The Problem:

The National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions cites the following statistics:

• Only 40% of American workers have the technical skills and understanding required by employers.
  
• U.S. Business spends $62 billion per year to upgrade basic skills.
  
• American 12th graders ranked near the bottom of 21 nations participating in the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey.
  
• Congress has been forced to raise the ceiling on H1-B visas to allow skilled foreign workers to fill critical high tech jobs in the United States.
  
• The U.S. faces a critical and worsening shortage of qualified science, mathematics and technology teachers.
  
• All Americans need and deserve to receive the best possible education in mathematics, science, and technology for their personal and civic lives.

In addition to these facts, the majority of Ph.D.’s in mathematics from American universities go to non-Americans.

North Carolina is ahead of some other states. We have the NC School of Science and Mathematics, Summer Ventures, a strong University system, a strong community college system, the North Carolina Science and Mathematics Education Network and other institutes to improve math education.

According to the Council of Chief State School Officers, North Carolina high school students are taking more high-level math courses than students in other states.

However, because of increased math enrollments coupled with increasing population, there will be an increasing demand for skilled math teachers at middle schools and high schools. I am aware that NC Teach is trying to address this issue.

It is imperative that as we ask more of students and teachers, we provide support for students and teachers so that they will continue to succeed. In addition, parents who may not have seen or mastered the math material their children are bringing home cannot help their children. To where can they turn? Parents of children interested in math also want to know what they can do to encourage their child’s interest. To where can they turn?

Our culture expects everyone to read. We swim in a sea of words every day – from traffic signs to novels, from directions for assembly to newspapers. To assist adults who have slipped between the cracks, we have literacy councils all across North Carolina. On the other hand, our culture tolerates a lack of simple math skills, reading a graph, estimating a probability, computing sales tax. With an increasingly technical economy we have to change the perception that math is for geeks. Without these skills we can not make heads or tails of many news articles, we can not determine which insurance plan offered to us by an employer is best for us, we can not determine the true cost of a loan. At work we cannot justify expenses for new project, we cannot follow technical instructions, we cannot compete against national schools systems that begin algebra in the 4th and 5th grade.

Even if an executive or a sales clerk or a secretary never uses methods from algebra or Calculus, mathematics teaches two fundamental skills. Executive function is a term from educational psychology referring to the cognitive process of planning, abstract thinking and rule acquisition. It is the ability to “think about thinking” and is a critical organizational skill that supports the ability to learn, manage time and set priorities. Math teaches executive function in spades. In algebra, a student learns to organize information, assess what is required and master the tools to carry out the required computation. In Calculus students learn break a problem in to small pieces, solve each piece separately and integrate the solutions into a solution of the whole. This method of analysis and synthesis is central to critical thinking.

The second thing math teaches when well taught is aesthetics. Mathematics, independent of any application, is beautiful. We need to appreciate beauty in our busy lives. This is why we buy paintings, wear nice clothes, stop to smell the roses. For those who are not afraid of math, there is beauty in reading about and doing mathematics, even simple recreational puzzles.