Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Math Basics--Our Kids Need Them

Montgomery County, MD is a well-off DC suburb with some of the best public schools in the country. Recently, the Washington Post published articles revealing that 40%- 60% of Montgomery County students were failing the county wide tests in higher math--algebra, geometry and precalculus. And, while 62% of students may fail the geometry test, only 16% fail the class. These statistics have been public for five years and are no secret to the County School Board, educators, students and parents. (The Montgomery County PTA even published a chart showing how to fail the test and pass the class) Nor is this type of situation unique to Montgomery County. In Alexandria, VA, another well-off DC suburb, only 22% of students passed the 8th grade statewide Standards of Learning tests for math.

The problem doesn’t stop with high school. Seventy percent of Montgomery County high school students failed their math entrance exam to community college and need remediation. Northern Virginia has similar results. A national study from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University shows that 60% of students trying to enter Community Colleges fail this type of exam.

So, what’s going on here? Jerome Dancis, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, knows the answer. He says students have long needed the basics--multiplication, division, percentages, decimals, exponents and fewer calculators. If they don’t know the basics then they are in trouble.  “If (students) are not fluent in arithmetic then they are going to have trouble in Algebra I, Algebra 2 and Precalculus.”

The problem is: we’re not teaching the basics and our kids aren’t learning. The Training Within Industries program in WWII had it right. “If the student hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.” We need to truly teach the fundamentals of math. In my view, in order for this to happen, our kids need to know that math is useful. And, they need to be fluent enough in basic math to work without a calculator.

For many of these kids, the best way to learn math is through hands-on, project-based education. That’s why we developed Building to Teach, a national program that teaches teachers how to use hands-on building projects to teach math fundamentals.  I have seen hundreds of instances where kids who couldn’t grasp math in the classroom are able to learn through the building process and become excited about using math.

It’s very simple--the building process is an historic use of math; students learn the math skills if they have to use them. Historians tell us that math was developed about 2000 BC. Widespread classroom teaching of math is only about 200 years old. So, math instruction was “project- based and hands-on” for the previous 3,800 years. Math is a critical tool we all need to succeed, as well as a language we need to speak.  We forget that at our--and our kids’--peril.