The Economist November 6th 2021 21
United StatesAmericancompetitiveness
The maths wars
A
merica hasa maths problem. Its pu-
pils have ranked poorly in internation-
al maths exams for decades. In 2018, Amer-
ican 15-year-olds ranked 25th in the oecd, a
club of mostly rich countries. American
adults ranked fourth-from-last in numera-
cy when compared with other rich coun-
tries. As many as 30% of American adults
are comfortable only with simple maths:
basic arithmetic, counting, sorting and
similar tasks. American employers are des-
perate for science, technology, engineering
and mathematics skills: nuclear engi-
neers, software developers and machinists
are in short supply. And while pupils’
maths scores are bad enough now, they
could be getting worse. On the National As-
sessment of Educational Progress (naep), a
national exam, 13-year-old pupils’ scores
dropped five points in 2020 compared with
their peers’ in 2012. The status quo does not
add up. But teachers and academics cannot
agree on where to go next.
The American maths problem is over a
century old, says Alan Schoenfeld of the
University of California, Berkeley. In 1890
high school was an elite endeavour: less
than 7% of 14-year-olds were enrolled and
they were educated in rigorous maths. By
the beginning of the second world war, by
which time army recruits had to be trained
in the maths needed for basic bookkeeping
and gunnery, nearly three-quarters of chil-
dren aged 14-17 attended high school. The
cold war sparked a second strategic maths
panic in the 1950s. A new maths curricu-
lum, focused on conceptual understand-
ing rather than rote memorising, was de-
veloped after the launch of the Sputnik sat-
ellite by the Soviet Union. Then that new
curriculum was rejected in a move back to
basics in the 1970s.
Maths teaching became a worry againwhen America started to fear being over-
taken by Japan. In 1981 the secretary of edu-
cation appointed a commission to evaluate
the curriculum. It produced a report called
“A Nation at Risk”. “If an unfriendly foreign
power had attempted to impose on Ameri-
ca the mediocre educational performance
that exists today,” the report reported, “we
might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
Since the 1990s, though, maths has be-
come more political. Conservatives typi-
cally campaign for classical maths: a focus
on algorithms (a set of rules to be fol-
lowed), memorising (of times tables and
algorithmic processes) and teacher-led in-
struction. Pupils in these classrooms focus
on the basics, exploring concepts after ob-
taining traditional skills, explains Bill Ev-
ers of the Independent Institute, a think-
tank in Oakland. These methods are famil-
iar to many. For two-digit addition, pupils
would be taught a paper-and-pencil meth-
od. Add 27 + 45 by stacking 27 over 45. Add
up the right column (7 + 5 = 12). Write down
the 2, and carry the 1 to the left column. Add
up the left column (1 + 2 + 4 = 7). Write down
the 7. The answer is 72.
Progressives typically favour a concep-
tual approach to maths based on problem-
solving and gaining number-sense, with
less emphasis on algorithms and memo-
rising. In contrast to the conservative strat-
egy, pupils would learn several ways to
solve a problem, by using objects and by
other means, before learning algorithms.
To solve 27 + 45, pupils could add up the
digits in the ones place (7+5=12), and thenWASHINGTON, DC
How teaching times tables became another victim of America’s political divide
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