The Common Denominator Online: Matt Wennersten

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Class Notes
	'Math poisoning' is a problem, too (Published April 5, 2004) By MATT WENNERSTEN

Back in 1982, the artist once and again known as Prince released an album titled "1999." Prince fans might recall the track called "Something in the Water Does Not Compute," which brings me to 2004 and a story about lead and mathematics.

In the last few months, families across the city have learned they’re being poisoned by lead in their water – with my own school, Bell Multicultural Senior High, having one of the highest lead levels among schools in the city. The effects of lead poisoning are slow, stealthy and devastating. Consider the statement of Dr. John Rosen, Environmental Protection Agency adviser and pediatrician at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx: "Lead at remarkably low concentrations has the unique capability of robbing kids of such skills as reading, writing, concentration and abstract thinking. The set of things that are required for academic success and employment success can be lost forever, and all of that comes at a remarkable societal cost."

Now, what would happen if I replaced the word "lead" in Dr. Rosen’s statement with "education"?

"Education at remarkably low concentrations has the unique capability of robbing kids of such skills as reading, writing, concentration and abstract thinking."

I’m talking about D.C. Public Schools.

Lead is splashed across the headlines of our city’s newspapers. Why is no one talking about how poorly our kids are learning, and specifically, learning mathematics? The recommended EPA limit for lead concentration is 15 parts per billion, or about 1/10th the level of some D.C. high school water sources that were tested – in other words, lead is 10 times worse in some high schools than it should be. The current level of math proficiency at several D.C. high schools is about 5 percent – in other words, 10 to 20 times worse than it should be (assuming that we want 100 percent of kids to be proficient in math).

Now, I’m not saying that lead isn’t a problem. But people are making a big fuss about 160 parts per billion of lead, yet no one is making a fuss about 95 parts per hundred being basic or below basic on standardized tests. Is this because standardized tests are a poor measure of what our kids are capable of? Perhaps in part. But I think it’s also because we’ve become used to low standards in mathematics.

The human body can become accustomed to many things. Just a few years ago, the standard for lead concentrations was 50 ppb, or more than three times the currently allowed threshold. And what is "parts per billion" anyway? The standard for "impurities" in meat is 0.5 percent, or about five parts per thousand. Readers of books like "Fast Food Nation" know that these impurities often refer to things like fecal matter. In other words, although more than 15 parts per billion of lead are scandalous, we’re happy to eat five million parts per billion of feces in our meat, and we’re happy to allow 950 million students per billion to flounder with math problems.

I would suggest that one reason why we’re happy to tolerate such high levels is because we don’t have the math skills to determine what is and what isn’t significant.

We’ve been math poisoned. After all, math is hard, right?

It’s okay for kids not to be that good in math, as long as they can figure out their change and afford to pay someone to do their taxes. This attitude is one of the reasons why we don’t make a fuss about math poisoning.

But the truth is, math isn’t hard. I’m not saying this because I’m a math teacher. Math teaching is hard. I can say math itself isn’t hard because everyone can master it, and in fact a mastery of mathematics that would be proficient on the Stanford 9 achievement test (SAT-9) isn’t hugely difficult. The fact that so many of our students will not achieve that mastery is an indictment of our educational system, not of mathematics.

For example, how many people would consider the problem "2 + 7 = ?" hard? This is a math problem. At one time, perhaps primary school, this was a hard problem.

Following a cohesive and comprehensive curriculum, an elementary school "hard" problem might be something like "2 + X = 9. What is X?" This type of problem requires significant abstract thought. Students must be able to identify "X" as a variable, an unknown that is a placeholder for a specific value in the equation. They must also understand that the "=" sign indicates equality, and that the number and the variable on the left side must add up to 9. Yet this problem is fundamentally the same as the first one; in fact, it is the same: 2 + 7 = 9.

Let’s look at a sample high school SAT-9 question:

In the equation v = ½r + 4, what is the value of v when r = 14?

a) 9 b) 11 c) 15 d) 19

Many of my kids find this question difficult, yet it’s just a short progression from the problems I’ve described above. We know that "v" and "r" are variables. We are told that "r = 14." We can easily find half of 14, which is 7. We now have "v = 7 + 4." The correct answer must be "b) 11."

Given this explanation, would you call this problem hard? It might be initially difficult, but if someone were to teach you how to solve this, could this be an "easy" problem? Think back to when you first took your driving test. Parallel parking was a heck of a lot harder than "v = ½r + 4," but almost everyone in America is proficient enough to get a driver’s license. Perhaps it’s because someone taught them how to do it? What does this say about mathematics education?

I know that it’s not as straightforward as I’ve portrayed it. Everyone is highly motivated to get a driver’s license, and not all students are motivated to learn math. Being able to drive gives you significant and immediate advantages. Oops – so does being able to do math. It’s just that math beyond basic skills (correct change, totaling the score of a football game, etc.) doesn’t seem to have such a payoff. This is why people get incorrect paychecks, or accept what the register tells them is the total of a "30 percent off" sale, or get turned away from college. Frankly, like lead in the water, it’s not acceptable.

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Wennersten is a third-year mathematics teacher at Bell Multicultural Senior High School and a graduate of the D.C. Teaching Fellows program. Contact him at mwenners@yahoo.com.