Maybe I’m a math nerd (ok, I am), but asking whether Algebra I is necessary seems crazy. Whenever I hear the argument we should not teach higher math to all students as most won’t use it, I always think, but how do you know which ones? Would you want your child pushed into a non-math tracking due to one bad test score in 6th grade? What if she decided to be an engineer later, only to realize she was dreadfully behind in needed math skills? I wouldn’t want to limit any student’s career choices as early as ninth grade.
It has been argued that since we are failing as a country to teach Algebra I to most students we should simply stop. What kind of attitude is this? This isn’t a failing business that should shut down; this is many students’ future career paths at stake. If we want the highly technical jobs going to American citizens, we better be teaching them math. And trying to do it better, rather than lying down giving up! How many teenage students would gladly not bother with Algebra I if not required due to immaturity, only to regret it upon discovering that their college majors choices are limited without major remediation?
Several articles responded to an initial argument for it be a non-requirement. Daniel Willingham at the Washingtonpost.com wrote:
When I first saw yesterday’s New York Times op-ed, I mistook it for a joke.
Unfortunately, the author, Andrew Hacker, poses the question in earnest, and draws the conclusion that algebra should not be required of all students.
His arguments:
* A lot of students find math really hard, and that prompts them to give up on school altogether. Think of what these otherwise terrific students might have achieved if math hadn’t chased them away from school.
* The math that’s taught in school doesn’t relate well to the mathematical reasoning people need outside of school.
His proposed solution is the teaching of quantitative skills that students can use, rather than a bunch of abstract formulas, and a better understanding of “where numbers actually come from and what they actually convey,” e.g., how the consumer price index is calculated.
For most careers, Hacker believes that specialized training in the math necessary for that particular job will do the trick.
What’s wrong with this vision?
The inability to cope with math is not the main reason that students drop out of high school. Yes, a low grade in math predicts dropping out, but no more so than a low grade in English. Furthermore, behavioral factors like motivation, self-regulation, social control (Casillas, Robbins, Allen & Kuo, 2012), as well as a feeling of connectedness and engagement at school (Archambault et al, 2009) are as important as GPA to dropout. So it’s misleading to depict math as the chief villain in America’s high dropout rate.
What of the other argument, that formal math mostly doesn’t apply outside of the classroom anyway?
The difficulty students have in applying math to everyday problems they encounter is not particular to math. Transfer is hard. New learning tends to cling to the examples used to explain the concept. That’s as true of literary forms, scientific method, and techniques of historical analysis as it is of mathematical formulas.
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Hacker overlooks the need for practice, even for the everyday math he wants students to know. One of the important side benefits of higher math is that it makes you proficient at the other math that you had learned earlier, because those topics are embedded in the new stuff. (e.g., Bahrick & Hall, 1991). So I think there are excellent reasons to doubt that Hacker’s solution to the transfer problem will work out as he expects.
What of the contention that math doesn’t do most people much good anyway?
Economic data directly contradict that suggestion. Economists have shown that cognitive skills — especially math and science — are robust predictors of individual income, of a country’s economic growth, and of the distribution of income within a country (e.g. Hanushek & Kimko, 2000; Hanushek & Woessmann, 2008).
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There are not many people who are satisfied with the mathematical competence of the average US student. We need to do better. Promising ideas include devoting more time to mathematics in early grades, more exposure to premathematical concepts in preschool, and perhaps specialized math instructors beginning in earlier grades.
Hacker’s suggestions sound like surrender.
AMEN!! Click here to read the full article.
Also from joannejacobs.com:
Kids who can’t understand math usually can’t read well either, writes RiShawn Biddle on Dropout Nation. “The very skills involved in reading (including understanding abstract concepts) are also involved in algebra and other complex mathematics.”