Theodore Decker: Ohio's State Board of Education stand on 'division' has unexpected consequences

To the esteemed members of the the Ohio State Board of Education:

What follows is the legal opinion you requested regarding your latest maneuverings.

Last week, you voted to repeal Resolution 20, the anti-racism resolution that the board passed last year, and to replace it with one condemning any teachings that "seek to divide."

Supporters of new Resolution 13, which passed with a vote of 10-7 after many hours of discussion, say it sends a clearer message to local districts about how to approach instruction on subjects such as racism and slavery.

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This memo is meant to address the recent and unexpected legal questions that have been raised by members of the public, primarily students, but also staff at Ohio public schools, since passage of Resolution 13.

Cutting to the chase, it appears that Resolution 13, as written, does strongly suggest that Ohio school districts cease instruction on several fronts that were not anticipated or intended during the drafting of the resolution.

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Those who might be most affected, and who probably have been the most vocal in calling for clarification from the Board, are students and instructors of the subject of mathematics.

The language of Resolution 13 states that "the Board condemns any standards, curriculum, or training programs for students, teachers, or staff that seek to divide."

While the resolution continues beyond this statement, that phrase as written is unequivocal and clearly cautions against instruction on a range of mathematical concepts, up to and including long division.

While some have suggested the "chunking" method of division popular in the United Kingdom might be employed as a work-around, we advise that repeated subtraction is simply a veiled way to divide. Therefore, it is our opinion that endorsing such a practice would not hold up to legal scrutiny should the matter reach a court of law, which is almost certain to happen given the current cultural and political climate.

We know this will take some getting used to, but it is our interpretation that the resolution must be read as written, and suspect it will be no time at all before students have replaced PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, Addition and Subtraction) with PEMAS, though admittedly this acronym loses some of its lyrical qualities with the D removed. Such is the way of progress.

While mathematics might be most affected by your resolution, we also would like to point out that the formation of district-level task forces likely will be warranted to comb through all facets of K-12 instruction in order to identify other potential conflicts on the recommended prohibition on teachings that "seek to divide."

Some of these off-limits topics are more obvious.

It might be best, for instance, that biology instructors no longer teach cell mitosis, a concept almost impossible to convey given the veritable minefield of divisive language that proper instruction would demand.

But other subjects not so obvious might well be affected and should come under scrutiny. Instruction on the Rocky Mountains might best be avoided, for example, given the range's entanglement with the Continental Divide.

Also, it is probably time to forget about the Civil War, a chapter of history that we all can agree has been done to death.

If the Board is fortunate, further scrutiny of this matter will soon be undertaken by Republicans in the Ohio House, who have introduced two bills that would ban the teaching of divisive concepts.

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Until such time as House Republicans remove this burden from our shoulders, however, it is our suggestion that the Board of Education adopt a clarifying resolution that would acknowledge the above points of contention and suggest a strict interpretation of Resolution 13.

This superseding resolution should be, we feel, dubbed Resolution 0.

Not because it is yet another politically-driven and meaningless move to weasel out of a prior and entirely reasonable position, but rather because we seem to remember that we can't divide any numbers by zero.

We'd ask a math teacher to clarify this, but currently, they're all banging their heads against their chalkboards.

tdecker@dispatch.com

@Theodore_Decker