Dive Brief:

• Andrew Hacker, author of “The Math Myth,” argues schools are forcing students to take more math than they need to succeed in college and the workplace, and they’re focusing on the wrong kind of math.
• PBS Newshour reports Hacker calls it a myth that students need algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus when 5% of people, at most, use advanced math in their work.
• He advocates, instead, for a numeracy education option that would arm students with the ability to read corporate reports and understand the federal budget — skills that need “adult arithmetic” and not necessarily algebra or trig. 

Dive Insight:

Student success in math is correlated to overall success in school. Students who fail ninth grade algebra are more likely to drop out than their peers who fail other courses in their first year of high school. Colleges, too, are rethinking math instruction as they struggle to coach up students who arrive on campus without the skills for college-level math courses. Instead of preparing everyone for calculus, some schools are tracking math based on student degree goals. For many students, a statistics class may be more manageable and also more helpful to them.

Bob Goodman, executive director of the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning, developed an algebra-based physics course for ninth graders at the technical school where he worked. The students needed to improve their math skills and he figured physics projects would be a more interesting way to do it. He was right. Students filled gaps in their math knowledge and signed up in far higher numbers for the AP Physics course that followed.

Recommended Reading

PBS Newshour: Thinking about math in terms of literacy, not levels