Algebra, an Important Educational Gatekeeper

It was recommended to me that I could use my blog as a way of maintaining the many excellent articles that I read and write to share with people in the field of education. I normally send these items directly to individuals as an attachment to an e-mail. When I have to share it with others, I have to come home and find the items and send it off to the next group. By placing the items into my blog, I can send this blog to anyone at anytime and have them review what I have found or written.

Today, I am going to try this and see what kind of response I get from those I share documents with.

I just read an interesting article on the teaching of algebra in the District Administrator Magazine online. It combines suggestions on how to get improvement in our algebra outcomes for students, and it also gives explanation as to why we need to continue to push algebra as a gatekeeper for student success.

"A New Age for Algebra
A renewed emphasis on this math course can make or break a pupil’s success in school." http://www.districtadministration.com/article/new-age-algebra-1

I have always believed, as a math teacher and administrator, that the trouble with algebra is that we do not do a good job of preparing kids for it in the lower grades. We teach our arithmetic in K-7, often as a set of algorithms, so that if a student knows the algorithm well, they will do well on their arithmetic tests. The problem with teaching arithmetic as a series of algorithms is that we don't include the critical thinking or the language of mathematics that are the real power of mathematics education in our traditional classroom instruction. Therefore, when our students reach the higher level mathematics courses, they have not been given enough problem solving time, critical thinking time, or opportunities for success in mathematics, and they give up on mathematics very easily.

As the article clearly states, we need our kids to be much more competitive with the rest of the world in the content field of mathematics. Mathematics opens up many other fields for success. President Obama made it clear and public that we have to produce many more engineers and scientists to maintain our ability to compete globally with the remainder of the world community. STEM programs in schools need to be established and focused for the success of our kids and for the protection of our nation.

The article also makes clear that although there appears to be programs in place that seem to have success in raising the algebra achievement level of our students, we need to be sure that they are used properly. This requires teachers to be trained in the use of these programs and to have continuing support in order to take full advantage of what research tells us about the success of each program.

As a middle school principal, I brought Connected Math to my school. But I did not just buy a new set of textbooks, I purchased the support for teachers to use it properly. We saw incredible gains in our math scores over the last several years of my principalship. Yes, I liked the way Connected Math created real life application to the math being taught, but I liked better that our teachers were enjoying the use of this new instructional tool, saw value in collaborating with their peers, and developing a sense of how to make every child successful.

Math is a gatekeeper for our kids continuing education, unfortunately, it also a roadblock. When we make any single course so high stakes, that it can keep a child from earning a high school diploma, then we have to find a way to help every child succeed.

I hope that you will look at the article I am referencing and find the time to respond and comment so that many of us can jointly participate in a high level and highly important conversation. Our students and our nation need for these discussions to occur all over the United States. Thanks for reading.