Wait, he says. Double or nothing i can tell you exactly what your profession is. The mathematician things this is unlikely, so says, sure, go ahead. The shepherd says, you are a world famous mathematicianings incredible, says the math ma tickings how could cue know . Well, says the shepherd, put down my dog and ill tell you. This reputation is not new. In 1914, william d. Lewis, the principle of william penn N High School in philadelphia rote about democratizing education and focused oN High School math mat makes. Misobjection he wrote is largely empire cal. I have seen so many pupils driven out of school by work which could not have any practical advantage to them, and i have watched so many classes, under the caption of algebra, i have come to believe we ought to discriminate as carefully as possible between those pupils who really need the advance mathematics and those who will find other work more profitable. 1914. What mathematics we teach in our schools, especially our high schools, has been debated for the past century. Often with an eye towards democratization and opportunities for students. Indeed much longer than a century, youve may be unaware that arithematic was not taught in Elementary School in the colonial period. Spelling, reading and writing constituted the clickum at that time. Arithematic was known as vulgar, and was needed and when it was needed, it was learn in the job. By the early 20th century, algebra and geometry was part over the curriculum in nearly every high school of the country bit the graduation raid it in 1900 was eight percent. Eight percent. And as Graduation Rates climbed over the comping 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 culminated at the end of the 20th century with three provocative and quite exceptional essays written by underwood dudley, a mathematics professor at depaul university, with the tiedles, why math, is mathematics necessary, and what is mathematics for . To the dismay of many ma mathematician heard there were many res to teach itself but utility wasnt one of them. Almost all jobs, he wrote, require no knowledge of algebra and geometry at all. He went on, where algebra were necessary for 5 of allols our algebra textbooks would be fill with on the job problems since examples would be to plentiful. This 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 centurylong debate, as well as woody dudleys essays. Although i will say that the two authors reached very different conclusions. Is High School Mathematics serving society . What mathematics should be taught . Hugh should it be taught and why . These are hard questions, and i believe that fining answers to hard questions is best done in open and public discussion. That is why were here tonight. Our two speakers this evening are andrew hacker, and james hansen. Youll be glad to know i reached the point where i introduce them. An true hacker is a professor of Political Science at Queens College in the city of university of new york, where, in addition to teaching Political Science, he has taught experimental course an experimental course in mathematics, literacy. And he was an undergraduate at Amherst College and received his ph. D from princeton university. He taught at cornell from 1955 until the early 1970s, and since then, he has been on the faculty of Queens College. He is the author of ten books, and a sample of the titles suggest their reach. Two nations, black and white, separate, hostile, and unequal. Mismatch. The growing gulf between women and men. Higher education, i have to ask the question there. How colleges are wasting our money and failing our kids. And what we can do about it. In 1912 in 2012 he published an oped in the New York Times entitled is algebra necessary, which led to his most recent book, the math myth, and other stem delusions, setting the stage for tonights discussion. Whether or not you agree with the substance of these books, i am sure you will all agree that the titles are, every one of them, exceedingly clever. James tan ton grew up in australia and when he speaks tonight, you may detect that 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 in exceptional liberal arts college, i might add, he followed his wife to boston where he soon turned his attention to general state of k12 mathematics. Eventually he found himself at a private school in southboro, st. Marks, where founds the st. Marks institute of mathematics. Then on to washington, dc where the serve as the Mathematical Association of americas visiting mag ma particulars turn and math naoma particulars in residence. James consults with schools all across the globe on the teaching of middle school and High School Mathematics. He it also the author of a number of books, solve this, math mat particulars activities for skouens and clubs. Mathematics galore and also the author of two word list puzzle books, without words and moor without words, both of which are being presently translated into serbian. I had offered to complete the translation for him tonight but james is also part of the global math project with a goal of initiating a fundamental change in the way we perceive and enjoy mathematics. Tonights presentation will be divided into six segments. Two 15minute presentations by each of our speakers to lay out the case, two eightminute responses from each, and then questions and answers from the audience actually thes are from the audience and presumably the answers from the speakers. Fooled by a short time for people to come up and talk individually with the speaker today. My job is to keep us on schedule and. At this point it is not my intention to put you out of business. I think yours is a grand and glorious calling. There are a total of last count. 217,584 teachers of mathematics in this country. I dont think it has anything to fear from me. Now, im a political scientists. Require everyone to do a certain thing. You have to pass a test. You have to have a child, the child has to be vaccinated. We understand. What interested me is in effect a governmental policy that we have which is that every single young person in this country for many the idea to have everybody study calculus. So my simple reason for being and writing my book can be summed up in one word. I understand we have some visual aides here, all right. I only learned this last minute so i brought one of my own. [laughter] thank you. And you may keep that up while im talking. Okay. We currently have another statistic 4 million 16yearolds and goal to have every single one of them enrolled in algebra two. We have coming up the common core and the common core, by the way is common core is for everybody. They say career and College Ready but everybody has to pass the common core test and they are tests which are going to be conducted nationally and algebra was going to be there. Well, we are going to be into some problems. The math requirement, the math hurdle if you like takes a tremendous toll every year. We ranked in the United States very low among developed countries, about 20th out of 28th in the number of our young people who finish high school, yes, our High School Dropout rate is 20 . One out of every five young people you see, major academic reason is failure a math class. We dont take exact figures on this but joe who is working has concluded that the majority of students eventually failed. Is this because theyre stupid or is it because or something of everyone that we really shouldnt be requiring universally. One out of five dont graduate. Of those that go onto college, 43 do not graduate. Thats close to 45 , yes, this is one of the highest College Dropout rates in the advance world. We have more colleges per capita but fewer people finishing college, why because colleges mindlessly require mathematics of everybody, even if youre going to major in poetry, modern dance, i interior design, you still have to have an algebra test to get on board. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. People who would be very skilled, talented and all sorts of fields are not being allowed to proceed or even at a junior college, somebody who wants Associates Degree certificate in cosmetology, lets say commercial art, even they had to have pass a math test. We hear reports saying 43 of people taking act, thats the test, they are not College Ready. 43 students taking act, college tests are not College Ready, you know what, because College Ready requires advance mathematics for everybody. As a result from very Good Students who might be in my College Class wont be there because of this requirement. Now, my book is called the math myth and, in fact, as more and more i studied what is happening here but discover that people that are entrerched im trying to be kind, entrerched in a certain profession, occupation, vocation will say anything to defend the status quo, this can be true of police officers. We have the american diploma project. Came out and said 62 of all occupations will need algebra, well, as woody this is certainly and at most 5 of occupations need algebra and above. I respect those in the course of writing my books. I went down to georgia where i went to engineers and i was just blown away by the way they use calculus to study the ice on winds. Fantastic thing i learned about ice. You certainly need mathematics and wall street, use calculus all of the time to study risks and the rest. Not 62 . At best 5 which is the question if if we are going to occupational terms why the other 95 have to take it. I dont want to get too much into the question, the stem story, we all know what stem means that theres a shortage of people with stem qualifications. In fact, people that have degrees in stem stem, less than half, only slightly a little bit more than a third are working in stem occupations. We are told we better watch out in the global competition because korea, china, singapore are far ahead of us in mathematics, its true. There are students score on the International Map test, you know, the test and others. They score high because they work 23 hours a day. The biggest illness among youngest people in korea, pediatricians write articles on this is sleep deprivation. They work 23 hours a day if i want to say this in the best way, if the International Competitions run chess or cross word pulz ls the chinese and the court inteans would score up there. The big challenge is not more math for us is getting kids to work 23 hours and i wouldnt advise that. Theres a question that math sharpens our minds. I agree that studying math and doing well at it sharpness your math with dealing with mathematics, thats for sure. Theres none whatever. I couldnt find any evidence. Hi, low versus history score, history use reasoning ability, weighing evidence, guess what . Correlation was zero, high on math, bombout in history, vice versa. Math does not help you in other fields. Now, there are certainly and im not sure i want to there is a view, for example, mathematician that i really respect, i keep his book like by the numbers on my bedside. One of the best book of showing a layperson what mathematics really is. 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, by the way, is mathematics something we created or is it something that we discovered. Could it be that mathematics is out there created by nature that we created calculus courtesy of newton had to discover it. Its like pie, for example. We didnt create pie but we had to find it and show how its used. In any event, i would really love for everybody to appreciate mathematics. But it isnt being done by making people year after year. I would love how they treat mathematics. Theres also reviews that mattics is objective which is to say theres one right answer and you dont have to worry about opinions. This may well be true. Mathematics has builtin biases of its own. Not so much the subject but the way we assess it and evaluate it. One thing we know i wrote a chapter in the book called gender gaps in mathematics. They do. We have enough studies across the board to show that act and we both know that. The girls get high grades. But when it comes to the test act, sat and psat men are always ahead. We are going continue to test people. They give girls and the young women a chance to show what they really known. It has consequences. One consequence is the National Merit scholarships. I went into this. You know what they are, do not give a gender breakdown of the winners. They refuse to do it. They hide that information. You know why . Because 53 , 53 of the people who enter the National Merit competition are girls, but boys end up getting 53 of the awards, why . Because they score 30 points higher, then the girls do on these tests. The same thing is going to happen with the common core. This is one reason why girls find it hard the other get into ivy league scores, 700 before we open the application on mathematics. 700. Twothirds of those 700 and above are boys. So as a result stanford, yale, for example are majority men, why because of the math barrier. Now, girls are doing okay but please, i need some advice, the country does on how to tests that indicate what they know. Now, math, of course, we are told requires, i have 30 seconds long . I will give you 30. Okay. [laughter] okay, i think my last comment here do i propose to abolish algebra, no, of course, but i do want to see other options and alternatives instead of the full sequence for everybody at tenth grade, we can work this out, begin to offer options like, very unbiased what i teach, i teach a class in my college in the math department, oh, yell, called about citizens statistics. Citizen statistics. How to look at the federal budget, it doesnt require any math, all it requires is adult arithmetic and i dont think we have to be ashamed of that at all. Thank you. [applause] now, james, all right. Thank you, this was a real treat for the nation to have this conversation and thank you for raising the interest. This is a really important conversation to have national concern, very much i appreciate you to bring it to the world. Its absolutely vital that we reconsider over and over again and you pointed out in your book, and thank you for coming along today and hopefully doing a video after words. So youre interested in the topic and truly wonderful that we adults, we parents are personally impelled to doublecheck truths ourselves and personally access the claims made that cannot weigh in the media or internet and in general conversations. We are brave enough to ask what we know and not to succumb to general impression and general qoan. I enjoy reading the book and i came away with an interpretation that might find surprising. I think dr. Hacker is arguing strongly, very strongly all the common core state standards in mathematics. A sense of deep concerns and public deceptions that think back before the conception of the common core and also mighty strong warnings about how not to implement the common score state standards. Like me, dr. Hacker doesnt want to old tricks, heavyhanded speed testing, putting number facilities, i couldnt agree more that these are real concerns and many components of the common core i know feel the same way. Let me try putting on the screen. Just im basing my discussion on math what is thank you. I brought some beautiful comments about the joy of mathematics here. And i would like to ask you to share about teaching mathematics. Im going to stop reading things so soon. I completely agree with dr. Hacker that we strongly focus on a path. A human story of mathematics as well as content. But actually the cob tent of High School Level can be argued as somewhat secondary. Ive never used the formula in my whole life, but learning that formula wasnt the point it was the story so that i know i love the human story of how mankind battled for the topic, surprising link between geometry and subject. Success of literally completing a square. While teaching mathematics the high school teacher, mathematical stories one can portray of the algorithm. Theres so much beauty right there on that subject. To me ultimate goal of education is people to see and consider and how to develop informed views and analyze what you think you know and be curious and be aware of achievements of mankind, shakespeare and revelation of completing of the square. Learn how to appreciate art using intellectual accomplishment. High school is really not known about content. Every topic away if your only looking for ewal u, when was the last time it helped you in life. Math is particularly good at teaching problemsolving and basic life skills. Thinking through challenges. How can you prove that from math or any subject but math offers human thinking as a piece to have one generals thinking repetoir. Each believe in the common core so we are deeply concerned about implementation in particular for the effects of testing that doesnt seem to ever go away in mathematic education. Context and joy and it really can be surface for our next generation. Now, lets be absolutely clear what the common core actually is. Ive gone through it. What is the common core . Okay, the outlining actual piece of mathematics seems to make sense, theres a story line of the mathematics in k12 and appropriate story line. Theres actually nothing new in the common core state content of mathematics. Its just people thought deeply what is story line that makes sense and i say, yeah, to that. The common core goes further and also says we must attend statements of thinking, it wunts us to actually attend thinking and i have to say yes, yes, its phenomenal. Make sense of problems and persevere solving this. Step back and understand what it means