Hold on to your graphing calculators: The passionate, contentious debate over how California students should learn math is ready to erupt again.
While math formulas and properties may be delightfully precise, how best to teach them to children is not. As the United States prepares for the first time to adopt nationwide K-12 "common core" standards, mathematicians and educators are split.
Some hail the proposals as a groundbreaking advancement because students will develop a more solid footing in math before rushing to the next level; others fear the plan would propel California backward. Each side warns that America's future as a global science and technology powerhouse is at stake.
Fast-tracked by the Obama administration, standards for what students should learn in English and math have been drafted by a national committee representing 48 states and the District of Columbia. The public has until Friday to submit comments. California can choose not to adopt the federal standards but would miss out on competing for hundreds of millions in federal stimulus dollars.
While the proposed English curriculum hasn't provoked an outcry, the math debate echoes California's "math wars" that raged in the 1990s and led to repeals of reforms that favored problem-solving, applications and group work over traditional teaching.
Under the new proposed standards, primary students would spend more time going in depth on concepts before learning new skills, said Gretchen Muller, president of the northern section of the California Math Council. For instance, students here would learn multiplication in fourth grade rather than third.
Rather than following in step with other states, critics say, California should be looking to keep up with India, Singapore and Europe. Compared with their peers in Europe and Asia, U.S. students are two to 2½ years behind in math; California students are 1½ years behind, said James Milgram, professor emeritus of math at Stanford University who will help determine the new national standards.
Milgram doesn't think California should adopt what he sees will be weaker standards. Neither does Ze'ev Wurman, a Palo Alto high-tech executive and former adviser to the U.S. Department of Education.
"Essentially we are giving up on the hope of teaching algebra in the eighth grade," he said. He charges the proposed standards set the bar too low for college readiness.
Since 1997, California standards have included eighth-grade algebra. But not all schools enforce that, and a lawsuit two years ago prevented the state from testing all eighth graders in algebra. Instead, most secondary schools offer different math levels.
Still, the focus itself has caused algebra enrollment to triple in 10 years, Wurman noted. He said about 54 percent of students take algebra by eighth grade, and 6 percent take it in seventh.
Algebra has become a focus because completing it by eighth grade is the best predictor of college graduation, said Muhammed Chaudhry, CEO of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation.
Professor Hung-Hsi Wu of the UC-Berkeley, one of the authors of the proposed federal standards, takes issue with the algebra-by-eighth-grade mantra.
"Math education is not something you can dictate," he said. He notes that over 13 years, having an algebra standard hasn't much improved students' progress. The way to make a tree grow, he said, is not to yank it upward by the branches.
Wu strongly defends the proposed standards and their sequence. "For the first time, it spells out a more reasonable way to approach mathematics education," he said.
San Jose Unified embraced the eighth-grade algebra mandate. As a result, the district's proficiency percentages have slipped, even as more students are becoming proficient in algebra, Curriculum Director Yvette Irving said.
Clearly, the district has a way to go: Last year, only 24 percent of its Latino middle-schoolers — and only 44 percent of all middle-schools students—tested proficient or above in math. Statewide, the figure is 54 percent.
Those statistics don't deter Jane Pflughaupt, instructional math coach at Gunderson High, who believes that standards should be raised regularly. She is adamant that students will live up to expectations. "Kids are great—they'll go wherever the teacher leads.
Chuck Vicari, who teaches a class for struggling students, hopes they end up understanding algebra.
"I love math. But this part is hard for me, because I'm not very good at word problems," said freshman Pauleen Wilson, 15, while working on rational equations. The common core standards might help those like Pauleen, by teaching them how to apply concepts at lower grades, supporters say.
Wherever California ends up, high school curriculum is unlikely to change soon. It could take years, and billions of dollars that aren't readily available, to buy new textbooks, train teachers and realign curriculum.
But Muller said, "It shouldn't be a war. We both want the same things for our kids."
Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775.
To see the common core standards in mathematics, as proposed by a committee of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, go to http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/K12.