03-12-2004, 08:49 PM
Chairman Alan Greenspan has noted that, over the next 15 years, at least 3.3 million jobs and $136 billion in wages will move to Asia.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->American math education is in trouble. Many of our children will be ill-prepared for the high-paying yet demanding jobs in the workforce they soon will enter. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has noted that, over the next 15 years, at least 3.3 million jobs and $136 billion in wages will move to Asia.
Our education system does not produce students sufficiently versed in mathematics to stem this flow. In some groups, the result is catastrophic: For example, 97 percent of African American high-school seniors test "not proficient" in algebra, according to the federal Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress. Robert Moses, founder of the Algebra Project, speaks of algebra as a civil-rights battleground: Students who don't have good skills are ineligible for well-paying jobs. Under these circumstances, the American ideal of equal opportunity totters and good jobs leave the country for other shores.
To change this, we must have resources for schools -- particularly in California, which is well below the national median in per-pupil school expenditures. But to justify needed increases, and to use them wisely, we need to know what helps students learn. Assessment -- literally, "sitting by," watching what's being done -- is crucial to finding out what students have learned and how to improve their learning.
Assessment has always played a big role in the classroom, from one-on-one discussions between student and teacher to quizzes, exams and homework. Such assessments, done well, contribute richly to learning. But there's a new element: high-stakes testing, mandated by local, state or federal government to reward and punish schools or regulate graduation. These tests occur more and more frequently, and teachers must bow to them. The higher the stakes, the more such tests dominate the curriculum. As physicist and educator Hugh Burkhardt likes to say, "It's WYTIWYG: What You Test Is What You Get."
What should be taught and tested? That surprisingly controversial question lies behind the so-called "math wars" that have troubled educational discussions and impeded progress for years, perhaps worst of all in California. The sides are sometimes called "conservative" and "progressive." Extreme conservatives ridicule progressives for doing fuzzy math ("Insisting on correct answers and learned skills stunts creativity"). Extreme progressives castigate conservatives as wanting only "drill and kill" -- where multiplication tables and definitions are memorized and repeated without any attention to the understanding or flexible use of the concepts behind them. ("Ours is not to reason why, just invert and multiply.")
In reality, there is much agreement. A "Draft Disarmament Treaty for the Math Wars," circulated by Phil Daro, executive director of the University of California's New Standards Project, might show the way. As it asserts, students should learn to:
-- add, subtract, multiply and divide integers, decimals and fractions accurately and efficiently without calculators;
-- understand the mathematics they study and use;
-- use the mathematics they know to solve problems with calculators and computers;
-- be fluent with the symbolic language of algebra, and understand how to use the basic laws of algebra when solving mathematics problems; and
-- explain and justify their claims and critically evaluate the reasoning of others.
In addition, students and teachers need better resources. Two important examples:
-- All students should have copies of basic instructional materials (textbooks, handouts, etc.) to take home.
-- Math teachers should continue to learn mathematics throughout their careers.
Parents, teachers, mathematics educators, psychometricians and research mathematicians must work together to solve the problems of American math education. Only then can we feel we've done our best to support our kids as they face the challenges of global competition.
David Eisenbud is director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (www.msri.org), a research organization in Berkeley that sponsored a conference earlier this week on assessing students' knowledge of math.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->American math education is in trouble. Many of our children will be ill-prepared for the high-paying yet demanding jobs in the workforce they soon will enter. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has noted that, over the next 15 years, at least 3.3 million jobs and $136 billion in wages will move to Asia.
Our education system does not produce students sufficiently versed in mathematics to stem this flow. In some groups, the result is catastrophic: For example, 97 percent of African American high-school seniors test "not proficient" in algebra, according to the federal Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress. Robert Moses, founder of the Algebra Project, speaks of algebra as a civil-rights battleground: Students who don't have good skills are ineligible for well-paying jobs. Under these circumstances, the American ideal of equal opportunity totters and good jobs leave the country for other shores.
To change this, we must have resources for schools -- particularly in California, which is well below the national median in per-pupil school expenditures. But to justify needed increases, and to use them wisely, we need to know what helps students learn. Assessment -- literally, "sitting by," watching what's being done -- is crucial to finding out what students have learned and how to improve their learning.
Assessment has always played a big role in the classroom, from one-on-one discussions between student and teacher to quizzes, exams and homework. Such assessments, done well, contribute richly to learning. But there's a new element: high-stakes testing, mandated by local, state or federal government to reward and punish schools or regulate graduation. These tests occur more and more frequently, and teachers must bow to them. The higher the stakes, the more such tests dominate the curriculum. As physicist and educator Hugh Burkhardt likes to say, "It's WYTIWYG: What You Test Is What You Get."
What should be taught and tested? That surprisingly controversial question lies behind the so-called "math wars" that have troubled educational discussions and impeded progress for years, perhaps worst of all in California. The sides are sometimes called "conservative" and "progressive." Extreme conservatives ridicule progressives for doing fuzzy math ("Insisting on correct answers and learned skills stunts creativity"). Extreme progressives castigate conservatives as wanting only "drill and kill" -- where multiplication tables and definitions are memorized and repeated without any attention to the understanding or flexible use of the concepts behind them. ("Ours is not to reason why, just invert and multiply.")
In reality, there is much agreement. A "Draft Disarmament Treaty for the Math Wars," circulated by Phil Daro, executive director of the University of California's New Standards Project, might show the way. As it asserts, students should learn to:
-- add, subtract, multiply and divide integers, decimals and fractions accurately and efficiently without calculators;
-- understand the mathematics they study and use;
-- use the mathematics they know to solve problems with calculators and computers;
-- be fluent with the symbolic language of algebra, and understand how to use the basic laws of algebra when solving mathematics problems; and
-- explain and justify their claims and critically evaluate the reasoning of others.
In addition, students and teachers need better resources. Two important examples:
-- All students should have copies of basic instructional materials (textbooks, handouts, etc.) to take home.
-- Math teachers should continue to learn mathematics throughout their careers.
Parents, teachers, mathematics educators, psychometricians and research mathematicians must work together to solve the problems of American math education. Only then can we feel we've done our best to support our kids as they face the challenges of global competition.
David Eisenbud is director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (www.msri.org), a research organization in Berkeley that sponsored a conference earlier this week on assessing students' knowledge of math.
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