Is Math a Myth?

There are those who are calling for scaling back mathematics education. One “public intellectual” (whatever that is), Andrew Hacker, has even written a book on the subject: “The Math Myth.”  Hacker loves to use words like “inflict” rather than “teach,” and wonders why we torture young Americans with math education in these days of computers and smart phones. (More on Hacker later).

Here is one reason. Mathematics is the science of reasoning. You might think that of little use, but you must use reasoning to weed out the arguments of political hacks and charlatans every election season. Here is an example.

On November 2, many newspapers ran a political cartoon by Jim Morin of the Miami Herald. The target of Morin’s partisan jibe was those who are concerned about the increasing expense of “Obamacare” premiums.

In the cartoon, a large, rotund loutish fellow, labeled “Health Insurance,” holds the message  “George W. Bush Years (up) 100%.” Next to him is a small, rotund fellow with the message “Obamacare (up) 25%.” Finally, a frenzied character, apparently Republican, is shouting “OH NO, WE NEED TO REPEAL IT!”

Here is Morin’s reasoning:

• Health insurance premiums increased 100% over the Bush years,
• Obamacare premiums are projected to increase only 25%,
• Therefore those concerned about Obamacare increases are hyperpartisan, hysterical idiots.

But, in truth, Morin is either preying on your mathematical ignorance or is a mathematical ignoramus himself. Neither interpretation is flattering.

Over the eight years of the Bush presidency, health insurance premiums did indeed increase about 100%. However, Obamacare premiums are projected to increase 25% this year alone. These two numbers can’t be directly compared because they occur over two very different timeframes.

It’s like saying that Sally made 25 dollars this year and Joe made 100 dollars altogether over the past eight years and then claiming that Joe makes a lot more money than Sally. If we annualize those earnings, Sally makes $25 per year while Joe makes only $12.50 per year ($100 divided by eight).

To compare the two health insurance rates of increase, we must find a common time scale. With a few simple calculations, we find that health insurance premiums increased approximately 9% per year over the eight Bush years. In fact, the Obamacare increase is nearly three times that of Bush on an annualized basis. Morin’s thesis is bankrupt.

Back to Andrew Hacker, who believes that your children are wasting their time in mathematical training. Let’s see how that works in reality.

In late August of this year, Hacker was interviewed on the weekly NPR show “Science Friday.” A political scientist by trade, Hacker is teaching a course called “Numeracy 101” at Queens College which is intended to impart a minimal, but adequate, amount of mathematical training. As a practical exercise, working with his students, Hacker calculated the answer to this question: “What is the ratio of black people killed by police as opposed to white people?”

Hacker breathlessly announced their findings: ” We’re the only ones who’ve discovered it. It’s a public statistic. For every 100 people killed by police, white people, 270 black people are killed. OK?”

Here is mathematical dilettante Hacker crunching numbers to support his liberal belief in racist police officers who kill 2.7 black people for every white person. The NPR audience, surely, ate it up.

But the truth may be a hard master. The Washington Post has been maintaining a database of police shooting statistics for several years based on “public information, news reports, and social media.” They believe it to be not perfect, but quite representative.

In 2015, the Post reports that 494 whites were killed by police. Applying the Hacker ratio, we would expect that 1,334 blacks would have been killed. But such is not the case. The WaPo reported 257 black deaths, a regrettable number, but an order of magnitude less than Hacker’s claim.

In this day and age, it is vital that citizens and voters attain and maintain a modicum of mathematical literacy. It is required to detect and debunk the claims of those aiming to sway you. These claims will be many, and you must question them if they don’t pass the smell test.

We may yet regret our collective decision refusing to expand charter schools. Match Charter in Boston, for example, serving inner city kids, delivered the astounding result of 97% of 10^th graders proficient or advanced in math, compared to 54% of district students.

We need more of that, not less.

Math is the Path to the Middle Class

It was great news for Rhode Island recently. General Dynamics Electric Boat has been awarded a $17.6 billion contract to build ten Virginia-class attack submarines and the Quonset Point facility will be adding 450 jobs. Some commuting workers from Massachusetts may benefit as well.

This is consistent with President Obama’s pledge to build the economy from “the middle out.” The wages from these jobs would inject an additional $30 million into the local economy with beneficial ripple effects (the “multiplier”) boosting barbers and bakers and candlestick makers.

But not so fast. Once of the most common positions on the Electric Boat website is a “QP Inside Machinist.” This job is described as follows:

“Set up, program editing and operation of CNC milling and turning centers. Verifying part configuration to plan requirements using various high tolerance precision measuring tools; must be able to work independently and with minimum supervision.”

From the list of qualifying requirements, this one stands out: Strong mathematical skills in geometry & trigonometry preferred.

Oops. How skilled are our recent high school grades in math? Are they ready for the rigors of the workplace? Or, rather, have they succumbed to our cultural aversion to math?

In Hollywood, only geeks and geniuses (e.g., Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting”) are good at math. The cool kids steer clear. It’s too hard. It’s not cool. It’s the butt of jokes.

But as can be seen, math may be a qualifying requirement for a well-paying middle class job. And as our information-based economy continues to unfold, this will be increasingly true.

Long gone are the days when one can make a good wage based on the sweat of one’s brow. Lifting 50 pound bags of flour is now relegated to pallet jacks, with a single operator displacing dozens of Italian immigrant mothers who had previously been paid to stack tons of goods. We hate technology, but each of us with a smart phone is embracing it. The workplace has changed.

But have our cultural and educational systems changed apace? Has mathematical literacy, numeracy, become increasingly desirable and culturally acceptable? Alas, it has not.

It is shockingly apparent that we have not prepared our kids for the new workplace. They believe math is hard, uncool, geeky, and hence, avoid it. But if the alternative is a minimum wage job as a barista, are we serving them well?

A plethora of studies have shown that high school math skills are correlated to higher earnings later in life. And not just earnings, math ability also eases our way through the increasingly complex thicket of everyday life. A 2013 study done by researchers at Princeton University found that in the financial meltdown of 2008, poor basic math skills correlated strongly with mortgage defaults. Controlling for all other factors (age, ethnicity, education, household income), the researchers studied hundreds of subprime mortgages across New England. Their findings were surprising in that it wasn’t specifically the choice of mortgage contract that led to default, but rather other life behaviors indicating poor overall financial decision making.

How to motivate kids to learn math and teach them more effectively?

One whimsical thought is that if only the media, Hollywood, and sports idols could embrace this cause, things might be different. We have shifted culturally against smoking tobacco and in favor of gay rights, why not a campaign to make math acceptable? It’s too easy to laugh at math geeks, as witnessed by “The Big Bang Theory” whose innumerate character played by Kaley Cuoco wins our affection.

A more serious route being debated by educators is to teach math in context. For instance, high schoolers should be taught basic financial skills and, in the process, exponents and logarithms. That is how interest calculations and amortization tables are made, why not learn how in context and not as part of an abstract course in algebra? This could be amplified by having chemistry and biology teachers, for instance, explaining the math required to understand their subject matters.

After all, math was not invented as an abstract topic. Fractions were an outgrowth of commerce, where early merchants needed to portion out fractional bushels of grain or wheels of cheese. Multiplying 2/3 times 4 was a practical exercise, not something dreamed up to torture a fourth grader.  Likewise, geometry and trigonometry were developed from the building trades and nautical navigation, not as an abstract brain teaser for high schoolers.

This won’t be solved anytime soon, but we must make numeracy a top goal. Those well-paying jobs at Electric Boat are awaiting.