What’s the problem?

2. Our major high tech industries including IBM, Intel, and TI have moved or are moving both their research and their manufacturing offshore • GM is in the process of cutting 30% of their workforce in North America and closing 12 plants • Ford Motor Co. is closing at least 10 plants and cutting more than 35,000 hourly jobs in North America – over 30% of their workforce

3. We cannot produce sufficient engineers and other high tech workers – NASA and the National Labs are not able to replace their aging top scientists and engineers, to say nothing of high tech industry’s hiring problems

4. What’s the problem? • Two thirds of the new jobs in this country require at least some college background, and one third require a college degree. • The greatest single predictor of success in college is highest level math course in high school

6. The root cause of our problem is the failure of mathematics education in K-12, particularly K-8

7. In Most High Achieving Foreign Countries Calculus is a High School Graduation Requirement And better than 90% of their populations graduate from high school

8. Ultimately, this failure is tied to the way we train our teachers in mathematics. • Different states have different requirements but most states only require one very weak course for elementary school certification • In CA they also have to pass an exam, the CBEST, where the average level of difficulty is between 4th and fifth grade, and the hardest problems are at seventh grade level.

9. Here is the Result

10. Problem from Current U.S. Text Aconcagua is 6962 meters high. Mount McKinley is 6194 meters high. Which will take longer to climb?

11. Problem From WA Practice Exit Exam 5 of first 8 were mathematically incorrect.

12. What’s wrong with patterns?

13. NAEP – The Nation’s Report Card • Last year, The Brookings Institute asked me to review the algebra questions on the NAEP • Of the 41 eighth grade NAEP algebra problems provided, 8 were incorrect and one was meaningless • Moreover about 10 of the correct problems were just questions about vocabulary, not mathematics

14. Of the 22 grade 4 questions provided, four were incorrect, four others were essentially vocabulary, only one could be judged mildly challenging at fourth grade level

15. From the NAEP

16. From NAEP

17. Now Let’s Look at the Mathematics that’s Taught in High Achieving Countries

18. First Grade Russia

19. First Grade: Russia: Rest of Lesson

20. A Third Grade Lesson from Singapore

21. A Problem From Russia: Grade 4 A lone goose was flying in the opposite direction from a gaggle of geese. He cried: “Hello, 100 geese!” The leader of the flock answered: “We aren’t 100! If you take twice our number and add half our number, and half of half of our number, and finally add you, the result is 100, but … well, you figure it out.” How many geese in the gaggle? 99/(11/4) = 36

22. Over the past 3 years two communities - math education, mathematics - have begun to cooperate at the national level to bring the strengths of international curricula to the United States The amount of common agreement between us is vast

23. Common Ground • With support from the business community, the NSF and the major mathematics associations a group of leading math educators and mathematicians met and carefully analyzed their perceptions and beliefs. • The resulting article indicated both that our differences are not as great as they are pictured, and our areas of agreement are very wide. • For example, among the things we agree about is that the majority of high school graduates should have some calculus in high school as is the case in the high achieving countries.

24. Notices of American Mathematics Society, Oct. 2005

30. There are Three Dimensions to the Problem • Standards • Curricula • Teacher Training

31. Our Various State Math Standards can be Characterized as • An Inch Deep and a Mile Wide • At each grade level there are a huge number of topics

32. The Count of Utah Math Standards

33. Of course, besides the depressing number of topics, there are also serious mathematical errors in the Utah Standards

36. The California Standards come in two flavors • General Standards – • Better than most, maybe a block wide • Green dot standards

40. And now we have the NCTM Focus Topics

41. And now we have the NCTM Focus Topics NCTM has just approved a sequence of focus topics, three per grade in grades Pre-K - 8, with the advice that at least 60% and preferably 80% of instruction be devoted to these topics

42. The Role of the Focus Topics • NCTM regards the Focus Topics as a description of the keys to an effective curriculum in mathematics. • The California Green Dot standards closely align with the Focus Topics.

43. Focus Topics – Numbers

44. Focus Topics Fractions

45. Focus Topics Fractions, Ratios

46. Focus Topics, Algebra, Data

47. It is Clear that we are Achieving Common Ground on Standards There are Differences in Grade Level but not in the view of what matters

48. There are Three Dimensions to the Problem • Standards • Curricula • Teacher Training

49. Here’s a 10th Grade Lesson from an NSF Funded High School Program Popular in Some States

50. IMP 2 Page 199