The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics met today in Chicago to re-evaluate this fundamental question. It has spent three years developing a 400-page document outlining what concepts students should grasp by certain grade levels. Back in the classroom, kids are learning math differently than the arithmetic classes their parents remember.
Test scores show kids today think of math much more creatively than their parents ever did.
Teachers of advanced mathematics say it does. Math scores on college entrance exams in some states are falling. Students who never memorized rules are finding it can cripple them later. Parents have grown vocal as well, as they are perplexed by homework they don't understand and alarmed when their kids are encouraged to use calculators instead of memorization. And so the pendulum has started swinging back.