"Re–form" in Math Education and How It Affects Your Child

I started teaching in Los Angeles schools in 1974. 33 years and countless “reform” movements later, mathematics education has been “re-formed” into a disaster of epic proportions. The past 50 years have seen rise and decline of Traditional Math, New Math, Back–to–Basics, and Constructivist Math (not to be confused with "Constructive Math").

Thousands of students in Los Angeles City Schools, and thousands more in schools around the country, will not get a high school diploma because they have not passed first year, college–prep Algebra.

Why? Because as Supt. Roy Romer says, “I think it is the cumulative failure of our ability to teach math adequately in the public school system.” He is right. It is the failure to ensure that students acquire number sense in the elementary grades and solid pre–algebra skills in middle school, together with the fact that students are year–after–year put in classes for which they do not have the prerequisite knowledge for success. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that more than half of the students taking Algebra Fail or get a D.

Until these three things, acquisition of number sense, pre–algebra preparation, and class placement, are properly addressed, all attempts at “reform” will continue to be no more fruitful than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.