Education Secretary Spellings recently announced the formation of a presidentially appointed panel that was formed to address math teaching. According to the charter of this panel, one of its purposes is “to foster greater knowledge of and improved performance in mathematics among American students.” The panel is charged with producing a report in two years, which must contain recommendations pertaining to how math instruction can be improved in the U.S. In particular, the report must address the skills necessary for students to acquire competence in algebra and to prepare them for higher levels of mathematics.
The workings of the panel are not the type of thing that makes the front page of newspapers, the top story on TV news, or what is talked about in the local cafes. To hear about this you need to drop in to the blogs (like Edspresso), or the various list serves on the internet devoted to math education. There you will notice some discomfort among those who think that the way math is currently taught and the present crop of math texts being used in the U.S. is just fine. They have openly expressed dismay at the inclusion on the panel of people who have been vocal critics of reform math, stating “This panel is filled with hacks, toadies and stooges. Can you say ‘show trial’, children? Have you ever seen the old reels of the Communist Party Congresses in Moscow?” Allegations of pre-conceived conclusions then follow.
The rancor of the above comment is not unusual to those familiar with the never-ending debate between the mathematics and education communities in what has come to be known as the “math wars”. The debate revolves around on state math standards, math texts and how math should be taught. Reformers advocate the concept of “discovery learning” in which students discover what they need to know by being given “real life” problems, frequently without providing the information and skills necessary to solve them. Such approach is at the heart of a series of math texts funded through grants from the Education and Human Resources Division of National Science Foundation and based on standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). NCTM has had enormous influence over the math standards and texts used by most states and districts in the United States—standards and texts that, in the view of the mathematics community have resulted in dumbed-down, or “skills-lite” curricula.
The formation of the panel comes at an unusual time in the long and storied history of the math wars. Some see the formation of the panel as a possible end to the math wars, at a time when there has been some communication between the mathematics community and the NCTM. Yet at the same time, school districts are continuing to adopt the controversial texts, school boards are continuing to tell parents to “trust us”, and protests from mathematicians and others that the math texts are not doing the job are labeled as ideological arguments—and are ignored.
The real issue is about math content, but few people get that yet. Instead, the arguments center around pedagogy and how the brain works—anything except what are the basic facts, skills and concepts of math that students must master (like they do in Asian countries). Maybe that’s why the panel has five psychologists but only two mathematicians. It doesn’t take a PhD in cognitive science to know that to teach students how to think you need to teach them things to think about. Nevertheless, the panel’s discussions about content may be eclipsed by discussions about learning and teaching theory.
One hopes that the traditional backlash will stop and real dialogue will begin. If it were about how to teach dancing, there would be little argument that you have to teach basic dance steps. What I hope does not happen is that the panel ends up in polite agreement that it’s important to learn facts but then publishes a report recommending that students continue to discover what they haven’t been taught.
Barry Garelick is an analyst for the federal government and lives in the Washington DC area. He is a national advisor to NYC HOLD, an education advocacy organization that addresses mathematics education in schools throughout the United States.