Stanford prof calls police after whistleblower exposes $5000/hour gov. contacts
twitter.com
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That aside, if this money is for facilitating sessions, as another comment implies, it is perfectly reasonable. The facilitator has to prepare, follow up, etc. and is presenting to a group. I've done these kind of sessions and that rate is not high. The per hour of facilitation time is a meaningless way to look at it. For all I know, maybe there is something untoward going on, but the usual racial outrage we see in the tweets, and the inflammatory, clickbait headline certainly dont make any kind of case
He may have doxxed her by revealing her email address but that happened after the threat.
Whatever the likely effect of exposing this deal, the government cannot be allowed to suppress reporting it simply because it is outrageous enough to cause angry responses. That's perverse.
If public outrage over "alarmingly lucrative" government contracts is prosecuted as harassment, we're lost.
The law does not require a call for those things, it requires a purpose and likelihood of inciting them. Both intent and likelihood of effect are things that are routinely found (in criminal law generally) without an explicit call.
> with intent to place another person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of the other person's immediate family, by means of an electronic communication device
No reasonable person would even get a hint of that from this tweet. It is a criticism of the government's delivery of a program and the alleged misuse of public funds, a classic example of speech that serves the public interest. The idea of a government contractor claiming cyber harassment because someone pointed out their lucrative remuneration is farcical.
In any case, if there is nothing untoward, why threaten him with “police and lawyers”?
That's not "nothing untoward".
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curric...
That being said, from reading this article as well as this [1] and skimming Boaler's Twitter [2], if I had to guess... this CA initiative sounds like an honest, curious effort to make at least some progress, for which Boaler allegedly received death threats and harassment, as opposed to a "crime against humanity."
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-math-...
You are dressing up your argument with all these "anti-woke" signifiers but your claim boils dowj to Prof. Jelani was somehow wrong to express his opinion about actions of the government in a public forum.
or whatever is convenient for you that day, as per the circumstances?
It seems lazy to dismiss that person just because he charges a high rate. If his services are effective and there's no better alternatives, who cares how much it costs? People getting outraged at high public salaries is exactly the reason why we get mediocre civil servants.
It's still quite ridiculous though. She kinda seems to be the Doctor Oz of math education.
via https://mobile.twitter.com/boazbaraktcs/status/1511523206779...
Regardless of what you think of the merits of Jelani's critique, it does not justify calling the cops on him. "Siccing" a twitter mob (something I question whether he really has) is not nearly as bad as "siccing" the government gun guys.
Not entirely sure about the details but this dude is extremely suspect. Every single tweet he tries to paint himself as a victim by using charged and misleading words. "You can't call the police on Black people!" is just such an outrageous thing to say in situation which has nothing to do with race and which you didn't interact with the police at all.
"This dude" is both a prominent educator and prominent researcher of algorithms. If you actually look at his twitter history, this sort of tweet [0] is much more common than any trying to "paint himself as a victim."
I'm sorry, but if someone siccs lawyers and/or the police on you for a tweet you make criticizing them, you are a victim and it beyond reasonable to be upset about it.
This thread has been a real master class in how HN reacts to any rhetoric around race as trying to "paint yourself as a victim." It's really obvious to me knowing Jelani outside of contexts like this how much you are trying to mis-represent him.
The fact that he works in data science has absolutely no bearing on the content of the tweets we are discussing.
I'm a bored guy on the Internet, I'm literally typing this comment while taking a shit. I don't care at all what the outcome of this is. I'm not "trying" to do anything or push a narrative. You, in the other hand, have left a wild amount of comments in this thread and keep reminding everyone that you personally know him. Maybe you are the one with personal biases and ulterior motives when it is you versus the world?
[1] https://edsource.org/2022/california-revises-new-math-framew...
There has been a controversial push in California to reform public school math education guidelines called the California Math Framework [1]. It [2] frames current math education in California as failing minority students and gives suggestions for how to remedy it. The issue has been controversial as some see it as injecting social justice topics into the math curriculum, while others see it as necessary to contextualize math within our broader society. (edit: corrected by the other reply to your comment that said some of the parts of the framework about adding social justice topics have been removed from the most recent draft of the framework)
The tweet author is pointing out that this 800-page framework about addressing inequalities in math education for minority (in particular Black and Latino) students was written by many authors, but none of them were Black. This seems like a valid criticism given the issues that it is explicitly trying to address.
There have also been similar criticisms levied at the new framework because it was written entirely by academic researchers studying pedagogy and had little to no input from actual teachers.
[1] https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2021/11/cali...
This makes sense but doesn’t square with the lack of black authors. Would black academic researchers studying pegagogy be better than actual teachers?
It seems the issue is lack of teachers participating in the design and testing of the framework than the race of the authors.
Is there a evidence or accusation of discrimination in the selection of the authors?
However, I think it is generally valid to say that if you are explicitly trying to address how a system (CA math education) is failing a certain group of people (black students), it would be useful to consult with members of that group or people who work closely with members of that group.
Again, I'm not taking a strong stance here and I'm sure there could hypothetically be some world where this may not be true and the X truly most qualified people to tackle this issue are all not Black. But even from a completely cynical, practical standpoint you can see how the optics look bad when the state of California admits to failing its Black students yet tasks a committee of professors to solve the issue without any representation from the groups it has failed.
What is the group ?
Is it black teachers or black students ? Black students from CA ? Black students from CA that failed math ?
It helps to have people who understand education and who understand (often from personal experience) the very phenomena one claims to be addressing.
> Is there a evidence or accusation of discrimination in the selection of the authors?
There is no accusation, merely an observation which was enough to attract the ire of the Stanford prof.
If I understand correctly, that version of the document specifies $5k/session, with each session being 2 hours. However, there seems to be an amendment that changes the compensation to $5k/hr ($10k/session).[2]
These are public files linked from Oxnard School District's website under "Board Meeting Agendas"--in particular, the August 4 2021 Regular Board Meeting,[3] page 375. I'm confused as to how this could be construed as private information when it's quite clearly a public document published by the school district.
Aside: Don't send emails like this. If you find yourself writing terms like "lawyer" and "police" in an email intended to express your dissatisfaction with someone else's decisions, pause. Revisit it tomorrow.
Furthermore, if you're a public figure or are otherwise in the spotlight, consider that the majority of the people reading your email will not be those to whom it is explicitly addressed. It will be read--and judged--by the public. Write your messages as though you will be reading them on a stage in front of an audience.
Everyone lets their emotions get the better of them from time to time, and everyone makes mistakes--but if you're being paid $5k/hr, those mistakes had better be exceedingly rare.
[1]: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/atta...
[2]: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/atta...
[3]: https://www.oxnardsd.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?mod...
"Amendment #1 to Agreement #20-97 with
Joanne Boaler August 4, 2021 At the Board Meeting of November 4, 2020, the Board of Trustees approved Agreement #20-97 with Joanne Boaler, in the amount of $20,000.00, to provide TK-8 Mathematics Professional Development for Oxnard School District teachers during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Amendment #1 in the amount of $20,000.00, is required to correct a math/clerical error in the original agreement. The correct verbiage should read “Provide four (4) two-hour sessions at the rate of $5,000.00 per hour for a total of $40,000”. "