Most people know mathematics is not the strong suit of American teenagers. Our high school students are lagging behind their counterparts in most industrialized countries, and fading fast. In the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA – a triennial international exam that measures the ability of 15-year-olds to use math in real-life situations) US students trailed 23 of the other 29 countries that administered the test – results that were even worse than America’s poor placements in 2003 and 2000.
While concern over our math deficiency is now widespread, there seems to be an equally widespread perception that these subpar evaluations are a recent phenomenon; that American students somehow lost the knack for mathematics over the past few decades; that a solution to our mathematics troubles involves getting back to the way things used to be, or “back to basics.” But all these perceptions are false, according to CGU School of Educational Studies (SES) Professor David Drew, who claims we never had the knack to begin with.
“People – and policy makers – apply the following logic: we’re doing poorly now, so our schools must be deteriorating. That’s a false syllogism,” said Drew, who is on the Executive Steering Committee for MfA Los Angeles. “I’ve gone back to the international assessments of the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, and 1950s. We’ve always done poorly.”
While Drew’s observation should temper nostalgia for the past, one might also think it offers reason for optimism: If the world’s largest economy was built by Americans with substandard math scores, can’t it can be maintained by Americans with substandard math scores? Unfortunately, no. In a high-tech, global economy, aptitude in mathematics has never been more vital to a country’s economic success.
“When we had a manufacturing economy, the quality of math education in our schools wasn’t as important as it is now. With an information-age economy, it’s absolutely vital,” Drew pointed out.
Still, simply recognizing the importance of mathematics is hardly going to improve performance. In fact, according to Drew, the most significant factor in improving math performance is teachers.
“It’s not how the school is managed, which is important,” he noted. “It’s not the curriculum, which is also important. But I would rather see a young person taught a 1950s curriculum by an excellent teacher than taught the latest curriculum by a boring or hostile teacher. Teachers are the focal point.”
As a hedge fund manager and former professor, Simons was in a unique position to recognize the importance of mathematics teachers in maintaining America’s competitive edge, particularly in poorer urban schools. It’s these schools that have long had difficulty recruiting and retaining highly qualified math teachers. That’s why MfA uses incentives to create great math teachers, bring them to these schools, and keep them there. The program was launched in New York City in 2004, and expanded to Los Angeles – through a partnership between CGU, Harvey Mudd College, and the University of Southern California (USC) – in 2007.
It was Harvey Mudd President Maria Klawe who initially brought the program to the Los Angeles area, and solicited the Teacher Education programs of CGU and USC. She is also a member of the MfA Los Angeles Executive Steering Committee.
Graduate students admitted to MfA Los Angeles receive a full scholarship as well as a living stipend while in school and an additional $20,000 for each of the first four years they teach after graduation. This money not only makes teaching a more attractive career option for undergraduates with math degrees – who can often make far more in engineering fields than in public education – but allows CGU to be very selective in picking students who are passionate about the subject.
“We look for a pairing of excellent content knowledge with great communication and relational skills, and a history of working with youth,” said Lisa Loop, co-director of SES’ Teacher Education Internship Program (TEIP) and a member of the MfA Los Angeles Executive Steering Committee. “We want to see a demonstrated history, where they’ve already been volunteering in poor urban schools, they really have a passion for doing this, and that’s what they want to do.”
CGU’s program has attracted a mixture of people coming directly from college and people making career changes. One of those coming directly from college is Chelsea Diefenbach, who was attracted to the program because of her own experiences. “I want to teach low-income students because I was a low-income student. I know how important it is to reach these students on their level, and CGU is one of the only schools I could find that is training people for that purpose.”
MfA Los Angeles had 12 fellows in its 2008-2009 inaugural class. This year there are 15 new fellows – including Diefenbach, who is already teaching five periods of Algebra I in a nearby high school – and Loop hopes to increase the trajectory of the class size about 3-4 a year until each new class has 40 fellows. Part of the reason for the gradual increase is that no student is admitted into the program until the funding has been fully secured for the entire five years.
In SES’s Teacher Education Internship Program at CGU, MfA fellows start in the summer with boot camp-like practical training. They learn the essentials, such as lesson planning, classroom management, and methods course work – that is, how one teaches math. Fellows also work with teaching mentors who take them into real, live classrooms for practice and evaluation. Once the fellows are deemed ready, they receive an internship credential and are ready to start teaching by the fall.
While fellows work full-time at one of six Los Angeles and Inland Empire partner school districts, CGU advisors make at least 15 site visits to the classroom a year to monitor the instruction and offer instant feedback. In addition, fellows return to CGU for classes every other Saturday, where they can again meet with their advisors for lengthier discussions and additional training. The summer after the first year, they finish the CGU program with classes on pedagogical theory, which is far less abstract after gaining classroom experience. Already, two CGU MfA fellows have also gone on to pursue an MA in mathematics.
The $20,000 stipend for four years of teaching is not merely dangled as a carrot to enter the profession, but is also a bonus for professional development; the goal is not just to create teachers, but to create good teachers who will improve until they become great teachers. For the last four years they are in the program, MfA Los Angeles fellows will attend regular weekend training sessions run by Harvey Mudd Associate Professor Darryl Yong. By the end of the program, fellows should be board certified, which will provide a higher salary for them once the stipend runs out.
These training sessions should also help fellows cope with the strain and stress of teaching. High school teachers have a high burnout rate; some estimates show that up to half the teachers drop out in their first three years. However, Teacher Education has prided itself on combating this problem. Two recent alumni surveys both found over 90 percent of Teacher Education graduates still teaching after five years. Drew credits this to the quality of the instruction, and the students: “We are very realistic. While we do cover content areas and classroom management and pedagogy, we also talk about what the world is like out there,” he said. “It’s also because our students are so committed to giving back to the communities they came from. So MfA is superimposed on that powerful Teacher Ed structure.”
Though MfA Los Angeles has low overhead operating costs, providing fellowships for these students is not cheap. A significant amount of funding comes from Jim Simons’ original gift, as well as $1.8 million from the Rosehills Foundation, $100,000-$200,000 from individual donors, as well as a $1.5 million grant awarded this summer from the National Science Foundation to support 10 future fellows.
To put that single gift in perspective: Each of those fellows will work with 200 students a year, over a five-year period. That adds up to 1,000 students taught by each fellow, and 10,000 students total. These are students from diverse populations: young men and young women; African Americans, Latinos, whites, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. There are talented young people in these schools and neighborhoods that sometimes only see the teachers nobody else wanted. For years – for decades – these students’ potential went unrealized, to the detriment of themselves and the country.
Yes, America’s track record in mathematics education can be disheartening, but the early success of Math for America is finally providing a reason for optimism.
