Higher mathematics, except as an extremely important college entrance requirement, may be the most insignificant academic subject taken by students in elementary and secondary schools. Higher mathematics proficiency is not important for everyday living nor is it required for more than 90% of jobs. But high stakes mathematics testing and higher mathematics course requirements are being used to retain students in lower elementary grades and prevent students from graduation from 8^th Grade and high school. Why is testing math proficiency more important than any other academic subject, other than reading, at every level of K-12 education?

The reason is that mathematics is an academic subject for which tests can be easily prepared and scored quantitatively. Those who wish to expose public education as an academic failure can conveniently use mathematics test scores as evidence that public education is failing.There are no challenges in the media to the critics of American public education such as the Gates Foundation that use mathematics test scores on national and international tests asprimary evidence for the so-called failure of American public education. It is a hoax!

The writer believes that if one student is denied promotion at the elementary level or high school graduation in the United States based "solely" on a score on a national or state mandated standardized test, particularly on math tests, it might be considered child abuse. Each student should be evaluated by clear-cut, grade level specific curriculum standards developed by recognized educators and teachers. Local teachers should evaluate each student for promotion and graduation based on these curriculum standards and other locally established criteria monitored by local administrators and school board.

What is the rationale for high-stakes testing for promotion and graduation? What is the rationale for the elimination of social promotion? What is the rationale for requiring "all" students to take higher-level courses in math and science? What is the rationale for requiring all students to meet college-entrance requirements to graduate from high school? Why don't politicians, education bureaucrats, and so-called education experts advocating the above respond specifically to these questions?

The reason, of course, is that there is no rationale for these school reforms. Like a big lie, which becomes common knowledge when repeated over and over again, an academically disadvantaged media looking for a good story blindly reports on so-called school reforms and the bashing of America's schools. I have traveled the world in six trips abroad, including most of the countries of Eastern and Western Europe as well as Russia, Israel, and China. The United States leads the world by all measures in the global economy, in technology, and in the productivity of its workers .An important reason is the high quality of American students and the schools from which they graduate.

Only in the U.S. are local school districts governed by local school boards elected by the local constituency. In all other countries of the world that I am aware of, local, state and national political government controls public education. Parents as a group are not in control of the schools their children attend. The problem of public education in the U.S. is the inequities of funding public education and the many schools with a majority of poor children who cannot meet the absolutely unrealistic demands of school reformers. These public schools are indiscriminately labeled as failing schools because their students score much lower on standardized tests, especially the great numbers of new immigrants with language deficiencies. Failing students also significantly increase dropout rates.

What is the rationale for requiring "all" students to take and pass a test in algebra to graduate from high school? If that is not irrational enough, what is the rationale for requiring "all" students to complete two or three years of mathematics beyond first year algebra to graduate from high school?

Teachers of logic, philosophy, writing, literature, science (there are innumerable sciences) geography, political science, history and almost any academic area in existence believe their body of knowledge is "essential" for any educated person.

In the case of math, advocates claim students have to be prepared for the high skill jobs of the future and because students must be prepared to live in a "complex" modern high tech world in a global economy.The facts are that technology makes jobs simpler, a worker more productive and everyday tasks easier. A majority of jobs require only short-term training. Where is the crisis?The United States has more college graduates than it needs for most jobs. Education is good for education's sake. What is most important varies widely in opinion.

The university elite and state and national education bureaucrats' very existence requires problems and crisis. The problems seem to never go away and there is a forever need for school reform to address the perceived problems and manufactured crisis in public education. New names are invented for tried and uneventful programs. School reforms are most often not harmful, as school bashers would claim they are just insignificant in meaningful results and are not cost effective. Most school reforms, including math curriculum reforms, over the last fifty years would fit this description. I cannot remember the names of the numerous curriculum reforms that have existed in my lifetime. Few if any have survived in total over the years. The good in them has been integrated into the curriculum and the rest discarded to be possibly renamed and tried again.

Math and science are mystiques because many students and adults have difficulty with math and science courses like chemistry and physics that involve mathematics. Mathematicians and scientists perpetuate the mystique by claiming super human powers for the skills they possess.But that is irrelevant, even if it were true, because human beings may forget 90% of what they learn if they do not use it anyway. By the time high school graduates enter college, perhaps a year or two since they have taken math or science, they may not pass an entrance test in algebra or higher math. As a result they may have to take remedial math that is useless for students who want to enroll in majors that do not require math.But remedial courses provide jobs for college instructors and fuel for public education critics to fallaciously label American public education failing.

The writer has been studying jobs and education, including math education since the 1960s. See www.jobseducationwis.org for commentaries and reports.

291 United States Employment Projections 2006-2016, 289 Math & Science Employment and Employment Projections by Required Education and Training Levels in the United States 2006-2016, 229 What is the Big Con in Education?

138 The Spurious Math Crisis in the United States 137 What is the Rationale for Requiring Higher Math for All?

Dennis W. Redovich 414-421-1120 redovich@execpc.com
Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin and United States

Suggestions and constructive or critical comments to Center commentaries and reports are welcome.

Dennis W. Redovich retired as Director of Research, Planning and Development from the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1991 after 28 years of service. He has taught chemistry and math at three Wisconsin high schools (Clinton, Wilmot and Whitefish Bay) and chemistry at MATC, UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University. Education:B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison 1955, M.S. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 1960, M.A.T. Indiana University 1963, Ed.D. Marquette University 1971. Presently Dr. Redovich is an educational consultant, public speaker and Center Director of the Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin. Dennis W. Redovich has presented at six international educational conferences(U. of Twente Holland 1987, Trier Germany 1989, Brussels 1992, Jerusalem Israel 1996, Helsinki Finland 1997 and Beijing China 1999).

Published March 28, 008