In Education Week, Anthony Ralston shares his opinions on the real scandal in American mathematics education:
...all the arguments in recent years about curricula and calculators are virtually irrelevant when compared with the single greatest challenge facing American school mathematics: how to do something about the steady decline over the past half-century of the intellectual abilities of those who teach math in our schools...It is a scandal that so little attention has been paid to attracting better-qualified math teachers to American schools. What can be done?
Instead of all the time and energy spent on arguing about curriculum and related matters, mathematicians and mathematics educators should devote their energies to making the case that those we attract to elementary and secondary mathematics teaching need to be as intellectually able as those attracted to law, medicine, and, yes, the academic world.
Expect some angry replies from education majors soon. Meanwhile, the link to this article was circulated on Bill Evers's listserv, with commentary from Bill: "The author is right that there is a scarcity of qualified math teachers. He is wrong in his attacks on accountability testing and direct instruction (although like anything else these can be done poorly). He should consider targeted boosts in pay scales for science, math, and special ed teachers."
And speaking of such boosts:
"We must treat our teachers like the professionals they are," U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told more than 300 educators and others attending the Milken Family Foundation National Education Conference today in Washington, D.C. "That means we must reward teachers who make real progress closing the achievement gap in the most challenging classrooms"...Posted by kswygert at April 29, 2005 02:27 PMTo address the problem, President Bush has proposed a new $500 million Teacher Incentive Fund, Spellings said. The fund will provide states with money to reward teachers who take the toughest jobs and achieve real results. Spellings noted that, according to a recent study by the bipartisan Teaching Commission, 76 percent of Americans and 77 percent of public school teachers supported incentive pay.