March 4, 2008

Washington Legislature Gets an Earful About Freshmen's Woeful Math

Sixty professors at the University of Washington have signed an open letter to the Legislature complaining that college freshmen struggle to solve middle-school-level mathematics problems and are “confounded by simple algebra,” the Associated Press reports.

The faculty members hope that the letter, which was distributed to legislators late last week, will influence efforts to revise statewide math standards for public schools.

Some petitioners worry that the state’s new guidelines for math curricula will be shaped primarily by education experts who tend to favor “inquiry-based” methods of instruction that focus on underlying mathematical concepts rather than rote learning of formulas.

Such methods don’t work, contends Clifford F. Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Washington, and have led to an increase in the number of students taking remedial math classes in college.

Not everyone sees the situation as so dire. No professors in the university’s College of Education signed the letter, and, according to an official in the office of the state superintendent of public instruction, the latest data indicate that only 2 percent of Washington public high-school students end up in remedial classes in college.

“Washington math isn’t a disaster,” Ginger Warfield, a lecturer in the university’s math department told the AP. “By many measures, we’re fine, and relative to the rest of the country, we’re much better.” —Paula Wasley

Comments

1. Of course, the College of Education isn’t going to admit that “inquiry-based” math is a failure.
   Such an confession would be tantamount to the Emperor’s advisors admitting he was naked.
   And as for “relative to the rest of the country”: “U.S. students consistently performed below average, ranking 8th or 9th out of twelve at all three grade levels. (12 first world countries)
   (American Institutes for Research (AIR): http://www.air.org/news/documents/Release200511math.htm)
   “

   — richard    Mar 4, 08:16 PM    #

2. “According to an official in the office of the state superintendent of public instruction, the latest data indicate that only 2 percent of Washington public high-school students end up in remedial classes in college.”

   Wow. Might WA share their template for high school degree = college math ready? 40%+ of TX freshmen require math remediation—even in the ‘exemplary’ districts.

   Or is U of WA like UT—top 10% or better admissions-wise. I doubt if the WA CC system is meeting the 2% mark. But then again, WA CCs haven’t always been considered ‘higher ed,’ have they?

   — Master of None    Mar 5, 12:40 AM    #

3. Rote teaching of math may have bored some – but it worked for almost everyone.

   — Marjory Munson    Mar 5, 07:58 AM    #

4. Blame it on another form of educational bureaucracy imposed on us by Colleges of Education; namely, standardized testing. Not only do standardized tests emphasize the lowest common denominator, they also emphasize identifying an answer, rather than determining an answer. Learning to solve problems requires intensive experience with solving problems, not with identifying the solution from a laundry list.

   — CW    Mar 5, 08:53 AM    #

5. Well—like the obese kid issue which is now in the Georgia legislature—schools being dumped on with another issue—we are all looking for answers where they are not. In my son’s school there are pretty good math classes and lots of smart kids. So what is the problem? As early as the 7th grade he was already joking about being the token white kid on the math team—pretty much the rest of the kids on the team were Asian or Indian. Were these kids genetically better at math than the rest of the kids at this predominantly white school?—I think not—just a slightly different culture. We worked very hard at making sure our son who is good at math realize that he is not a “geek” because of it. Unfortunately, this does not happen very often even in our pretty affluent school district. Most of his classmates learn at home from their parents and from their peers that math is not a critical life skill—with that base you know that they are then pretty much going to muddle through school math with minimal learning. Simply blaming techniques used at school and fighting over the latest fads in educational psychology just becomes a battle of wits with unloaded weapons. You can have the best schools in the world but a society that teaches kids otherwise and you are already dead in the water.

   — john    Mar 5, 09:27 AM    #

6. In the University of Wisconsin system (13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges, I think) we had a freshman math remediation rate of 14.9 % in fall 2004. The flagship at Madison had 0.8 % the same year. One four-year school in the system had a 55.3 % freshman math remediation rate. This is in a state that battles with Minnesota each year for top honors on the ACT. Wisconsin also has a technical school system and about 50 % of incoming freshman at the tech schools require remedial math. The really scary thing about all of this is that we are paying to educate these students more than once. They get through high school with high enough grades (because of grade inflation) to get into college and then we have to teach them what they should have learned in high school (or even middle school in many cases). It seems that no matter what the public schools think they are teaching, the students learn one thing very well:
   learning doesn’t matter.

   — Phil    Mar 5, 11:56 AM    #

7. I taught physics at an experimental HS that was developing inquiry-based methods of teaching math. The analytical emphasis in the math classes was on the process of problem solving regardless of whether the solution was correct or not. This analytical training did not transfer to physics class where I emphasized that every math-based problem (equation) required a correct answer. There may be a few different ways to approach and thus, solve the problem, but there was only ONE correct solution. That was 10 years ago and the school continues to use this math curriculum even though parents howl each school year. Teaching math using similar philosophies is doing our children a disservice.

   — Candace    Mar 5, 12:39 PM    #

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