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The Fog of "Math Wars"
Categories: Education

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I'm not used to being a cheerleader for the Bush administration. But when I saw recently that the president had convened a National Math Panel (see below - Ed) to study, in part, the effectiveness of teaching kids so-called "constructivist" math, I stood up, put my hand over my heart and shouted, "Amen."

About six months ago, The New York Times published a fascinating article about a town of engineers and scientists in Penfield, N.Y., who were gradually waking up to the fact that their kids, educated in a constructivist or "inquiry" program, which emphasized pupils' 'constructing their own knowledge' rather than learning math formulas or computational rules, were unable, by junior high school, to make change at McDonald's or multiply two-digit numbers.

I came upon this article at precisely the time I was trying to get my own constructivist-schooled third-grader to stop adding and subtracting on her fingers, so I read it with great interest and dismay.

School officials in Penfield dismissed parents' complaints about the curriculum by saying that math scores had steadily increased since the late 1990's, when teaching constructivist math became the local norm. Yet there was evidence that this improvement had less to do with the school's instruction than the fact that parents were increasingly teaching their kids old-fashioned math methods themselves. Even the town math champion, who'd been paraded around as a poster boy for constructivist math when he'd become the top scorer on his high school math team and earned a perfect 5 on his advanced placement calculus exam, had, it turned out, been "covertly tutored" in traditional math by his parents.

"My whole experience in math the last few years has been a struggle against the (constructivist) program," he told the Times. "Whatever I've achieved, I've achieved in spite of it. Kids do not do better learning math themselves. There's a reason we go to school, which is that there's someone smarter than us with something to teach us."

I hear stories like this all the time in Washington, D.C., where the constructivist program Everyday Math - also known as Chicago math - is taught just about everywhere, and where old-fashioned strategies like flash cards and basic memorization are dismissively shrugged off as "drill and kill." As in Penfield, where hundreds of kids now are in remediation classes to learn basic computation, I see parents in D.C. routinely outsourcing their kids" basic math instruction either to tutors or to themselves.

This does not appear to bother those parents who have seemingly unlimited amounts of money or time. (I'll always remember the way a table of parents at a private school I once visited crowed, as a teacher walked by, "He's our favorite math teacher! He tutors all our kids!") But for parents who are already stretched and stressed, it feels deeply unfair. It's troubling, too, to watch kids walk away from the classroom experience with the belief that they themselves are deficient.

It would be wonderful to think that the Bush administration's new math initiative will put the needs of these kids center stage and take a truly judicious approach to figuring out how best to serve their needs. I fear, though, that much is working against that outcome. The debate over teaching math, already dubbed the "math wars" (for a one-sided sampling see this collection of articles) has quickly become ideological, as did the earlier debate over how best to teach reading (conservative phonics vs. progressive "whole language" learning). And that's a great pity, because politics have little in common with what works best for children in the classroom: flexibility and open-mindedness on the part of instructors, for starters.

There's much to recommend constructivist math - it's often fun, it keeps kids engaged and it allows them, when it works, to embark upon more intellectually challenging kinds of number problems than their grade level would normally permit. (In my daughter Julia's case, once we began to supplement the school's curriculum with flash cards and the "Multiplication Rock" CD, she began to find math "easy" and "fun.") But, like the whole language approach to reading, which can work miracles for some kids yet is nightmarish for others, constructivist math doesn't work for everyone - and, from what I've come to understand, it really shouldn't be taught in isolation to any child.

All kids, regardless of their individual strengths, weaknesses or styles, learning specialists say, need to be grounded in the basic building blocks of math and language skills before they can take the next great leap into creative thinking or abstract thought or more advanced mathematics. The best classrooms - the best teachers - mix their methods and present information to different students in different ways. In other words, teachers shouldn't be narrow-minded, and curricula shouldn't become dogma.

It takes money, though, to train or hire teachers who have the knowledge and know-how to tailor their teaching styles to students' individual learning needs. And it takes smaller class sizes than most schools can now afford. So far, neither of those costly realities has registered high on the president's list of educational priorities. No wonder critics of the Bush administration's attempt to take on this issue worry that this latest, and largest, staged battle in the math wars has been lost in advance.

That the administration has brought the long-simmering debate over constructivist math to the front burner of national consciousness is undoubtedly a good thing. But I predict that if this curricular issue immediately gets caught up in the battleground of left and right and becomes an either/or, standardized-test-defined, cost-efficiency issue, then the needs of our nations' kids are sure to be shunted out of the equation.

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Comments » This article is right on target and long overdue.

I teach Math at the high school level and it is virtually impossible to teach from an entirely constructivist point of view. Much of the curriculum is occupied with having students "discover" Math concepts/formulas without even the slightest notion about the underlying skill set necessary to approach these investigations into number. We have to pre-condition students, first, by teaching the necessary skills.

Comment by Nancy Keyser : June 2, 2006 @ 6:21 am

I'm a high school math teacher in NorCal. Three years ago I taught Geometry from a constructivist textbook such as you describe. It is called either Discovering Geometry or Discovery Geometry (I lean toward the former). I liked the text and really think very highly of it.

Of the California high school districts that I have taught in the past several years, three of them (geographical moves), none has had this dedication to constructivist math.

California has its standards that pretty much guide what results you have to get. There is no room for exploring the whole year, waiting for kids to discover it all on their own. So, while I do not support the heavy emphasis on standards that we have, I can say it is an excellent prophylactic for the kind of thing you write about in the article.

From another standpoint, examine the purpose of constructivist math. The purpose is to develop independent thinkers. Force-feeding what kids think of as meaningless learning ("when are we ever going to use this?" - the answer is about 90% of the time: never, directly (I'm a big proponent of studying math for the side-effects &development of analysis, synthesis, abtraction, deduction and metacognition). Anyway, using the 'idea' behind constructivist math without sacrificing the learning of any of the content can be done. I know, it was accomplished very well, with ample and good comparison to texts and methods that were not constructivist at all.

In conclusion, while you may be on to something that I know very little about and is more prevalent in eastern US schools, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. It is absolutely a good thing to get kids to discover principle of math before you have to tell them. It does develop independent thinkers, and it in no way implies leaving out any learning. It's in how you do it.

Comment by Ray Teurfs : June 2, 2006 @ 6:28 am

The column of 6/2/06 on constructivist math is well-written and helps explain what I am hearing from some neighborhood parents and/or grandparents. The need for math skills and "fluency" is so great for children and so vital for future opportunities and success that I hope many educators read this and examine what is happening in their own schools.

Comment by Jan Bone : June 2, 2006 @ 6:46 am

I hadn't heard of constructivist math & but it sounds much like the fad that swept public schools when my (now) teenage kids were in English classes. The teachers didn't want to teach pronunciation or spelling & just let them figure it out on their own. Two things strike me as common problems between then (with English skills) and now (with Math skills). Why is it that educators continually think they have to re-invent education? Are brains and the learning process really that different? Why is it that what worked in education 20 years ago (or 50 years ago) continually dismissed as ineffective? I think that's a major failing of the education system. And the other point & so many of these "new methods," seem to result in less actual instruction in the classroom, less grading of homework, and less work by teachers. Hmm, wonder if that's the real goal of these "new methods?"

Comment by John : June 2, 2006 @ 7:04 am

Thank you, thank you! My daughter was caught up in constuctionist algebra in the 7th grade and we had to intervene. As soon as she was put into a class teaching basic rules of math and algebra, she thrived again. Your editorial is wise and essential. Education must be results-oriented instead of, as is sadly often the case, driven by ideology. Bravo. Barbara Siegman

Comment by Barbara Siegman : June 2, 2006 @ 7:07 am

False dichotomies do not make for fruitful school talk. Just like those who posit any other either/or choice - war, no war; English, Spanish; mandates, options - those who pose "constructivist" vs conservative are more foolish than either poll. Hence Bush blows it by joining a side in a fight that ignores both children, how they learn, and how they can be taught. You do a disservice when taking sides where no side is "right."

You do an even greater disservice by ignoring some critical research, and a whole literature of fascinating new "new math" literature that puts both sides of this debate in a very new and very critical light. Check out this link. The early algebra "movement" - which is smaller than any you report, and smarter than all you imply - builds very math concepts in very early grades, and simplifies the sequencing of "basics" in ways ignored by both "sides" of the false dichotomy you present as valid.

Kids learn their world from adults. They are best taught a real world where adults do not always agree. They WILL figure it out, and teachers, parents, and editorial reporters are best advised to present the most sophisticated stuff to all kids at any time they can make sense of it. When teachers or parents or older kids say "learn the basics first," they ignore the real learning capacity of smart (not necessarily 'gifted') people of any age to build knowledge from their experience and from how they experience others. That once was the core of "constructivism," as it was before of "discovery method," and creative teaching going back to Pythagoras. Joining or enjoining any side to this debate only blows smog on the delight young children find in discovering more than one way to get that right answer, and even more than two ways to prove how right right can be.

Bush is as dumb about math as he is about war, the economy, human rights and evolution. Remarkable how his random idiocy captures people who don't like their own teachers or don't talk with their own kids.

Comment by Joe Beckmann : June 2, 2006 @ 7:09 am

Total agreement!!!

My eleven year old daughter has a bright active and extremely quick mind. However, she cannot easily perform simple math in her head. I am constantly floored by this and have always blamed the school's anti-intuitive and frankly, ridiculous math program.."everyday math."

First of all show are you going to learn even concepts when they are thrown at you in bits and pieces.

Secondly, calculators??? calculators??? I thought students were learning math & typing!

I don't mean to laud myself, but I find that a few minutes of my instruction can give her a clearer understanding of math than she had after a month of "everyday math."

I'm angry.

Comment by rini : June 2, 2006 @ 7:15 am

One of the more frustrating aspects of the teacher certification program I experienced (and there were many), was the disconnect between the way I was being taught to teach in my courses (constructivism) and the way my mentor teachers, graduates of the same program, taught in the classroom ("We don't use those methods in real life", I was told.) While constructivist methods are exciting and, yes, effective, when used by brilliant professors, they are not easily reproducible by the mass of ordinary, every day teachers.

By the time I finished my program, I felt inadequetely prepared to teach either in the constructivist mode (which is unsupported in real classrooms) or traditionalist mode (where I relied on dim memories of my own childhood instruction). I really think the problem lies in the disconnect between academic research and development of teaching methods in real classroom. My advice to parents: yes, definitely supplement teaching at home.

Comment by Amy Billings " June 2, 2006 @ 7:26 am

I graduated in the 1971 class from Penfield. The problem started in the 60's US-wide when "new math" and "new English" were introduced. In my career as a patent attorney (biochemistry) I can tell a person's age by their ability to write properly and do basic math (those 58 and over are much better). I have lived in Japan more recently, have 3 Japanese children and have found that by sixth grade, US math is at least a year behind the world, and by the end of high school, there is no comparison. My engineering patent attorney friends have their children tutured in math or put their kids in good quality private school for this reason. America will not compete again in engineering until we remove the technology adverse administrators from education. This is more true now because the overseas trained math and engineers who built our engineering companies are going back to Ireland, China, India etc. The brain drain has reversed following 9/11. This article is entirely correct and I hope that those in Penfield and other districts can remove the public servants responsiblle for this tragedy.

Comment by Marvin Motsenbocker : June 2, 2006 @ 7:40 am

I taught high school mathematics for 34 years before retiring in 1999. Since then, I have observed a deterioration in the teaching of mathematics in NYS, largely due to the style of the curriculum and testing. When the SED changed the math curriculum from Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry to Course I, II, and III, it seriously weakened math education. But when it changed from that to Math A and Math B, all mastery of skills went out the window.I fear now that even many of our teachers don't have a really solid background in mathematics. Learning mathematics must be approached with rigor and teaching for mastery of theoretical math as well as basic skills is important to the development of a generation of "mathematicians." Sometimes "new" is not necessarily better.

Comment by Karen L. Larson : June 2, 2006 @ 7:40 am

Wake up, Judy. The National Reading Panel is in the pockets of the large publishing companies. With the NRP stamp of approval on phonemic awareness, schools now spend billions of wasted dollars on workbooks that supposed teach students to understand that some words rhyme. Early childhood teachers have been teaching children about rhymes for 100 years without the workbooks. The same will happen in math. the panel will pinpoint the problem in the early childhood years and publishing companies will be able to sell billions of dollars of new workbooks. This is a right wing scam and you should be able to see through it.

Comment by Al Frager : June 2, 2006 @ 7:41 am

I've often wondered why educators seem to think that practicing a skill is not valuable. I've heard that "drill and kill" phrase countless times. Nobody would suggest that basketball players could learn to shoot free throws without practicing. Musicians spend hours each day practicing even just the scales! Why do we think academic skills can be learned without any practice?

Comment by Heather Hall : June 2, 2006 @ 7:53 am

As a student, I struggled with math. I hated it, I didn't understand it, and would cry over my math homework. Now, I am a veterinarian who can do math with ease in my head. How? As a highschooler, I attended SummerMath at Mount Holyoke and it changed my life. I had been drilled in math and memorized formulas. But at Mount Holyoke, I spent a summer understanding and explaining what I was doing when I did math problems.

What lead to my math problems? Several things I think. Terrible math teachers in parochial school didn't help. Sexist, intimidating math teachers in public school made the problem worse. But then, at Mt Holyoke, I learned that there need not be emotion in math, and that numbers can obey orders if you give them the right ones. And it makes sense.

So I Judith is right, kids need a mixed approach. Now, I am so comfortable with math, I tutor high school girls in algebra. And we start with the basics. We drill, but we don't kill. We drill and explain. And it works. The girls gain confidence and know that they can do math in the real world.

Comment by Michele : June 2, 2006 @ 8:25 am

As a third grade teacher I've found that the two approaches work together pretty well. Those Marilyn Burns activities are indeed often fun and do help illustrate some basic concepts. So they serve well as ways to open a unit on, say, multiplication. But then you put the beans and the pennies and the glue bottles away for a while and you just study the times tables. When the kids have the skills learned reasonably well, then you pull out some more of the constructivist activities to illustrate the problem solving applications. This of course is not exactly how my district wants me to do it, but fortunately at my school we're not that dogmatic. Combining constructivist and traditional math works quite well and keeps children interested, the parents comforted, and the test scores high.

Comment by John Bassett : June 2, 2006 @ 8:47 am

I am a high school science teacher and have been trained in a progressive, liberal tradition that emphasizes constructivist methods such as inquiry. Throughout my career, I agreed with your position that such methods are useful only after a foundation of skills and knowledge has been established. It is a relief to hear someone affirm this position, despite the armies of adminstrators who feel obligated to hitch their students' futures onto the "next new thing" of curriculum reform. Yes, truly "differentiated" instruction is difficult in large classrooms.

I deeply enjoy the variation that progressive methods introduce into a classroom, when appropriate to the specific students and situation. However, my students know if a teaching method lacks substance. In these cases, the charisma of the teacher is the most significant benefit they can take away from entirely inquiry based classrooms. Selling every student on the value and excitement in learning science and math is our bigget challenge today.

Comment by Matthew Cinelli : June 2, 2006 @ 9:15 am

I'm a 2nd-year HS Math teacher, having just completed the NYC Teaching Fellows program. As you might imagine, we discussed the pros and cons of drill and kill vs. constructivist (which, BTW, is a completely false dichotomy!) and I wrestle with the problem of how best to teach math on a daily basis.

The pro side of constructivist math is essentially this: in exploring rich problems deeply, students are more likely to become curious about the underpinnings of the mathematical tools and techniques that the problems require for exploration. Also, the awareness that the "right answer" is dependent on the context and purpose of the exploration is a deep insight and (hopefully) engages students at a higher level of thinking. Sometimes using 1.14 for the square root of 2 is great, sometimes it's not.

As a math teacher, I'm desperate for ANYTHING that will ramp up the level of student engagement and which will make math a subject that students feel curious about. Likewise, I think it's important that students meet math as a subject they CAN learn and enjoy, not as a hurdle to get over. Sometimes constructivist curricula meet this need.

Where we are all worried is in the area of academic rigor. Ther is surely a substantial mathematical canon, built up and validated over centuries. "Are we able to teach it to students today?" is the tough question.

Comment by J Epstein : June 2, 2006 @ 9:18 am

If the students coming out of India, Korea, and China are as great at math and science as they are reported to be, wouldn't it be worthwhile to look at their curriculum? And I suspect that their math classes are being taught using rote memorization - this method may not be the most fun, or it may not inspire mathematical creativity (as in, attacking a math problem sideways), but I think this method may be the most efficient and practical for the largest number of people.

Comment by EG : June 2, 2006 @ 9:22 am

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called "Profession", about a future in which education consists in downloading knowledge into a child's mind - an extreme version of drill & kill, if you want. The story is about a boy who does not pass the test required to have such an education, and has to learn in the old-fashioned way - by discovering things from books. It may give away the ending to say that this is an extreme version of a constructivist education, but I would suggest "Profession", in the collection "Nine Tomorrows", to anyone interested in the math wars. The characters may be flat as in much of sci fi, but no one who read the story has forgotten it.

While going through a scientific education in college and graduate school, I imagined that the education scientists had more sophisticated things to say about teaching mathematics than Asimov. Now I am not so sure. Some thirty years after reading his short story, and with kids of my own in elementary school, I think I would like to go the local public library and reread Asimov before the next meeting of school officials with parents to discuss the mathematics program review and selection of instructional materials.

Comment by Felipe Pait : June 2, 2006 @ 9:28 am

Thank you for this article; this is a discussion that the nation's educator's and parent's have needed to have for some time now. I used Everyday Math for the first time this last year with my fourth graders. While some of the activities were great ways to teach new concepts, some of the most fundamental skills in math were briefly introduced. Shortly thereafter, and well before my students had come anywhere close to mastering the skills, we pressed on to new concepts and skills. I found myself having to slow down to try to reinforce basic facts, 2×2 mult.and division algorithm, etc. Consequently, I was always behind. In the end, I think the program leaves a lot to be desired.

Comment by Rick Nichols : June 2, 2006 @ 9:42 am

Thanks for the article - it rings of truth. My daughter, long ago, was in the "phonetics" approach to learning to write- kids didn't have to learn how to spell; they wrote what they heard. The idea was that correct spelling would come to them later. For her, it did. I would guess that, overall, this "innovative teaching method" had about the same rate of success and failure as the more traditional method it was supposed to replace. But it was sold as a magic bullet: all students would become fluent and articulate in their writing. Fortunately, it has turned out to be a fad.

One of the comments above points the finger at publishing companies as the secret conspirators in new educational ideas. They certainly benefit from these new opportunities. I see their strategies at work in my community college English teaching.

But, on the positive side, there is also a natural tendency to want to do things better - teachers are always trying to improve their classes. New ideas also come from the pedagogical theorists, whose theories can be based on their immediate classroom situations (at very good colleges and universities) but not work equally well elsewhere, or without their own personal touch. Yet, the ideas are handed down as the new magic bullet, and a new fad spreads. Sometimes they're great; other times, only so-so. Meanwhile, it is true, publishers fan the fire.

Fortunately, many other factors are involved in learning success at all levels: parents' interest in their kids' education, parents' reading to their kids and showing that they themselves value education, parents' modeling behavior that is not entirely television or iPod or cell-phone based, parents' reinforcing teachers as necessary and appropriate. Then there are the social factors: what a kid's peers are doing, which is influenced by their backgrounds and values; what kids learn from advertisements and the media. Even the best teaching methods are competing against many uncontrollable and unpredictable influences.

Unfortunately, there will never be a magic bullet - for many, many reasons not all kids will be equally interested or successful in school. We should accept that and encourage them to be successful in other endeavors as well.

Comment by Harry Smallenburg : June 2, 2006 @ 9:51 am

I'm a Ph.D. mathematician, I previously taught college mathematics for 5 years, and now I'm in industry. Obviously I use lots of mathematics on a daily basis, and you could say that in my professional research, I am doing the same kind of discovery and exploration that the "constructivist" math programs hope the students will achieve.

However, in order to explore and "discover" mathematics, you FIRST have to be very well-grounded in the basic skills. Only though practice and proficiency in the basic skills can you start to see the deeper patterns and start to branch out beyond what you have been taught. Trying to discover from the very beginning is like trying to fly a modern jet airplane when you've never even seen one before.

Comment by Nick C : June 2, 2006 @ 10:08 am

I think your most important point is the need for flexibility rather than adherence to one dogma or another. My two older children are exact opposites in their academic abilities: my daughter, in 7th grade, does well in math only if she is taught clear rules and drilled constantly. While not brilliant at math, if she drills enough, she is a B+ student. Without enough drilling, she falls to a C or below. My son, on the other hand, is a natural mathmetician, who figured out negative numbers at age five, fraction at age 6, and now in second grade is moving on to algebra. He thinks in an entirely different way than most of us, and the rules he is taught in school often confuse him. I am sure that the constructivist approach would suit him, but would destroy my daughter's chances of ever understanding math

Comment by Gigi Strom : June 2, 2006 @ 10:34 am

For so long, we taught subjects to children in the way that was most accessible to people who are fluent in those subjects. As a result, kids who were bright (but for whom a basic subject like Math or Language/Reading was not their particular forte) missed out on successfully grasping the essential concepts in these areas. The result was that they often spent the rest of their lives either struggling with the subject that came to them less easily, or worse, abandoning their efforts in it altogether. We all know people who as adults proclaim "I never did well in math" or " I have a math disability", when in fact it was probably the WAY they were taught the subject in the first place. The sad thing is, these folks often missed out on careers that required a demonstrated level of competence in higher math, including life sciences, medicine, architecture, etc., even though they were perfectly talented or qualified in all other areas.

In the field of the Teaching of Reading, as our understanding of individuality has increased, we have adapted new ways of helping kids match their styles/strengths with learning how to read, and we have had some excellent results. The recognition that many kids have different visual and auditory processing styles that may interfere with traditional reading instruction has meant that thousands of kids who would have once been labeled as slow or reading disabled are now fluent and confident readers.

Why not do the same for math? Why must we always try to come up with a one size fits all approach in this country? Kids who are not natural "math wonders" often can be very competent in math if taught in a way that is in tune with the way they process information and learning. For example, my 10 year old daughter was struggling with "everyday math/non-flash card use" approaches to learning her multiplication tables. I remembered the way that I learned these skills: drills, drills, writing and more drills, utilizing an almost sing-songy repitition of the facts in my head as I repeated the drills. As a result, multiplication facts are literally an auditory memory for me that I recall quickly by repeating the numbers like the first few 'notes' in a song or a poem. This is what it took for her, a kid a lot like her mom with big strengths in the language areas to learn her multiplication tables.

I saw my older son struggle with Algebra II in high school to the point he was not going to graduate because he still had not passed it by 12th grade. When he asked his teacher for help on the problems, the teacher would say "here's the answer, now go figure out how to get it", which was ridiculous because my son didn't have the skills to get the answer in the first place!
It wasn't until we enrolled him in an online high school course that taught the facts he lacked that he finally passed this idiots math class with a D, but he passed.

Comment by L. Greene : June 2, 2006 @ 10:41 am

NATIONAL DESK
Former University President Will Lead U.S. Math Panel
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO (NYT) Published: May 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, May 14 - The Bush administration has named a former president of the University of Texas at Austin to lead a national panel to weigh in on the math wars playing out across the country. The politically fraught battle pits a more free-form approach to teaching math against the traditional method that emphasizes rules and formulas to solve number problems.
The former president, Larry R. Faulkner, who led the university from 1998 until early this year, will be chairman of the National Math Panel, which President Bush created by executive order in mid-April.

The panel is modeled on the National Reading Panel, which has been highly influential in promoting phonics and a back-to-basics approach to reading in classrooms around the nation. Though that panel has been criticized by English teachers and other educators, its report has become the guide by which $5 billion in federal grants to promote reading proficiency are being awarded.

The new panel reflects a growing concern by the Bush administration that the United States risks losing its competitive edge as other nations outpace its performance in math and science. Citing figures from a report by the National Academies in his State of the Union address in January, President Bush unveiled an American Competitiveness Initiative to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into research in the physical sciences, and some $250 million into improving math instruction in elementary and secondary schools.

The panel is to examine the numerous ways the nation's 15,000 school districts teach math, and to make recommendations intended to improve American achievement in math and get students to tackle more advanced math earlier.

While the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is often called 'the nation's report card,' shows American students making steady progress in math -- with fourth and eighth graders gaining an average of two grade levels in the subject over the last 16 years -- eighth graders fell behind countries like China, Singapore and Hungary on an important international competition in math and science.

Dr. Faulkner, a chemistry professor for 25 years, said he was not taking the post with a position on how math should be taught.

'When the administration approached me, they did so in the desire to have someone who is experienced with educational issues, but not an intellectual stakeholder in any aspect of this problem,' Dr. Faulkner said in a telephone interview. 'I see my role as that of a shepherd.'

The administration also named Camilla P. Benbow, dean at the Peabody College department of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University, as the panel's vice chairwoman. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is expected to announce the rest of the panel members on Monday at a national math and science summit for girls.

The conflict over how to teach reading -- whether by teaching children to recognize words in the context of stories or through more explicit instruction in letters and sounds -- has its parallels in the fight over how to teach math, and the conflicts share many of the same political and philosophical disputes.

In traditional math, children learn multiplication tables and specific techniques for calculating 25 x 25, for example. In so-called constructivist math, the process by which students explore the question can be more important than getting the right answer, and the early use of calculators is welcomed.

According to a 2005 study by ACT, the college entrance exam organization, only 40 percent of high school seniors were ready to take the most basic college-level algebra course.

The math panel is also charged with examining whether students can learn high-school-level math in earlier grades, as students in many Asian nations do. A study by the federal Education Department suggested that students who passed advanced algebra in high school had a better chance of graduating from college.

The panel is expected to hold four hearings around the country and to offer a preliminary report by the end of January and a final report in February 2008.

Much as the National Reading Panel was criticized as being stacked with supporters of the more traditional forms of reading instruction, some educators have expressed concern that the new math panel may be similarly structured.

'What is needed is not a panel which has been selected to ensure a majority position,' Solomon Garfunkel, executive director of the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications, wrote to Ms. Spellings.

'What is needed is honest, competent people who recognize the importance and difficulties in getting this right and who are willing to put aside preconceived notions and a specific political agenda,' wrote Mr. Garfunkel, whose consortium, a nonprofit organization, writes math curriculums and supports the constructivist approach.

Kevin Sullivan, a spokesman for the Education Department, said 'there's nothing preconceived' about the panel's outcome.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics set off much of the furor in the debate over math instruction when it issued new teaching standards in 1989. In 2000, the council modified its position to favor a middle ground in teaching that did not eschew the use of formulas for problem solving but said that students should also grasp the concepts.

'There has been real effort by various segments of the math community to find common ground,' said James M. Rubillo, the council's executive director. Mr. Rubillo said he had 'great hopes that this panel will honestly and openly find a path that will be helpful for the 15,000 school districts in this country that have to decide how to teach mathematics.'

A big part of the problem, regardless of the teaching method used, is the shortage of qualified math teachers. According to the report by the National Academies, 'The Gathering Storm,' 41 percent of eighth graders in 1999 were learning math from teachers who neither majored in math nor studied it for certification.

NYC Board of Education January 23, 2002 meeting at which TERC and constructivist MATH were funded for millions of taxpayer dollars.
See pp. 5-9

Editor's Note: In New York City, District 2, now inside Region 9, was the leader of the "fuzzy math takeover" of NYC Math education. Former Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina was the Principal of PS 6 in 1998 when she ended the Gifted and Talented Program at PS 6 saying "all children can learn". Farina then told all of her teachers that ONLY TERC could be taught, and set up, according to our sources, woefully inappropriate professional development courses that were supposed to teach teachers how to explain the constructivist approach. The training was not successful, and teachers urged parents to get outside tutors.

US Students Do Not Do Well at Any Age in Mathematics, A New Study Points Out

Students Against "Fuzzy" Math Start a Web Campaign Against Constructivism

Math Wars in America's Public Schools

Calculators in the Classroom?

Constructivism: Funderstanding

Wikipedia: Constructivism

Wikipedia: Constructivist (learning theory)

Concept To Classroom