First some axioms: Mathematics is honestly useful for all citizens. It can help them in school, at work, as citizens and in their daily lives. This is the reason we teach mathematics every year from kindergarten through the end of high school. The mathematical education of the general public is a priority of our educational system above and beyond the education of future mathematicians and scientists.
What follows from these axioms is that we need a system of mathematics education that seeks first and foremost to recognize the mathematical needs of average citizens and is designed to ensure that those needs are met, while hopefully meeting the needs of students who can and want to learn mathematics as a discipline. And we need to acknowledge that for quite a while now we have been doing precisely the reverse. In other words, we have designed a system for the mathematically motivated and talented and let others drop away -- without regard to whether they would be able to use the fragmentary mathematical understandings with which they were left.
The latest attempt at mathematics education reform, the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM) exemplify this failed approach. Will it help us do better as a country on international comparisons? Possibly. Will it create a more balanced playing field across the country? Very Likely. Will it make it easier to identify talented mathematics students earlier in their school careers? Almost certainly. Will it move us toward a more quantitatively literate population and work force? Absolutely NOT!
The CCSSM are being marketed as College and Career-Readiness Standards, with the implication that they are for everyone. This is falsity in advertising. If we want future adults to learn to use mathematics then we must show them how mathematics is used in ways and situations that are genuine and that are relevant to their own experience. This isn't really all that hard. The truth is that most mathematics was invented to solve very practical and interesting problems. Rather than spend year after year learning more and more abstract and sophisticated tools, we can take some of that time to use those tools to build real things. Mathematics is a system that enables us to model the world. We need to let students in on this fact -- to actually have them use the mathematics they are learning to do what it was meant to do -- give them a greater ability to understand the world around them.
The standards and the high stakes tests that are being developed (from 3rd grade on!!) will certainly make for more consistency from state to state. But consistency should not be a goal in itself. The mathematical literacy of the next generation is a goal we should be working towards. And in order to achieve that goal we need a true reorganization of the mathematics that we teach -- keeping the why we teach it prominently up front for all to see.
What might this brave new world look like?
The CCSSM do try to include some applications like this. But instead of building theory step by small step out of easily absorbed and useful applications, they tag on an application or two as an afterthought to a heavy slog through abstraction. Math Professors know well how to explain math to graduate students but they seem to have forgotten how high they have climbed into the clouds and what is going on down here on the earth.
David Mumford is a retired math professor who taught for more than 40 years first at Harvard University and then at Brown University. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Grant, a Fields Medal, the Shaw and Wolf Prizes. He is a past President of the International Mathematical Union. He has worked extensively in both pure and applied mathematics, in algebraic geometry and computer vision and is the author of numerous books including "Indra's Pearls" for the general public.
Sol Garfunkel, is the Executive Director of the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications and has dedicated the last 35 years to research and development efforts in mathematics education. Dr. Garfunkel has been on the mathematics faculty of Cornell University and the University of Connecticut at Storrs. He has served as project director for several National Science Foundation curriculum projects. Dr. Garfunkel was the project director and host for the television series "For All Practical Purposes: Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics." He is a member of the Mathematics Expert Group of PISA and he was the Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award Recipient for 2009 from the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics.
Shawn Lawrence Otto: Republicans Cut Top Science Office by 1/3
Mary Ann Rankin: Raise (Don't Lower!) the Bar for Math & Science Education
Priyamvada Natarajan: Close the Math Gap
Chris Gabrieli: A National Call for More Learning Time in Schools
Double-entry Accounting is SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OLD.
If accounting had been mandatory in our schools for the last 50 years would we be having these economic problems? Don't scientists and engineers by houses and have credit cards?
Working scientists and engineers have to handle finances both at work and at home, but their fields are not built upon bookkeeping. That is why it is not a required course for the sciences.
Have any scientists noticed that economists get their algebra incorrect in the NET Domestic Product equation?
12 Calculus...................Pre-Calculus
11 Pre-Calculus............Algebra 2 (+trig)
10 Algebra 2 (+trig)......Geometry
9 Geometry...................Algebra 1
8 Algebra 1...................Pre-Algebra
Students can of course do more and / or do it faster.
My 14 year old daughter is in 10th grade and is taking Calculus for college credit. She will be going to Bellevue College via Running Start next year to start her engineering education.
12 Calculus Pre-Calculus
11 Pre-Calculus Algebra 2 (+trig)
10 Algebra 2 (+trig) Geometry
9 Geometry Algebra 1
8 Algebra 1 Pre-Algebra
These are your math REQUIREMENTS for these areas. You can spread the material earlier, but not later. And you still need to add in the statistics, sciences, and other subjects.
If you want to add math applications - add them to the other classes, particularly science, business, and economics. Do not dilute the math classes more, they are diluted enough as they are.
The science and engineering departments know what they need. If students don't know it, they aren't admitted.
I do agree that it we could teach statistics in high school and that the Common Core standard does a crummy job with statistics. Here is a review of the Core standard, comparing it to the standards of other countries with good math education outcomes.
http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/94979.html
While I think there is lots of fascinating mathematics out there that should be taught in schools, we must agree on the purpose of mathematics education before we think about solutions for how to fix it.
I think adding more math to science earlier would be a great place to start.
At the same time, understanding the why of math, and the structure of proof is essential for people who are going on to higher level math.
No matter how you slice it, their numbers for the National Budget...JUST DON"T ADD UP.
(but their campaign contributions sure do)
IN A SIMILAR VIEN,
When I used to teach in HSs, I liked to find a week in the semester to bring in real IRS forms, instruction booklets, and make up W2-forms
I found that the vast majority of my students had absolutely no problems learning how to do taxes.
And about half of the classes were very comfortable doing itemized deductions and even, (back then) income averaging- as well as topics like moving expenses
But the author is correct about the need to apply math to improve understanding and provide the underlying motivation for why this is all done. This is not the job of the math class. The math should be applied in Economics (perhaps in social studies), various science classes, business classes, etc. The application of math in those classes makes them more valuable.
Number theory and the complex plane are just two examples of stuff done out of love of beauty that showed themselves to be stunningly applicable to engineers several centuries later.
This happened to me and my children. I could not help my kids with their homework. I tried to learn mathematics on my own and I couldn't do it. With no one available to answer simple questions I remained stuck and could not progress any further. Same with my kids.