Good evening. Welcome to the National Museum of mathematics and a very special event. I think we are all delighted the museum is putting on this event tonight and even more delighted they are doing it with the support of the Mathematical Association of america helping out tonight. In particular, loaned us james tanton who i will introduce in a minute. My name is john ewing, i am president of math america. I am a mathematician. [applause] this was not meant to be an aa meeting by the way. Every professional mathematician those mathematicians and their subjects have a certain reputation. A worldfamous mathematician walking in the countryside one day comes upon a huge flock of sheep. Being a worldfamous mathematician goes up to the shepherd and makes a proposition. 100 against one of your sheep and i could tell you instantly how many sheep are in the flock. The shepherd, knowing there are an awful lot of sheep says okay, i will try it. The mathematician looks around and says there are 937 sheep in this flock. The shepherds is incredible that is absolutely incredible. The mathematician picked up an animal, throws it around his shoulder and begins to walk away. The shepherd runs after him, wait, he says, double or nothing. I can tell you exactly what your profession is. The mathematician thinks this is unlikely so he said go ahead. The shepherd says, you are a worldfamous mathematician. Incredible, says the mathematician. How could you possibly know . Well, says the shepherd, put down my dog and i will tell you. This reputation is not new. In 1914, william lewis, the principle of William Penn High School in philadelphia, wrote about democratizing education. He focused on High School Mathematics. My objection, he wrote, the traditional requirements in mathematics is largely empirical. I have seen so many people driven out of school by work which could not have any practical advantage to them. I have watched so many classes guessing under the caption of algebra that i have come to believe we ought to discriminate as carefully as possible between those pupils, and those who will find other work more profitable. 1914, and high schools, it has been debated for the past century. With an eye toward democratization and opportunities for students. Much longer than a century you might be unaware that arithmetic was not taught in elementary school, spelling, reading and writing constituted the curriculum at that time. Arithmetic was known as boulder, arithmetic was needed and when it was needed, it was learned in the job. By the early 20th century, part of the curriculum in every high school in the country. The Graduation Rate in 1900 is 80 and as Graduation Rates climbed over the coming decades the role of mathematics became a contentious issue almost everywhere. Mathematics was then, as it continues to be now, the most difficult subject. The debate culminated at the end of the 20th century was three provocative and exceptional as as by a mathematics professor at Depaul University with the titles why math . Is mathematics necessary, and what is mathematics for . To the dismay of many mathematicians he argues there were many good reasons to teach mathematics, but utility wasnt one of them. Almost all jobs, he wrote, require no knowledge about deborah and geometry at all. Were algebra necessary for 75 of all jobs, algebra textbooks would be filled with onthejob problems, examples would be so plentiful. This is clearly not the case. The Math Ministry by Andrew Hacker, is in many ways the child of this century long debate. As well as woody douglas essays. The two authors reached different conclusions. Is High School Mathematics serving society . What mathematics should be taught . And why should it be taught . These are hard questions and i believe finding answers to hard questions is best done in open and public discussions. Our two speakers are Andrew Hacker and james tanton. And reached the point Andrew Hacker is a professor at Queens College in new york where in addition to teaching Political Science he has taught an experimental course in mathematics, literacy, he was an undergraduate at Amherst College and received his phd from princeton university. He taught in cornell 1955 to 1970s and has been on the faculty of Queens College, is the author of ten books, a sample of the title suggests their reach. Two nations, black and white, separate, possible and unequal, the growing golf between women and men, Higher Education is the question here. How colleges are wasting our money and failing our kids and what we can do about it. In 2012, he published an oped, is algebra necessary, which led to his most recent book the math miss the math myth and other stem delusions setting the stage for tonights discussion. Whether or not you agree with the substance of the books i am sure you will all agree the titles are, every one of them, exceedingly clever. James tanton grew up in adelaide, australia. When he speaks tonight you may detect he is not a native of new york. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics, and in 1988 he received his phd in mathematics from princeton university. After teaching in st. Marys college in maryland, in exceptional liberal arts college, he followed his wife to boston where he turned to the general state of k12 mathematics. He found himself at a private school in southborough st. Marks, where he founded the st. Marks institute of mathematics. Then on to washington dc where he served as Mathematical Association of americas visiting mathematician and james consults the schools all across the globe on the teaching of middle school and High School Mathematics. Mathematics activities for student clubs, mathematics galore, and also the author of two wordless puzzle books, without words and more without words both of which are presently translated into serbia. And part of the global math project initiating fundamental change, how we receive and enjoy mathematics. It will be divided into six segments, two 15 minute presentations by each of our speakers, two, eight responses and questions and answers from the audience, and presumably followed by a short time to talk to speakers tonight. My job is to keep us on schedule and do so with ruthless resolve. I would like Andrew Hacker to begin tonights presentation. A pleasure to be here. Im not the only mathematician in the house. I will say at this point. To put you out of business. I think yours is a grand and glorious calling. There were total at last count, 217,584 teachers and mathematics in this country. A disturbing profession that has nothing to fear. I am a political scientist, to analyze particularly governmental, more particularly governmental policies which require everyone to do a certain thing. If you are going to drive a car you have to pass a test. To have a child, back there, the child has to be vaccinated. We understand that. What interested me as a political scientist is governmental policy we have which is every single young person in this country will be required, required to take a full sequence of mathematics starting with algebra, geometry, calculus and for many the ideal is to have everybody studying calculus. My simple reason for being here is summed up in one word. We have some visual aids here. I brought one of my own. Thank you. You may keep that up. We currently have another statistic. 4,000,016yearolds and the goal is to have everyone enrolled in algebra ii. We have coming up common core which is for everybody. They say career and College Ready but everybody has to pass the common core tests which are going to be conducted nationally and algebra ii is going to be. Third, we are going to be in for some problems. We already have them. Math requires takes a tremendous toll every year. We think in the United States very low among developed countries, about 20th out of 28. The number of young people who finish high school, our High School Dropout rate is 20 . One out of every 5 young people in the street failed to finish high school. A major academic reason for that is failing math class. Other reasons we dont keep exact figures on this until boulder, whose work you may know, included a majority of students eventually failed one or another math class. Is this because they are indolent . Because they are stupid . Or are we asking something of everyone that we really shouldnt in requiring universally . One out of 5 dont graduate from high school. Of those who graduate from high school and go on to college, 43 do not graduate. This is one of the highest College Dropout rates in the advanced world. We have more college per capita but fewer people finishing college. They require mathematics mathematically even if you major in poetry, modern dance, interior design, still have to pass and algebra test to get on board. We have a fantastic loss here, we are shooting those in the foot, people who receive all sorts of fields, not being allowed to proceed or even at the junior college. Someone who wants a certificate in cosmetology or Industrial Design or commercial arts, even say have to pass a math test and the attrition rate at Community College is savage. Something else too. We hear reports a year or so ago that 43 of people taking the college test are not College Ready. 43 take the college test are not College Ready. You know why . College ready requires advanced mathematics for everybody. Very Good Students in my College Class wont be there. My book is called the math myth and other stem delusions. More and more i study, the more i discover people who are entrenched, i will be kind, entrenched in a certain profession, occupation, vocation, will say anything to defend the status quo from which they benefit. This can be true of police officers. I discovered so much of what we are told about math is miss. There is a 62 figure, something called the american diploma project. And years ago this is certainly at most, 5 of occupations and i respect those, i went to marietta, georgia and and blown away by the way they use calculus to study the ice on wings. Fantastic things i learned about ice. Is different from ice elsewhere but you need mathematics. Wall street they use calculus all the time. They study payoffs and the rest, but not 62 . If we are talking in occupational terms, why the other 95 have it. I dont want to go too much into a story that we all know that there is a shortage of people with stem qualifications. People agree in stem subjects less than half, slightly more than a third are working in stem occupations. We are told we better watch out in a global competition, correia, china, singapore, far ahead of us in mathematics. Student score in the stratosphere in the International Math test. They score high because 23 hours a day, illness among young people in korea, leap deprivation, they worked 23 hours a day, if the international competitions, crossword puzzles, the chinese and koreans would score up there and a big challenge, if we worked 23 hours and i wouldnt advise that. And and sharpens your mind dealing with mathematic. And mastering mathematics makes you agile, adept, xl and other fields. And and took an introductory history course. And versus history, weighing evidence of that. The correlation is zero. To be high in math and history and math in another field, that is another myth. Certainly, not sure i want to call this a myth but there is the view for example, a mathematician i really respect, i keep his book on my bedside. Showing a layperson what it is. He believes mathematics is one of the greatest creations of the human mind, perhaps even the greatest. I will go along with that. I simply asked, by the way, is mathematics something we created or is it something we discovered . Could it be that mathematics is out there, created by nature, that she created the calculus, we, like isaac newton, had to discover it . Like pie. We didnt create pie. We had to find it and show how it is used. I would really love everybody to appreciate mathematics, its glory, its goals. It isnt done by making people polynomial year after year. I would love math teachers to treat mathematics as a liberal art. The beauty and poetry in mathematics. And it is objective which is to say there is one right answer, you dont have to worry about opinions, bias, things like that. There is Something Else going on. Mathematics has builtin biases not so much the subject but the way we assess it. I have a chapter in the book called general gaps in math. Girls and young women get higher grades in math courses than the guys do. They do. We have enough studies across the board to show that, girls get higher grades. When it comes to the tests, s a t, psat, common core, men are always ahead. I would ask as mathematicians to find some way of having tests, continue to test people, girls and young women a chance to show what they really know. For the past halfcentury girls have been . 30 behind boys on the sats. Did you know about that . One consequence is the National Merit scholarship. I went into this, the National Merit scholarships do not give a gender breakdown of their winners, they hide that information, 53 , a lot of numbers, 53 of people who enter the competition, boys get 53 or the same thing happens with common core. They get into Ivy League Schools, Ivy League Schools require 700 before we open the application. Two thirds of boys, as a result, yale for example, majority men. Girls are doing okay in classes but i need some advice to indicate what they know. Math requires 30 seconds more. My last comment here, do i propose to abolish algebra . I do want to see other alternatives instead of the full sequence for everybody from 10th grade to work that way, begin to offer options, what i teach, i teach a class in my math department, about citizen statistics how to read a corporate report and the federal budget doesnt require any man or adult arithmetic, we have to be ashamed of that. [applause] a treat to the nation. Thank you for raising this interest, a special concern, very much appreciate you bringing it to the world. It is vital that we reassess the state of math education. You point out in your book what is happening it is incumbent upon us to expand that growth and thank you for coming along for your interest in this topic for current matters and concerns. It is wonderful that we adults, parents are imperiled to check facts, and personally assess claims made in the media and internet in the conversation, brave enough to ask how we know what we know to general impressions. I pretty much enjoyed Andrew Hackers book and came away with an interpretation you might find surprising. Andrew hacker is arguing strongly for common core state standard mathematics. It is a deep concern about public perceptions, and in common core with mighty strong warnings how not to implement common core standards. Andrew hacker doesnt wanted to fall into old traps, formulate teaching and heavyhanded speed testing, mechanistic doing above number of facilities and literacy and above all a human discussion to be pushed, i couldnt agree more these are real concerns. Many proponents of common core feel the same way. Basing my discussion, a real pleasure to read, thank you. I would like to ask you to share my philosophy about teaching mathematics. I completely agree with Andrew Hacker that we strongly focus on a path, philosophy, and teaching math. And teaching the philosophy as a human story of mathematics but actually the context at that level, somewhat secondary. And using my research life. Upon that story, to do with that subject. I love the human story of how mankind battled quadratics over millennia to discover a link between geometry and the subject, success of completing square and teaching mathematics the High School Teacher got the mathematical story of the algebra each being a story of symmetry, Teaching High School students of the beauty and power of symmetry and so much beauty, what has been going on on that subject. The quadratic formula is irrelevant and secondary. The goal of education is to help people to see and consider and practice taking the road to the higher group, and consider the opportunity to analyze what you think you know. And be aware of great human achievement of mankind, work with shakespeare and drama and learn to appreciate intellectual accomplishments. High school is not about content. Every piece of High School Math whittled completely away if you are looking for utilitarian uses, when was the last time you did that in every day life . Or helped in a problem in life . It is all about teaching and encompassed thinking. Mad is good at teaching problemsolving and basic life skills, thinking through challenges, they are not necessarily transferable. And there are many ranges of human beings in the general thinking, math is good at teaching patience and, relying on your wit and mapping your way through challenges. And possible implementation, in particular the deleterious effects of the culture that doesnt lets teach algebra ii and human experience. And a grand service to the next generation. Lets be clear what the common core actually is. What is common core . A list of content standards that outline pieces of mathematics that make sense, k12, and appropriate storyline, there is nothing new in the common core standards and quantum mathematics, but what the storyline is that makes sense. However, the common core goes further. It says we must have eight statements of thinking. I had to say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, a major a