroes: What a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA member taught me about community development”

How to write a book was originally published in Edwardp.me on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.