FACT: In all likelihood, fuzzy math would never have gained a national foothold, if not for the unparalleled support of the National Science Foundation. To appreciate the NSF's impact, consider that in 1985 the NSF's budget for public education assistance was merely $91 million. But by 1995 that budget had exploded to $586 million and is now even higher. Much of that money went into pushing fuzzy math. So the NSF became a defacto policy setter of math curricula in many schools. But many schools are now wising up! (Source 1: Philadelphia Tribune, "Philly Schools to get $15 million grant," 2/14/95 page 2-A; Source 2: Washington Times, "Even NSF's allies concede many projects are waste," 8/8/99 page C1).

Furthermore, in Texas the math textbook selection process was so influenced by millions of free NSF money, that two Texas State School Board members, Richard Neill and David Bradley, wrote editorials denouncing the control of public schools through free NSF grants. (Source: Dallas Morning News, "Scrutinize textbook selections for fuzzy math," 2/17/99 page 9A).

Answer: "Absolutely, most definitely, but of course maybe!"
Question: "How well is new new math (or fuzzy math), such as Investigations, being received in other school districts across the nation?"

Confused by the above? So were we. When posing the above question to knowledgeable new new math proponents, sometimes the responses are similar to what Harry S. Truman observed, "If you can't convince them, confuse them."

It seems to us, that one of the most pressing, relevant questions to ask about new new math is simply, "What kind of reception has it had across the nation?" Why? Quite simply because many school districts have had several more years of experience with new new math than we have. So why can't we learn from their experiences? If new new math is indeed better, then it should, "stand the test of time," and produce encouraging "win-win results."

As we began our search through many of this nation's periodicals and newspapers, two things began to stand out. First, there are indeed those students who have been helped by new new math programs. Secondly, unfortunately new new math seems to hurt as many or more students as it helps, especially those who take math seriously. In all sincerity, we were quite taken aback by the breadth of negative experiences we encountered. It was surprising.

Below, you'll find a very small sampling of information we gleamed from throughout the country. It's sobering. We first suggest reading the Christian Science Monitor, which wrote an excellent series of articles about the "Math Meltdown." We highly recommend "Math Meltdown," as the articles in the Monitor claimed a national award for excellence in reporting.

Resources:

The Christian Science Monitor: "The Math Meltdown" (navigate using links on the right)
http://www.csmonitor.com/sections/learning/mathmelt/p-2story052300.html

"Editorial: Counting Out The New Math"
New York Post, copyright 2002
09/03/2002 Page 24
...The [Bronx community school] board passed a resolution calling for an immediate end to "fuzzy math" - in which students abandon traditional methods and solve problems in groups by "discovering" their own answers. In their parting shot, board members demanded that all math taught in the district "be skill-based, college preparatory" work that emphasizes "the teaching of standard arithmethic skills." Radical? Only in New York's schools. Thoroughly opposed by parents and math teachers, constructivist math [new new math] short-changes students on a number of levels. ...Former [City Schools] Chancellor Harold O. Levy claimed limited success in one school district to justify the use of fuzzy math throughout the system; the net results is that students forced to contend with the new system are essentially guinea pigs for educational experiments. In District 10, which ranks in the bottom 20 percent in math, the need for a return to basic standards is obvious....

"Metro; Editorial Writers Desk; Old Math, Good Math"
Los Angeles Times, copyright 2000
01/29/2000 Page B-7
...Now [Governor] Davis is hoping to foster a...revival of basic learning in math with his proposal to establish algebra academies, summer schools that would help to prepare seventh- and eighth graders for high school algebra. It's a welcome proposal, for U.S. Department of education statistics show that success in secondary school algebra is the single greatest predictor of success in college-- not just for engineering and science majors but for all fields. ...Many children throughout California, however, are denied such [basic math skills] mastery because their school districts adhere to an experimental teaching method called integrated math [new new math]. ...It's often rightly derided as "fuzzy math" because of its murky goals....

"College-Bound Students Can't Count On New Math, Some Say; Parents, Educators Claim NonTraditional Programs Places Students At Disadvantage;"
Duluth News-Tribune [Minnesota], copyright 2002
02/08/2002 Page 01A
... The debate has intensified.... Some high school teachers contend the new math is setting up college-bound students to fail. They complain it places insufficient emphasis on higher-level calculations used in algebra, geometry and calculus. "I am concerned that very soon no one from Denfeld High School will be able to enter a mathematics-based college program without remediation," Denfeld math teacher James Melander wrote district officials.... Meanwhile, parents worry their children will lack basic computing skills. ...During the 2000-01 school year, "Investigations in Number, Data and Space" was adopted for grades K-5 [by the Duluth school district]. This fall, the "Connected Mathematics Project" was instituted in grades 6-8. The new programs put more emphasis on solving problems than on memorizing formulas and practicing calculations. Believing the new curriculum drifted too far from traditional math, some teachers decided to enhance it by using more material. District administrators stopped them [but months later allowed it]. ...Scolded earlier, teachers fear that criticizing the new math curriculum will result in retribution, [PTA] council member Ann Wasson said. To avoid that possibility, seven Denfeld High School math instructors signed a November letter as a group, citing numerous concerns. They told administrators that this year's seniors -- the first to have completed the new high school program -- are unable to perform the typical math needed in college. As proof, they cite the experience of students who enrolled in a traditional high school pre-calculus class last fall. "None of the students who successfully completed the integrated [new new math] series lasted more than two weeks in the pre-calc class," wrote Melander, Mae Pierson, Timothy White, Judy Thornton, Rebecca Moen, Joel Holman and Christy Fisher. ..."When teachers are questioning the [new new math] programs, that really raises a red flag," said Judy Seliga, PTA Council president....

"Old School Arithmetic Returns To Classroom"
The Boston Globe, copyright 2002
04/07/2002 Page B.7
...Want to raise the temperature in a roomful of parents? Talk about math. Recently, I attended a math night and saw reasonable grownups transformed into hecklers, annoyed by number grids and newfangled ways of getting old-fangled answers. ...After more than a decade in which hands-on "constructivist" math - also called "new new math" or "fuzzy math" by opponents - has ruled classrooms, there is increasing recognition that children do (ouch) also need to drill. After a highly politicized battle, the state two years ago adopted a new math curriculum frameworks [guidelines] that explicitly state what grades students should learn certain standard algorithms, such as how to carry and borrow. ...In Stoneham, Michael Kennedy, program supervisor for math in grades 6 through 12, said they're replacing the more exploratory University of Chicago math programs [new new math] with "more of a meat and potatoes, more drill and practice" texts. "The pendulum is swinging back to a more traditional approach to education," said Kennedy, who said they are returning to a program similiar to that used in the 1980s." ..."For somebody who does math in high school well, there has to be an ability to do calculations without thinking," he said [Wilfried Schmid, Harvard professor of mathematics]. "When you drive a car, you don't think you are turning the steering wheel, [or] why you are shifting. You focus on the traffic."

"Math Programs Don't Add Up To Success"
New York Daily News, copyright 2001
10/24/2001 Page 1
...[New York] City schools have tried many approaches in an effort to boost chronically low scores on state math tests. But judging from this year's results, nothing has worked. "It's a crisis," said Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the City University of New York, who headed a panel of experts Schools Chancellor Harold Levy assembled last fall to study ways to improve math education. "Students are not learning mathematics with enough depth," he said. "I think it's something we should all be worried about." ...One program, called Math Trailblazers [new new math, grades K-5], began two years ago in the city's worst-performing schools - the roughly 50 schools that make up the Chancellor's District. ...[Math Trailblazers] uses props and other nontraditional methods in place of lectures. Not only did it fail to raise scores - the failure rate shot up to 77% from 72%....
[KidsDoCount note: Math Trailblazers is very simliar to Alpine's Investigations math, and both are funded by the NSF.]

"Editorial; OP-Ed; 'Old Math' fans should go forth and multiply"
Boston Herald, copyright 2000
08/21/2000 Page 021
By John Silber, Chancellor of Boston University.
...The Massachusetts Board of Education recently adopted a new set of guidelines for teaching mathematics [back to basics]. A Boston math teacher was quoted as saying, "The new framework means going back to the way our grandparents did it, which was a terrible way to do math." Considering that our grandparents were able to balance their checkbooks, there may be something to be said for the way they learned arithmetic.... ...[When the new math of the 1960's was rejected] the education schools did not return to the proven method's of "old" math. Their laboratories now percolated various forms of "newer-than-new" math [hence, new new math], based on the principle that getting the answer right was less important than understanding the mathematical concepts. When teachers of mathematics say that mathematical understanding is more important than right answers, they undermine mathematical understanding itself. Mathematics is the most rigorously rational of all subjects. It's integrity rests on precision. Moreover, for everyone except professional mathematicians, the point of learning mathematics is to be able to compute accurately. In tasks as routine as shopping, cooking or carpentry, or as far out as flying to Mars, getting the right answer is essential. ...When teachers criticize the new Massachusetts guidelines [meaning traditional math] they illustrate a folly of educationism: an obsession not with results but with process....

"Counterpoint The 'New' New Math Go Figure, Ashley Can't"
The Globe and Mail, copyright 2001
05/06/2001 Page A17 Metro
...Caitlin Kirby's only in Grade 4, but already she has hit the math wall. Sometimes she lays her head down on her math homework and cries. "I'm stupid!". ...Tressa [her mother] doesn't understand Caitlin's homework either. What she does know is that her daughter hasn't grasped the fundamentals of arithmetic. "In Grade 4 they're doing fractals. But they don't even seem to have the basics down," she says in frustration. Finally she showed Caitlin how to divide 27 by 9 -- the unapproved, old fashioned way. Welcome to the world of new new math, the pedagogical fad gripping most of Canada's education system. ..."This is probably the biggest disaster in education in my lifetime," says John Mighton, a brilliant mathematician who also teaches math to children who've been labeled remedial learners. "It's going to wipe out a whole generation of kids." ...In most of Canada, new new math is becoming more entrenched even as it's being repealed in much of the United States. In California, parents rose up in revolt and forced the school system to back off. Last month, New York Schools Chancellor Harold Levy was forced to reassure parents that new new math is out and traditional math is in again. ...Opposition is strongest from parents with strong math backgrounds -- engineers and scientists. But in Canada, few parents are aware that their children are the lab rats in a great experiment that has already soured south of the border. ...Not surprisingly, private learning centres are booming; 20,000 Ontario kids have flocked to Kumon Math and Reading centres for help in math this year, at $70 a month. Those kids will be all right. The students who will suffer are the ones who always do -- those whose parents don't know what's going on, the ones whose parents don't have time to fight for them....

"Ontario parents turn to tutoring services as kids struggle with curriculum"
The Canadian Press, copyright 2001
05/13/2001
...when [Doretta Wilson's] children started coming home from school with math homework that bypassed the basics and emphasized methodology over correct answers, she took charge herself. "I used to tell them to ignore the textbooks and I would sit down and teach them how I was taught," said Wilson, a Toronto mother of three. ...Ontario parents are scrambling to help their kids finish a year marred by disappointing provincewide test results coupled with ever-changing teaching trends. "We've almost been shut down, we've had so many [phone] calls," said John Mighton, a Toronto mathematician who runs a tutoring program called Jump that emphasizes the [math] basics. The program, free to students specifically selected by their schools, was lauded in a national newspaper article last weekend on the perils of a new style of teaching math in Ontario called whole math [new new math]. The phones have been ringing off the hook ever since, he said....

"Students' Superficial Grasp of Math Is Brain-Numbing"
Insight Magazine, copyright 1997
04/28/1997 Page 03
James E. O'Neill, Northport, N.Y.
...Since retiring three years ago I have tutored high-school math. Three Long Island, N.Y., North Shore school districts are represented. It has been an eye-opening experience. ...High school math used to be algebra, geometry, trigonometry and advanced algebra. The student was steeped in each subject for a year.... In today's sequential math series [new new math] the first year student spends a few weeks on algebra, then goes in turn to geometry, trig, coordinate geometry and transformation, probability, statistics, math systems and logic. There is a constant switching of gears. The next two years are similar. ...In my senior students I see the results - a superficial grasp of each subject, difficulty relating a point to counterpoints in previous cycles and complete forgetfulness of aspects from the previous cycles. Most significant is an inadequate understanding of the basics. Ironically, the old-fashioned approach to algebra and trig is available in one school district, relegated to those "who have had some difficulty with mathematics." ...I wonder how the new generation will do with their slim grasp of the basics?

"The Hardest 'R' "
The National Review, copyright 2000
06/05/2000 Pages 27-29
A dispatch from the Math Wars....
...the teaching of these algorithms [traditional step by step ways to compute math] to highschool students was declared by Steven Leinwand [the same co-chairman of former Secretary Riley's math panel of experts], a leading proponent of the 1989 [NCTM] standards and a board member of the National Science Foundation's math program, to be "not only unnecessary, but counterproductive and downright dangerous." Dangerous? What, then, was the nature of the danger? Such instruction, wrote Mr. Leinwand in 1994, sorts people out, "annointing the few" who master these procedures and "casting out the many." In other words, long division is elitist. So, apparently, are precise answers to math problems; under the 1989 [NCTM] standards you could get full marks for estimating an answer, instead of having to compute it precisely. You better hope that bridge you are driving over wasn't designed by an engineer trained in "constructivist" math [new new math]....