How is the United States to remain competitive in the world if math is a weakness in the educational system? What is the solution to the math problem?
National Assessment of Educational Progress Report
Every two years, NAEP tests students in grades 4, 8, and 12 in reading and math. Each year since 1990, students have shown progress in math until 2007 in math. Fourth-graders made no progress for the first time in seventeen years. Less than four out of ten 4th and 8th graders are proficient in math.
Business has complained for several years that students do not have a strong understanding of concepts. Students leave high school and go to college without strong math skills and enter college without strong math skills. Colleges are complaining because they must offer remedial math classes without credit before students may have a chance to be successful in required math classes.
George W. Bush Expresses Concerns About Math
Former President George W. Bush appointed a national mathematics advisory panel to investigate the condition of math in the U.S. Bush released a report stating that the nation’s math education "is broken and must be fixed."
An international test, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, reports that while the U.S. has made great improvements in math it is still far behind other nations. In Grade 4 the U.S. is in 11th place and in Grade 8 the U.S. is in 9th place.
ACT Report on Math
A report by ACT, the college testing service, stated that only 42% of high school graduates that took the ACT were ready for college level math. SAT, another college testing service, also shows no improvement in math.
Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, has stated that the latest statistics from NAEP on math education are totally unacceptable. The Obama administration’s answer to this problem is more charter schools and linking teacher pay to student performance. Neither addresses the math issue directly.
While in some cases, poor teaching may be the issue but in many situations it is not. Teachers can’t fix the poverty in a home. Nor, can teachers be held responsible for parents that don’t encourage homework or don’t bother to even send children to school so they can learn. Teachers can’t be blamed for the electricity and heat being turned off in a home or for parents getting arrested. There is a limit to what a teacher can be held responsible.
How Do Other Nations Teach Math?
Instead of relying on math textbooks from publishing houses in the U.S., perhaps educators should travel to other countries and learn how they teach math. Some of the locations around the world that achieve at higher levels in math are
- Hong Kong
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- South Korea
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
It could be time to entertain the possibility that there could be a different method in teaching math that has not been tried. Many schools in the U.S. are using new and different math methods that could prove to be fruitful. The state of Georgia is using the Singapore Math method and seeing results.
Instead of punishing teachers, it could benefit students to learn how other nations are teaching math that test at the top.
Source:
Tomsho, Robert. "U.S. Math Scores Hit a Wall, National Test Shows No Gains for Fourth-Graders, Slight Rise for Eighth-Graders, online.wsj.com, October 15, 2009.
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