SANTA CLARA, Calif.—California is pushing back its schedule to implement proposed math curriculum that sparked controversy. The California Department of Education said on July 14 that it would postponing the new math framework after receiving hundreds of letters of opposition. About 500 current and former STEM leaders, educators, business executives and venture capitalists signed an open letter as of July 15 denouncing the new math curriculum, saying it would “de-mathematize math.” Williamson Evers, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, co-wrote the letter. The proposed curriculum contains “lots of stuff about ethnic issues, of things like this that were sort of intruding into math and turning math into kind of, propaganda and indoctrination rather than calculation and theorems,” Evers told NTD. “I think this is really out of place, it’s alien to mathematics. “It’s burdening the student with unnecessary things.” The new math framework aims to keep students learning at the …