America’s Crisis of Math

A great percentage of news in 2011 has been devoted to America’s spending deficits and debt crisis – specifically the recent battle to raise the country’s debt limit. And rightly so. It could be argued – and many economists make the argument – that the fiscal crisis that we are facing will cripple the nation economically. It could further be argued – and IS by many – that this is already taking place. The immensity of our nation’s debt really does boggle the mind. It is simply not possible for the average person to envision or comprehend the magnitude of a number that ends with twelve zeroes (a trillion), let alone fifteen times that number.

While doing some research recently, I came upon a story by USA Today from May of 2010: The story reports that one-third of students entering college cannot perform college-level mathematics and require one or more remedial math courses before they can even begin working toward their degree. What does this say about the quality of mathematics instruction that high school students receive in America today? And, as part of the bigger picture, what about all of the high school students that DON’T opt for college? That surely pushes the percentage of mathematically-illiterate high school graduates even higher.

---

I am in my early-50’s. I remember my second grade teacher, Mrs. Moreland, pounding the multiplication tables into our heads (God bless you, Mrs. Moreland). By the time that I reached high school, electronic calculators were just beginning to see widespread use. They were quite expensive in the late-1970’s and we were not permitted to use them in math classes. We had to know how to perform basic arithmetic – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We had to learn long division which, for large numbers, took up quite a lot of paper. I worked for McDonald’s my last two years of high school and we did not have electronic cash registers; we had to learn how to count change back to our customers. Contrast this to today’s environment: We often hear people say, “I was never any good at math.” It is almost as if they are proud of the fact. But the reality is that many people cannot perform basic math without the aid of a calculator. And who has not experienced an incident with a cashier that entered the wrong cash tendered amount and was totally lost trying to figure out how much change to give back? I once worked with a gentleman that taught remedial math at a local community college. The stories that he used to tell us about his students had to be heard first-hand to be believed. Many were unable to perform simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers; forget being to add, subtract multiply and divide fractions. Probably because they were never taught what a fraction even IS. And we wonder why America now finds itself woefully behind countries such as China and Japan when it comes to math education. Which leads me back to the topic of America’s debt crisis. As we have heard, the United States finds itself nearly fifteen trillion dollars in debt. Washington recently voted to raise the debt limit to allow us to borrow 2.4 trillion more dollars that we do not have. This will bring the total debt to seventeen trillion dollars. Many conservatives have been pushing for a balanced budget amendment to put an end to the madness of Congress being able to continually raise our nation’s credit limit. Liberals in general, and President Obama in particular, have employed persistent demagoguery by implying that Grandma is no longer going to be able to receive her free prescription medication and that children with severe handicaps are going to be kicked out into the streets to fend for themselves. The problem with the entire discussion – and the reason that so many Americans are apathetic – is the fact that probably half of the electorate cannot begin to even comprehend the enormity of the debt. To these people, there is little difference between fifteen trillion dollars and fifteen million. They know that fifteen million dollars represents a great deal of money. The reality is that the federal debt is a MILLION times fifteen million dollars. Fifteen trillion of ANYTHING – even grains of sand – is a lot. If we were to pay it back at fifteen million dollars per day (assuming that we stop borrowing right now), it would take a million days – or approximately 2740 years to repay it. But try explaining this to someone that cannot multiply seven by five without using a calculator. The cold hard facts are as follows: America as a nation finds itself facing an ever-growing number of serious issues, not the least of which is our insurmountable debt. But America also faces a serious “math crisis”. And, “I was never any good at math,” just isn’t going to cut it anymore.