Entries from HorrorStories

In March 2000, math specialists in Los Angeles Unified School District estimated that 60 percent of L.A.'s eighth-graders did not know the multiplication tables.

always, always worse than you think

At Cal State Northridge (CSUN), where I am a math professor, many students enroll with mathematical skills below the fifth-grade level. Some of them do not know the multiplication tables and rely on calculators instead. Through spring semester 2002, the CSUN math department controlled the remedial math program. It was well-run by one of my colleagues, with a passage rate of 81 percent. The program was regarded as a model by other institutions. Given the weak math skills of entering students, it is hard to imagine a higher honest success rate.

Here, unfortunately, is where racial politics enters the picture.

The 81 percent passage rate - however impressive in context - was not high enough for the Pan African Studies and Chicana/o Studies departments at CSUN. Both departments wrote open letters denouncing the math department. Pan African Studies wrote on behalf "of black and brown student clientele regarding the structure of the program, the ambivalence and/or elitist attitudes of some of its instructors and the high failure rates in the developmental math courses." In criticizing the failure rate, Chicana/o Studies argued "that the math department has developed a culture that rejects students who are not math majors," and wrote, "the reaction of the math department is surprising since we believed that the university had progressed in the past 30 and some years."

[snip]

Besides citing the failure rate of 19 percent, the math department's critics gave no other evidence to support charges of racism, elitism or other accusations. Many of the remedial math instructors were themselves Latino, and all worked tirelessly to help the students, including tutoring outside of class. Not only did the math department have a paper trail to prove the effectiveness of its program, it also had extremely high student evaluations to match.

Nevertheless, attempts by the math department to defend itself from charges of racial insensitivity, etc., were ignored by the CSUN administration. Control of the program was taken away from the math department - and now no one complains about passage rates. That's because the problem of remedial math education was solved largely by defining it out of existence. In academic circles, any suggestion of racial insensitivity or "whiteness" typically settles an argument in favor of the accuser, with no further questions asked.

Unfortunately, not only is mathematics education susceptible to race-identity politics, it is also undermined by corporations and the federal government. Corporate foundations and federal bureaucrats have awarded multimillion-dollar grants for the development of math programs that include multicultural platitudes but which undermine arithmetic and algebra competence.

Meanwhile, other CSUN policies also drive the cycle of remediation. Much to my chagrin, students on my campus are allowed to use calculators during the arithmetic final exam for future elementary-school teachers.

Math professors who teach the arithmetic course for future elementary-school teachers, such as myself, are required to allow all students to use their calculators on the exam that tests their understanding of how and why arithmetic "works." The inescapable fact is that California expects more competence in arithmetic from its elementary-school students than CSUN expects from its future teachers. Since 1998, schoolchildren have not been allowed to use calculators on the state's annual standardized tests, and with good reason.

Through its own policies, CSUN drives the cycle of remedial math by sending teachers into the field who sometimes lack proficiency in basic arithmetic. Many of the CSUN- trained elementary school teachers are highly qualified, excellent teachers, but others squeak through with teaching credentials in spite of not knowing arithmetic.

Ethnic studies departments, corporate foundations and at least one Cal State University campus have found common cause in supporting educational programs that ultimately deprive California's future elementary school teachers of basic arithmetic skills. These misguided agendas should be confronted directly by the public and by its elected representatives.

remedial math at Mercy College

She told me yesterday that 95% of their entering freshmen are in remedial math.

I'd forgotten this section:

Some people might ask, “What difference does it make if we can’t do fancy math problems?” It does make a difference. A typical item on the TIMSS 12th-grade math test shows a rectangular wrapped present, provides its height, width, and length, as well as the amount of ribbon needed to tie a bow, and asks how much total ribbon would be needed to wrap the present and include a bow. Students simply need to trace logically around the package, adding the separate lengths so as to go around in two directions and then add the length needed for the bow. Only one-third of U.S. graduating seniors can do this problem, however. This is serious.

Color me not impressed.

A 17 year old should be able to do this problem in his sleep.

As an academic subject, mathematics education is very young, and all of us have had the misfortune of being its guinea pigs. Arguably, Israel has paid a higher price than anywhere else in the world for this experimentation.

The American "new math" reform of the 1960s was brought to Israel in a most strange and extreme form, called "structuralism" by its authors. It was imposed on practically all Israeli schools for a full quarter of a century. Its story may reflect on the politics of education, not only in Israel.

...

In this case, new math "structuralism" meant that no concept or operation was taught directly or through its meaning. For every concept there was a "representation", or substitute, whose study was supposed to lead to an understanding of the original concept.

The four operations were taught using Cuisenaire rods. A face-like picture into which three numbers are put, two in the places of the eyes and one at the mouth, was supposed to teach children when to add and when to subtract. If the two numbers were at the eyes, and the missing number was at the mouth, it was an addition problem. If one number was at an eye and another at the mouth, it was a subtraction problem. (The children were made to recite: "Eye and eye is plus; mouth and eye is minus.") Division was taught as the reverse operation of multiplication, using so-called "multiplication rectangles." Most extreme was the teaching of the decimal system. Instead of the principle of the collection of tens, strange creatures were invented called bodytails, which had bodies representing the tens and tails representing the units. And those are just a few of many such devices.

In international mathematics assessments, Israel dropped from first in the world in 1964 to 29th place in 1999 -- behind everyone except the developing nations.

Excerpted from Aharoni, Ron, What I learned in Elementary School. American Educator, Fall 2005.


Aharoni article, part 1
Aharoni article, part 2: America's 'new math' goes to Israel
Aharoni on the fifth operation of arithmetic
Ron Aharoni on teaching fractions & forming units
What I Learned In Elementary School by Ron Aharoni (AMERICAN EDUCATOR)