Solving the math problem: Who decides how to teach math?

When I started school in the 1950's, teachers worried that students were memorizing the times tables, but not understanding concepts. The "new math" came along in the 1960's to fix that. And, later, there was the "new new math."

It's 2026, and students have been told they are "mathematicians" whose wrong answers are signs of their brilliance. They're supposed to learn multiple ways to not solve a math problem. Yet, few understand why 1/3 is more than 1/4.

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Across the nation, states are trying to figure out how to improve math education, writes Sarah Schwartz in Education Week. Many are working on statewide initiatives to raise very low proficiency rates.

Alabama has become a role model. The state "mandated early screening and intervention for students who are struggling and assigned math coaches to every K-5 public school," she writes. The state is showing progress, but large achievement gaps remain.

Some also point to Louisiana, which incentivizes districts to choose high-quality curricula in English/language arts and math instead of every district doing its own thing.

Most state plans require that instruction and materials be “evidence-based,” Schwartz writes. However, there's an ongoing debate on what the evidence shows.

"Decades of research in cognitive psychology and special education have shown that explicit instruction— modeling problem-solving methods and giving students lots of practice with them — can help struggling students learn math concepts," Schwartz writes. In short, it helps if teachers explain the math first.

But many prefer math educators prefer "a more inquiry-oriented approach," she writes. Instead of explaining first, teachers encourage students "to wrestle with complex problems," building conceptual understanding and math "dispositions."

The latest thing is to have students do this in small groups standing up and using white boards.

In Illinois, which is working on a plan, some want a balance between explicit teaching and inquiry, writes Schwartz. Others say that's how reading instruction went astray: "Balanced literacy" was tilted heavily toward "whole language" and away from phonics.

The state's draft needs more stress "on the importance of explicit instruction, repeated practice, and fact fluency," argues the Illinois Coalition for Evidence-Based Math Instruction, she reports.

Fact fluency is “almost like the phonics piece for math,” said Megan Wilhelm, the curriculum coordinator in Mascoutah School District 19. “If you don’t have your facts quickly, you’re going to really start to fall apart.”

On "Old School," Rick Hess writes about the perils of legislating education reform. It's hard to avoid rules, rigidity, red tape -- and check-the-box compliance.

Requiring “high-quality” instructional materials "doesn’t mean you get high-quality materials," he writes. And, "hiring instructional coaches and delivering mandated trainings doesn’t mean pedagogy will improve. It matters what those coaches do, what those trainings cover, whether teachers take them seriously, and whether there’s follow-through."