Teaching Math to the Talented

The following are my comments on the recent article

Review of Teaching Math to the Talented published by Hanushek, Peterson and Woessmann

http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented/comment-page-1/#comment-40213

The authors have made a compelling argument. They have convincingly argued that we are sorely lagging in the percentage of students with advanced math skills. As a father of a second grader I am concerned about the math education my daughter is receiving when I read articles like this and when I hear how frustrated friends who have recently moved from Germany, India and Russia complain loudly about the low expectations for math achievement set in U.S. schools. Both my wife and I did well in math and were science majors in college. Math success was directly related to our academic success and I know that at least some of the math comes in handy in our daily lives. We would hate to forsake our daughter a high quality math education that we consider to be a key part to being a well rounded person. However, this article does not address how math success relates to other areas of her success or vice versa. Will raising a nation of mathematicians or engineers, as some countries do, continue to keep us as a nation at the top? Should we be thinking about math education in a vacuum as this article suggests or instead should we consider it in relation to other areas of academic performance? Should we perceive math to be an important complement to education in other areas - science, music, philosophy, history, literature, sports? The article does not address how much math ability we need to be a successful nation? When I say how much I mean how many people performing at a advanced level and what level of math does the average person need to acquire? How are we deciding how much is enough? This article needs to be placed into a context against our achievements as a nation in other areas. Unfortunately, too often educational policy is driven by reports that while very thoughtful about one area of educational planning set in motion educational planning for raising math test scores at the expense of all the ways that our children and our nation need to grow. Finally, this article does not address how in this age where things have become more global our industries' current heavy reliance on foreign born and educated engineers is unsustainable. Maybe one of the many reasons for our success as a nation over the years has been to create a environment in which innovators in science and math can thrive? A prudent national education strategy might include strengthening education in general as well as continuing to create a welcome place for world's best and brightest.