Who Needs Math Anyway?

I ran across what I found to be a interesting article not just on math curriculum, but on the problem of nationalized standards. With the recent passage of the Keystone Exams, this might be a glimpse into our future.

Please see the article titled "Who Needs Mathematicians for Math Anyway" from the City Journal published by the Manhattan Institute.

Here is a quick excerpt that should catch your attention:

As part of his education-reform plan, President Obama wants to “make math and science education a top priority” and ensure that children have access to strong math and science curricula “at all grade levels.” But the president’s worthy aims won’t be reached so long as assessment experts, technology salesmen, and math educators—the professors, usually with education degrees, who teach prospective teachers of math from K–12—dominate the development of the content of school curricula and determine the pedagogy used, into which they’ve brought theories lacking any evidence of success and that emphasize political and social ends, not mastery of mathematics.

Understand that this is not a hit-piece on Obama, the author is simply critical of a process that was started before the current administration was in place. The article takes a general look at some of the current curriculum out there and how it came to pass. She suggests that a study done by the National Council of Teacher's of Mathematics in 1989 was influential in "dumbing down" math curriculum across the country by putting social goals above academic ones.

I am not claiming the article is right, but it is most definitely worth a read. I am still digesting some of the ideas and wondering if what the author suggests is actually happening and whether it did happen in Pennsylvania. For me, the article begs the question of whether or not our educational system has been taken over by bureaucrats and, if so, whether or not that has led to the overall decline of the US student achievement when compared to the rest of the world (another topic the article addresses briefly).

Regardless, the articles at the Manhattan Institute have earned a bookmark from me.

Thanks for reading.

James