Wouldnt be understating the intolerance that exists there. And you know i think the right should not copy the politics of the left by overstating the intolerance that does exist. Host professor, have universities always been largely liberal institutions . Guest yeah for very long time, that certainly the case. We dont have very good survey data prior to the 60s but a lot of the evidence that does exist that University Faculties were quite liberal throughout the 20th century certainly so they have been ripped liberal for very long time. They do seem to have become more liberal in the 60s and 70s the new left and particularly as feminists entered the universities in the 70s. It drifts to the left but its been a broadly liberal institution for a long time. Having said that the political makeup of the university is defined this way so its much more conservative than the Natural Science for example that in the social sciences or the humanities and within the social science its berries as well so economics is a much more conservative discipline than the other social economics is the one discipline that looks like america with the balance between liberals, conservatives and moderates. Host what do you teach at claremont . I teach american politics. Freshman course. Guest i teach introductory courses. I take teach a course called the social movements and i sometimes teach on religion and politics as well. Guest student body comes in. Its a pretty split . Do they have a predefined attitude . Guest they are mostly liberal. We did get some conservatives. We are a liberal arts college. We get more conservatives than lots of other elite liberal arts colleges do and thats partly because we have, we do have conservative professors here and that makes us a little bit unusual compared to our competitors like stanford and williams. Host john shields and Joshua Dunn Everett and this book, passing on the right conservative professors in the progressive university. Is it bad that colleges are overall liberal . Guest i think more conservatives would be a good thing. I dont think there needs to be a perfect talents or the academy needs to look like america. I dont think thats true but i think more conservatives would be a good thing especially in fields that are dominated by the left and i think this is because more conservatives would improve social science. Host is there an intimidation factor at all . Guest what you mean by intimidation factor . Host there are a couple of movements in our current policy all lives matter, black lives matter, triggers. Guest i think there is. And i think its a problem that affects the left somewhat more than the right and this is because professors tend to teach the courses as a subject that might get them in hot water. Liberal professors are more like you to teach courses on race and gender and thats largely because a lot of conservatives and professors avoid teaching those. Does provide one benefit for conservatives. They tend to teach courses that are less likely to incite the kinds of movements and energy and passion so they are somewhat shielded i think from those movements. Host have you ever steered away from a potential course . Guest i have not but certainly some professors do steer clear. Host have you forgotten yourself and trouble for teaching anything . Guest i have not. Host john shields to fester at claremont mckenna, thank you for your time. Guest thank you. Now mathematician and scientist Andrew Hacker debates ever whether should be allowed in school. This is one hour and 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] good evening. Welcome to the National Museum of mathematics and to a very special event, and i think we are all delighted that the museum is putting on this event tonight and even more delighted that we are doing it with the support of the Mathematical Association of america which is helping out here and in particular loaned us james tanden who i will and should do so in a minute. My name is john viewing and im the president of math for america and i am a mathematician [applause] this was not meant to be an aa meeting. Every professional mathematician knows that mathematicians and their subjects have a certain reputation. A worldfamous mathematician was walking in the countryside one day when he comes upon a huge plot flock of sheep and being a worldfamous mathematician, goes up to the shepherd and makes a proposition. 100 against one of your sheep that i can tell you instantly how many sheep are in the flock. The shepherd knowing that there were an awful lot of sheep says, okay i will try it. The mathematician looks around and he says there are 937 sheep in this flock. The shepherd says, incredible thats actually incredible. The mathematician picks up an animal throws it around his shoulders and begins to walk away. The shepherd runs after him, wait, wait he said double or nothing i can tell you exactly what your profession is. The mathematician thinking this is a my key says sure, go ahead. The shepherd says you are worldfamous mathematician. Incredible said the mathematician how could you possibly no . Well, said the shepherd, put down my dog and i will tell you. [laughter] this reputation is not new. In 1914 William D Lewis the principle of William Penn High School in philadelphia wrote about democratizing education but focused on High School High school mathematics. My objection hero to the traditional requirements of mathematics is largely and. Ive seen so many pupils driven out of the school by work which could not have any practical advantage to them and i have watched so many classes under the caption of algebra that i have come to believe that we want to discriminate as closely as possible between those peoples who need the advancement and those who will find other work more profitable. 1914. Whats mathematics we teach in our schools, especially our high schools, has been debated for the past century . Often with an eye toward democratization and opportunities for students. Indeed much longer than a century. You may be unaware arithmetic was not taught in Elementary Schools in the colonial period. Spelling, reading and writing constituted a curriculum at that time. Arithmetic was known as folder. The folder. Arithmetic was needed and when it was needed it was learned on the job. By the early 20th century algebra and geometry were part of the curriculum in nearly every high school in the country that the graduation. In 1900 with 8 , 8 . 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 of subjects for many students. The debate commented at the end of the 20 century were three provocative and quite exceptional essays written by Underwood Dudley a mathematics professor at Depaul University with the titles by math . Is mathematics necessary and what is mathematics for . To the dismay of many mathematicians he argues that there were many good reasons to teach mathematics but utility wasnt one of them. Almost all jobs he wrote required no knowledge of algebra or geometry at all. He went on for algebra is necessary for 75 of all jobs our algebra textbooks would be filled with our onthejob problems and examples would be so plentiful. This is clearly not the case. The math mystery by Andrew Hacker which is the catalyst for tonights discussion is in many ways the child of this century long debate as well as douglas essays. Although i will say that the two authors reached very different conclusions. Is High School Mathematics serving society . Whats mathematics should be taught . How should it be taught and why should it be taught . These are hard questions that i believe finding answers to hard questions is best done in open public discussion. Thats why we are here tonight. Our two speakers this evening or Andrew Hacker and james tanden. You will be glad to know i have reached the point where i will introduce them. Andrew hacker is a professor of Political Science at Queens College at the City University of new york where in addition to teaching Political Science use taught an experimental course in mathematics literacy. He was an undergraduate at Amherst College and received his ph. D. From princeton university. He taught at cornell in 1955 until the early 1970s and since then he has been on the faculty at Queens College. He is the author of 10 books and a sample of the titles suggested their reach. Two nations blackandwhite separate hospital and unequal. Mismatch, the growing gap between women and men. Higher education, how colleges are wasting our money and failing our kids and what we can do about it. In 2012 he published an oped in the New York Times entitled is algebra necessary which led to his most recent book passing on the right substitute the math myth and other stem delusions. James tanden when he speaks tonight you may detect he is not a native of new york. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics at Adelaide University and came to the u. S. In 1988 where he received his ph. D. In mathematics also from princeton university. After teaching at st. Marys college in maryland and exceptional liberal arts college i might add, he followed his wife to boston where he soon turned his attention to the general state of k12 mathematics. Eventually he found himself at a private school in southborough, st. Marks where he founded the st. Marks institute of mathematics and then on to washington d. C. Where he served as a Mathematics Association americas visiting mathematician and then the mathematician and residents. James consults with schools all across the globe on the teaching of middle school and High School Mathematics. He is also the author of a number of books, solve this, mathematics activities for students and clubs, mathematics galore and is also the author of two puzzle books without words and more without words both of which im told are being presently translated into serbia i had offered to complete the translation tonight. James is also part of the global math project with the goal of initiating a fundamental change in the way we perceive and enjoy mathematics. Tonights presentation will be divided into six segments, 215 minute presentations by each of our speakers to lay out the case , to eightminute responses from each and then questions and answers from the audience. The questions are from the audience. Followed by a short time for people to come up and talk individually with the speakers tonight. My job tonight is to keep us on schedule and i will do so with ruthless resolve. So i would like professor hacker to begin tonights presentation. [applause] thank you john and its great to be here. I am the only nonmathematician in the house. I will say at this point it is not my intention to put you out of this mess. I think yours is a grand inquiry is calling. There are a total at last count statisticians 217,584 teachers of mathematics in this country. Its a sturdy profession and i dont think it has anything to fear. Now, i am a political scientist. The chief job of a political scientist is to analyze policy particularly governmental policy and even more particularly governmental policies which require everyone to do a certain thing. Very simply if you were going to drive a car you have to pass a test, the government says that. You were going to have a child, the child has to be vaccinated. We understand that. What interested me was in effect a governmental policy that we have which is that every single young person in this country will be required, required to take a full sequence of mathematics starting with algebra, geometry, precalculus and for many the idea was to have everybody studying calculus my simple reason for writing my book can be summed up in one word. I understand we have some visual aids here. I only did this last minute so i brought one of my own. May i put it down . [laughter] thank you. You may keep that up while i am going. We currently have another statistic. 4 million, 16yearolds and the goal is to have every single one of us and rolled in algebra ii. We have coming up the common core and the common core is by the way the common core is for everybody. They say career and collegeready but everybody has to pass a common core test and they are tests which are going to be conducted nationally and algebra ii is going to be there. We are going to be in for some problems. We are to have some. The math hurdle if you like take state tremendous toll every year in developed countries, about 20 out of 28 in the number of our young people who finish high school. Our high schools are 20 . One out of five people you see are older people in the street have failed to finish high school. A major academic reason for that is failing in math class. The academic reason is we dont know the exact facts and figures of this but job older whose work you may know has concluded the majority of students eventually fail one or another math course. This is because they are indolent, because they are or is it a coast we are asking something of everyone that we really shouldnt he requiring universally . One out of five 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 advancing world. We have more colleges per is that we have fewer people finishing college. Why . Because colleges mindlessly require mathematics if everybody even if you were going to major in poetry, modern dance, interior design, he still have to pass an algebra test to get on board. Now we have a fantastic talent loss here. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. People who would be very skilled and talented are not being allowed to proceed even at the Junior College peered somebody who wants an associate degree, certificate and cosmetology, you know in industrial design, lets say commercial art. Even they have to pass a math test and as a result our church and. Is just savage. A report came out a year ago saying 43 of people taking the test or not collegeready. 23 taking a college test are not ready because collegeready requires advanced mathematics for everybody and as a result some very Good Students who might be in my College Class wont be there because of this requirement. My book is called the math myth and in fact the more i study what has happened the more ive discovered that people who are entrenched, and that kind trying to be kind here in trenton is certain profession occupation boquet should will literally say anything to defend the status quo from which they benefit. This can be true of the lease officers and i discovered so much of what we were told about math is shared myth. For example. For example there is a 62 figure. We have something called the american diploma project a couple of years ago. A decade from now 62 of all occupations will need algebra. As Underwood Dudley said years ago at most 5 of occupations need algebra and i respect those in the course of writing my book i went down to marietta georgia where he interviewed aeronautical interviews at lockheed and i was just blown away by the way they use calculus to study the ice on the wings. Theyre there are fantastic things i learned about ice. You certainly need mathematics and wall street your sponsors use calculus all the time to study risks, payouts and the rest. But not 62 . If we are only talking occupational terms why the other 95 have to take it . I dont want to dive into much to the questions of the story that stems we all know what s. T. E. M. Means. People have a degree and stem studies. Only more than one third are working in s. T. E. M. Occupations now. We actually have an oversupply of people with s. T. E. M. Qualifications. We are told we had better watch out in the global competition because career china singapore and hong kong are far ahead of us in mathematics. Its true. Their students score in the stratosphere on the International Math tests. They score high because they work 23 hours a day. You know the biggest illness a down among young people in korea is sleep deprivation. They work 23 hours a day if and i want say this in the best way, if the International Competition were in chess or crossword puzzles the chinese would score up there too so the big challenge is not more math but getting i would advise that. Their size the question whether math sharpens our minds. Really doing well at it sharpens your mind in mathematics thats for sure. There is no evidence whatever that mastering mathematics makes you agile, adept, excel and other fields. There is none whatever. I did a short test of my own at williams college. I took a math scores of our incoming freshmen. They took all the freshmen who took an intricate ture history course. I plotted the math scores high, low versus the history of scores. History, reasoning ability weigh the evidence and guess what . The correlation was zero. It can be high in math and bomb out in history and vice versa. Math does not help in other fields. Now, im not sure i want to call this a myth. There is the view for example a mathematician i really respected i keep this book by my bedside. Its showing a lay person would mathematics really is the quotes in the book, he believes that mathematics is one of the greatest creations of the human mind, perhaps even the greatest. Well, hey i will go along with that. I simply ask though by the way is mathematics something we created versus something that we have discovered . Could it be that mathematics is out there created by nature. Isaac newton had to discovery. Just like pai for example. We didnt create pai if we have defined it to show how its used. I would really love for everybody to appreciate mathematics. Its glorious, its cold but this isnt being done by making people learn polynomials yeartoyear. I would love to have teachers treat mathematics as a liberal arts so all