WHY AMERICA SUCKS AT MATH
For quick answers, fast-forward to The Four Pillars of Educational Reform
It is becoming increasingly evident through media that Americans are unhappy with the education system in the US. Less than 50% of our population showed satisfaction with K-12 education in a poll last year. Major changes in our system are necessary for us to progress as a nation. I’d like to explore a few of the issues we face, as well as to offer simple solutions for them.
Our Educational Vector since “New Math” in the 1950’s-60’s
The 50’s in the US were a very troublesome time. The population felt uneasy about a technological disparity between the US and the Soviet Union during the famous space-race period. This caused American boards to implement huge changes, specifically within the mathematics curriculum in our country. The most drastic of these changes included elements of understanding the theory of mathematics. New Math replaced these principles and gravitated towards the understanding of functional properties; the commutative, associative, distributive properties, inequalities, etc. These were some of the many elements introduced in the classroom during this period. In the U.S., people began to debate about the importance of focusing on: Industrial Mathematics (applied mathematics) or Theoretical Mathematics. Which of the two was more important for our country’s success? Industrial Mathematics focused on applied mathematics in industry; Theoretical Mathematics took a more conceptual approach, focusing on understanding number theory and the logic of math.
Circumlocution in the Board of Ed.
In the current educational meta, we see parents becoming frantic as they have become incapable of helping their children with math homework. We are now in the midst of an era obsessed with overtaking Asian countries like Singapore, Korea, etc. The U.S. has taken steps like introducing Common Core Curriculum as well as G&T programs/schools (really just the same idea reinvented dozens of times over the last 50 years). Common Core (Singaporean math) is a system using different forms of computation for basic arithmetic. This part of its existence has been scrutinized since it’s rebirth in the western world a few years ago. Contrary to what many may believe, I don’t see Common Core as the major issue with our system. Singaporean children hold an average IQ of 108, in comparison to our 99-101, and perform exceedingly better on tests. Unfortunately the point of changing the curriculum within this part of the world and doing it often (talk of Common Core being on its way out has already surfaced), has nothing to do with the performance of our children.
The American Red Cross and Go Math?
Let me stray for a moment to build a wider foundation for this argument. The American Red Cross is an enormous entity, which partially daddles in the teaching and standardization of CPR in the U.S. In college as an undergraduate, I was a TA for CPR training, and I noticed a trend. Every single year our methodologies would receive a minor amendment and, consequently, all the books would need to be replaced by newer ones. The pattern stayed true for so many consecutive years that this became apparent: there was a monetary agenda involved that had more influence on CPR than the methods and studies of successful resuscitation. It seems this is a similarity held between the American Red Cross, and the contracting taking place within our public education’s business offices.
When visiting my local test prep bookstore in the heart of Flushing, I posed a question to ownership pertaining to the rate of sales comparatively between common core and non-common core books. It turns out that famous test prep companies like, Progress, printed books without “common core” written on them and then reprinted the same books with the words, “common core”, on the cover. The books that were printed with “common core” on the cover page, ended up selling at about a 10:1 ratio with the books that did not. Now, this doesn’t prove much in regards to the agenda of our money allocation, but it does help to paint a picture about how quick the population is to completely trust and follow methods that are passed by the Board of Ed. This means that no matter the change, every year, people and schools (usually schools are forced) are willing to buy more new material to follow along with unnecessary changes that don’t truly help advance the curriculum of our children.
Table 1
The Heterogeneous Riddle
In Table 1 you can see a list of the top 25 countries (these countries are missing from the list because of lack of data: Liechtenstein, Belgium, Switzerland, Iceland, Germany, Slovak Republic, and Luxembourg) ranked by Mathematics proficiency. On the list, the U.S. ranks at #25. When comparing these countries with their Ethnic Fractionalization Index, we see an inverse correlation. An Ethnic Fractionalization Index shows how diverse a country’s ethnic, as well as religious and linguistic, makeup is (see 2003 Harvard study in the “Journal for economic growth”). The countries higher up on the mathematics ranking system have the lowest ethnic fractionalization index factor (excluding outliers such as Canada). This is a stunning observation because we rarely hear the mention of ethnicity, race, or genetic composition in classrooms. It is also interesting because the current pedagogy we’ve adopted for Mathematics originates from a country with an extremely homogeneous population(Singapore).
The truth is that American classrooms, which experience a higher diversity than their counterparts in table 1 on average, cannot function in the same format as classrooms from other countries do. Adopting a method such as “Common Core Math” from another country, tweaking it slightly, and expecting it to solve an educational deficit that we have diagnosed ourselves with is... illogical. We need a different approach.
A normal classroom functions with a head-teacher instructing and teaching in accordance to a scheduled curriculum that is expected to reach certain standardized checkpoint in a certain amount of time. This means that a teacher can teach a lesson in one, possibly two ways, to an entire class every day, in hopes that these two methods and the speed at which they were taught will suffice. In a classroom as heterogeneous as one in a diverse U.S. city, this does not work. There are too many different minds in one room, each molded by generations of different traditions, focuses, and environments. The student body must be minimized, and the lesson plans must be taught with the freedom to accelerate and decelerate depending on each individual student’s feedback. The students need to be observed for signs of preference in learning: visual vs auditory, memorizing vs computing, musical vs logical etc. An intuitive teaching body can perfect ways to affect each student within the first few weeks of interaction easily. After understanding the student’s needs and strengths we can then mold his/her learning experience easily.
The Four Pillars of Educational Reform
We are completely capable of changing. The teachers at our educational establishment successfully keep track of 6-10 students in a class and push them depending on their individual level of comprehension. This is possible within our school systems as well. Here are some of the changes that need to be made nation-wide:
1. Class size reductions
The only issue with class sizes being reduced is the loss of capital. If we properly allocated our to-be 50+ billion dollar education budget we could achieve drastically smaller classes in just a few years
2. No age segregation
Maturity is directly correlated to age but finding the “line of best fit” is not advantageous here because standardization does not benefit outliers.
3. No Glass Ceiling
A company can have 70,000 employees but only one CEO. There is no reason why a student who is socially, emotionally, and academically mature enough should not be able to jump through grades until he/she is met with a challenge. In America today, we are so focused on making sure our underperforming students are accounted for, that we have completely forgotten about creating a path beyond the “100” to open opportunities and create curiosity for more. In many successful companies today, employers create an atmosphere conducive to long term employment and good work ethic by displaying the company ladder and allowing employees the chance to climb the ranks during their careers. This same model can be used to allow students the chance to progress, feel accomplished, and strive for success.
Boredom amongst students who are not challenged may be the most dangerous sign that we are missing our chance to help future innovators get the head start they need to accomplish what they are meant to accomplish. Why take 8 years to learn arithmetic and pre-algebra, but force a college student to learn AB Calculus in three months. That same student may have been able to grasp all curriculum from grades 1-8 in 4 years, and had all the time in the world to properly understand more intricate theories introduced in the higher levels of math.
4. Individualized curriculum
Large leaps in curriculum for specific topics such as Math and English are necessary to make sure we catch children during their “pulling stages”. These stages of their development are sporadic and sometimes do not occur in a student until his or her collegiate years; most students have a specific topic of interest and increased levels of voraciousness within the first 5 to 10 years of their school careers. During these extended periods of enlightenment, the student quickly absorbs, comprehends, and progresses through a plethora of educational obstacles with ease. I’ve seen a period like this last for as short as 3 months. As educators we must constantly assess our students, and look for signs of “pulling” so that we can take advantage of the circumstances.
One Student at a Time
My personal experience with teaching mathematics to New York students in 2nd grade allows me to bring up a perfect example. Three of my 2nd grade students have advanced very quickly through their multiplication times table. They each succeeded using a different method than their fellow peers.
Memorization
Multiples
Benchmarking
It takes only a little bit of care and focus to teach different students using different methods. The theory and application of arithmetic can be taught in a myriad of ways. An intelligent teacher can easily mold and adapt the curriculum around his/her students.
Can we change?
If we focus on what was previously stated in paragraph 4 and 5 (curriculum and books are changed every few years so more money can be made through contracting), asserting our society as capitalistic in nature, the answer to our problems becomes obvious.
Cutting class sizes, expanding curriculum, removing glass ceilings and age segregation is all deemed impossible today because of the cash. We rank third highest in the world for Expenditure per Elementary and Secondary public school student. We spend a total of about $12,296 per student a year. That being said, we rank at 25th or 26th when it comes to results in international mathematics testing. The problem is not the amount that we allocate to education yearly, but the amount that we allocate to education research.
Progress in our country is reliant on the strength of our educational programs. If major changes in our capitalist approaches are not taken immediately, we will continue spiraling downward. The system set in place to teach our children is of utmost importance because it dictates the future of every field of work, every cultural metamorphosis, and every technological advancement.
Time to Preach
Our coalescence with technology is inevitable and it demands more from our education every year. As Americans, we need to stop trying to set an example for the rest of the world all while copying successful systems we observe in other countries. It’s counterproductive and downright pitiful. Let’s stay true to the values of individuality that birthed the western world, and reinvent the learning process. It only took a few minds to create some of the most impactful technologies we utilize today. As long as we nurture the individual needs of our students, we will finally see the true potential of our brilliant and diverse youth.
-MR. S
“Trump: U.S. spends more than 'almost any other major country' on education”
By Nadia Pflaum on Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 at 10:18 a.m. https://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/sep/21/donald-trump/trump-us-spends-more-almost-any-other-major-countr/
“International Comparison of Math, Reading, and Science Skills Among 15-Year-Olds.” Infoplease.com
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD PISA (Program for Student Assessment) 2003 database.
A. Alesina, E. La Ferrara (2005). "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature: 762–800. Retrieved December 15, 2016.^ Jump up to: a b Natalka Patsiurko, John L. Campbell and John A. Hall (2012).
"Measuring cultural diversity: ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization in the OECD" (PDF). Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35 (2): 195–217. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.579136. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
James Fearon (2003). "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country". Journal of Economic Growth. 8: 195–222. doi:10.1023/A:1024419522867.
Alberto Alesina; et al. (2003). "Fractionalization" (PDF). Journal of Economic Growth. 8: 155–194. doi:10.1023/a:1024471506938. Retrieved September 13,2012.