Cleaning up mess left by math council

Guidelines damaged an entire nation

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Did the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics just declare victory and go home?

Last week the organization released new guidelines describing the math skills children need. The guidelines don't answer all the criticisms leveled at the council since 1989, when it introduced standards based on the philosophy that children needed to discover math for themselves, and that teaching them skills was unnecessary and even damaging. But the new guidelines clearly back away from that philosophy, and districts that are using books based on it need to reconsider.

It won't be easy.

If the council truly has realized it was wrong 17 years ago to unleash a torrent of misguided methods and confusing content on elementary school children, well, that's something. But the flood debris left behind will take quite some cleaning up.

The 1989 standards heavily influenced many states' math standards, and in turn state standards pushed textbook publishers to develop new curriculum series. True believers within President Clinton's Department of Education recommended several of them as "exemplary" despite the lack of evidence that they were effective. Many districts adopted them, including Denver.

Many students now graduating from high school have spent their entire time in school in thrall to this philosophy, and - no coincidence, this - record numbers are having to enroll in remedial math courses when they get to college.

A large part of the teacher corps was trained in and has always taught from books based on the national council's standards. Districts that have experimented with more traditional series, such as Saxon Math or Singapore Math, often face resistance from teachers who prefer to teach as their education professors instructed them to teach.

The extent to which minds on the mathematics council have been changed, though, is unclear. One "focal point" for fourth graders is that they should "Develop understanding of multiplication, including 'quick recall' of multiplication and division facts; select correct methods to make mental estimations and calculations." But Francis Fennell, the council president, told Education Week that authors of the Focal Points engaged in "heated debates" over the exact terminology used in describing various math skills, weighing phrases such as "immediate recall" of number facts and "instant recall" before settling on "quick recall."

The new guidelines should prompt any district that is using materials based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' guidelines to go back and reevaluate whether they are getting the math results they expect and need. It may not be practical to replace entire series of math textbooks, but professional development for teachers who were never trained to teach skills should be available for those who need it.