Re: “Plummeting WA math scores point to trouble. Time for course correction” (April 11, Editorials):
While I am certain most of us agree we want the best education possible for students in Washington, as a high school math teacher it troubles me that we are still making generalizations about this education based on the results of standardized math exams. Such exams contain inflexible, formulaic questions that students can be coached to answer. While time spent on this coaching may yield better state performance on standardized tests, it says next to nothing about students’ genuine abilities to think and problem-solve, the true purpose of math education.
I spend my free time doing logic-based math problems and I encourage my students to do the same. Though of course it is important to continually improve public education and look for achievement gaps, the obsessive national focus on mathematics stems from a complete misrepresentation of the point of the subject. It is a tragedy that the average American believes math is a subject of formulas and calculations when in its true form math is far more similar to art.
Yes, let us correct Washington’s math education. Let us make it about teaching our students to think, not coaching them to memorize in preparation of standardized tests.
Megan Bultman, Redmond
