The fear of all sums

Confession time: I'm no math whiz. Go figure

I'm the person in the restaurant tallying up the tip by hand. Peruse the check and you can see my work right down to carrying numbers over to the next column.

I used to think a quadratic equation was a medical procedure.

My lack of math prowess makes me perfect to weigh in on the math wars sweeping the country. Educators are divided over the best way to teach math. On one side, traditionalists believe math is best taught through building-block sequences that emphasize fundamentals such as computation and formulas. On the other, math reformers offer a conceptual approach built on teamwork and reasoning one's way through mathematical problems.

This evening, the Seattle School Board wades into this battle with its adoption of middle-school math textbooks that lean more toward a reformist style.

I question the board's choice. A solid foundation in traditional math is essential. A student who cannot master the basic language of numbers will not have the tools to creatively problem-solve as reform math requires.

Traditional versus reform. Sounds like a breakaway church sect, and from what I've seen, the politics are just as divided and self-righteous.

The Bush administration has created the National Math Panel. These are the same folks who brought us the National Reading Panel, with its decree of phonics as the sole route to reading. Once the executive branch settles on a style of math to promote, billions in federal grants will follow for educators willing to contort themselves into the latest pedagogical fad.

Johnny may not be able to do math, but those folks in the lucrative curriculum and textbook industry sure can.

Weak math skills are a national problem with local ties. Results from the most-recent Washington Assessment of Student Learning show little more than half — 54 percent — earned passing scores, up just 3 percentage points from last year. Say what you will about the WASL, it is a great diagnostic tool. It told us where we are weakest: math.

The poor showing forced Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson to be the firmest she has ever been in demanding the state's 296 districts move from using 44 different types of math curricula to one or two.

But educators and school boards can't decide which method of math is best. Unspoken is the comfort level for teachers used to teaching what and how they've always taught.

Everyone trades volleys rather than cogent ideas.

"Mindless memorization," charge those opposed to traditional math instruction that requires memorizing formulas and rules.

"Guess and check!" sniff traditionalists who fear the newest new math relies on a gauzy, inquiry-based approach that overlooks fundamentals needed to solve number problems.

Didn't we have this argument during the phonics-versus-whole-language wars? Can't we all just get along?

Long ago, children of the Soviet Union were better at math and science than our kids. Now, we're looking over our shoulder at China and Japan. The race ought not be against any foreign nation, but against ourselves. Our public education system, unlike much of the world, professes to educate everyone. The dirty little secret is, we don't. Higher standards, including in math, will make us more honest.

We understood this with literacy. We knew being educated couldn't happen if students couldn't read. The result is a society that robustly stamps out illiteracy wherever we see it. It is difficult to get through a television show without a public-service announcement about the importance of literacy.

As students get over the mathematics hump, so can they conquer their fears of math. Teachers shouldn't have to become entertainers to get students through algebra and geometry. Let's help kids embrace numbers as one of the necessary fundamentals of our lives.

I recently visited a kindergarten classroom where 4- and 5-year-olds were learning fractions. One student pulled apart a plastic pizza pie, noting first its halves and then its thirds and fourths. Another student said he was an only child and listened interestedly as a teacher informed him that he was one-third of a wonderful family.

The teacher had it right. The kids embraced her lesson because it was interesting and relevant to their lives. Every child can read and every child can do math.

Lynne K. Varner's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is lvarner@seattletimes.com