THE CRISES IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION Testimony Before the Committee Sub-Committee on Education, Arts, and Humanities By, Stephen S. Willoughby President, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Demands of an increasingly technological society for a quantitatively literate population are great and growing. The main roadblock to providing mathematically competent future citizens is an insufficient number and decreasing supply of qualified teachers of mathematics. "The common defense and general welfare of the United States" require a significant national commitment to education. According to one survey at the University of California, 92% of the women and 43% of the men in the freshman class had already disqualified themselves from three-quarters of the possible majors for lack of sufficient mathematics. A 1982 survey by the Center for Public Resources found that according to business representatives mathematics and science skills are below what are needed even in the less advanced jobs and in secretarial and supervisory positions. Facts of this sort have already influenced state and local education authorities to increase the requirements in mathematics, science, and computer science. Colleges and universities are raising their standards in mathematics and science for entry. But even without such requirements, high school students have begun to take more mathematics, science, and computer science because they correctly perceive these as the skills that will be needed in the world of the future. For the foreseeable future there will be a greater demand for, than supply of, people who can and will think quantitatively and make intelligent decisions regarding real-world situations involving number and space. The problem is serious, but the young people of the nation, with and without guidance from their elders, are beginning to rise to the challenge. Another problem that has been critical is rapidly becoming more critical as school students take more mathematics and computer science. With the exception of one or two years (1969-1970) there has been a documented shortage of qualified mathematics teachers for the past 40 years in this country. The shortage is rapidly getting worse. Some of the reasons include: 1) There has been a 77% decline in the number of secondary-level mathematics teachers prepared in the past ten years, and only about 55% of those prepared to teach mathematics actually enter the teaching profession. In Missouri, for example, the number of college graduates who could have been certified to teach mathematics from the class of 1973 was 443. In 1981 the figure was 95. In 1982 it was 57. 2) Almost five time more mathematics and science teachers left the profession for nonteaching jobs than left for retirement in 1980, and the demands of industry and government for more mathematically trained individuals are increasing. 3) The demands for computer courses in schools are being met primarily through the efforts of mathematics teachers who are then available to teach fewer mathematics courses. 4) The supply of competent women who were willing to work as underpaid and undervalued teachers has been reduced as society has begun to correct the historical inequities in professional opportunities for women and men. Perhaps the most surprising fact about the situation is that there are so many dedicated, well-qualified teachers still teaching in this country. Teaching is certainly the most important and difficult profession known to the human race. Our destiny is dependent upon the minds of our future citizens. The human mind is the most complex and remarkable thing on the face of the earth by comparison the most advanced computers look like oversized Tinkertoys. Yet, we have entrusted those minds to the members of one of our most underpaid, overworked, and undervalued professions. It is amazing that anybody who is competent to do the job is willing to do it. Somebody once remarked, correctly, that any competent teacher who continues to teach is truly committed · or truly ought to be. -- In spite of the fact that there are many dedicated, competent teachers in the schools of the nation, there are not nearly enough - especially in the areas of mathematics and the physical sciences (physics and chemistry). Although there appear to be live bodies in front of most mathematics classrooms in the country, those who are teaching are often grossly underprepared. Last year 50.2% of the newly hired science and mathematics teachers were judged unqualified by the principals who hired them. And, a principal ordinarily considers a teacher qualified if the teacher meets state certification requirements. In many states, a reasonably imaginative prospective teacher can be certified to teach mathematics with far less than adequate preparation. For example, I know one young man who received certification to teach mathematics in New York even though he had failed the Regents' Examination in tenth-grade geometry on five separate occasions and had never passed either geometry or any more advanced mathematics course. The lack of enough qualified mathematics teachers is unfortunate for the many students who will have to learn mathematics without adequate instruction. If they fail to learn, understand, and appreciate mathematics, it will forever prevent them from understanding and dealing with the world as well as they might have. Beyond that, their options for pursuing future education and for fulfilling their occupational goals will be severely limited. Because of the needs of individuals, local and state school authorities have an obligation to do everything in their power to provide adequate teachers and an adequate education for all children in every school in their jurisdictions. Unfortunately, local voters are aware of the great mobility of the modern American family (40 million Americans almost one-fifth of the population move every year), so they are often unwilling to provide the tax revenues with which to give a quality education to a child who will probably become a citizen of, and be employed in, another community. Thus, what was once a local responsibility for education ought now to be shared by the federal government. Beyond the natural interest of each individual in acquiring an adequate education the nation has a vested interest in the education of every citizen. The rights and duties of citizenship require an educated citizenry, and in an increasingly technological society, that education must include mathematical and scientific reasoning. If the future problems of the nation and the world are to be solved, they will be solved by citizens and scientists with a better mathematical education than is commonly available today. The economic future of each nation is becoming more dependent upon the mathematical and scientific education of its citizens a fact that has been recognized and acted upon by our major economic competitors. Finally, the very defense of the nation is now dependent upon the education of our citizens. Two hundred years ago when the nation was defended with musket and cannon, and armies traveled on foot or horseback a higher education was of little need to the defenders of our country. Today we find that army recruits do not know enough mathematics to understand the manuals written to help them run the sophisticated military equipment on which the nation is investing so much. Congress has the power and obligation to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Today, that power and that obligation require Congress to act to assure the adequate education of the children of the United States. Many short-term solutions to the crisis in mathematics and science education have been proposed, and some are being tried by state and local education officials. These include salary differentials based on shortage, loans for prospective teachers in shortage areas with forgiveness of parts of the loans for each year of teaching, improved conditions (increased planning time, reduced nonprofessional work such as supervising study halls and lunch rooms, more support for attendance at professional meetings and for graduate work, etc.), and encouraging industries to hire mathematics and science teachers during the summer to enhance their incomes and their knowledge of how their subjects are used in industry. If sufficient resources were poured into solutions of this sort, there would certainly be an effect. Insofar as salary supplements are offered by one state or locality, those supplements are likely to produce a reallocation of mathematics and science teachers but will probably not substantially increase the number of such teachers in the nation as a whole unless the supplements are of the order of magnitude of $10,000 per year or more, since that is what would be required to compete with salaries offered to the same people in industry. The problem with such additional support for teachers of shortage subjects is the pernicious notion that might be fostered that those teachers are somehow better or more important than the teachers of other subjects the only justification for such supplements would, of course, be the law of supply and demand. Another short term "solution" to the problem that holds little promise of success is recertifying teachers of other subjects to teach mathematics and science. This practice tends to lower standards. Teachers whose livelihood depends upon their changing subjects usually meet the absolute minimum state requirements for certification, are often not interested in the subject to which they were forced to switch, and may be expected to simply bide their time until they have enough seniority to go back to teaching the subject that was their first love. If we are to solve the long-term crisis facing the nation in education, the Congress and the President must take seriously the charge to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." And, they must realize that the long-range defense and general welfare of the nation are more dependent on the education of our youth than on development or deployment of particular technological innovations. With a federal budget in excess of 700 billion dollars, there has to be room for a few billion dollars to improve the education of our children and thus insure the future defense and economic welfare of the nation. |