Do Elementary Schools Need Certified Math Teachers?

In the Fall 2009 issue of American Educator, author Hung-His Wu asks “What’s Sophisticated about Elementary Mathematics?” (www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/fall2009/index.htm). Wu, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, served on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and the Mathematics Steering Committee that contributed to revising the math framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the “Nation’s Report Card”. In this article, available on the American Federation of Teachers’ web site, Wu advocates for math instruction delivered by math teachers starting no later than the fourth grade.

In the eleven page article, Wu provides several sample concepts illustrate the need for highly qualified math teachers at the elementary level, including place value, standard algorithms, and dividing fractions. Seemingly simple, elementary math concepts turn out to be extremely sophisticated.

In an age of standards-based instruction and assessment, a time when students are increasingly challenged by the difficulty of mathematical concepts and application on, sometimes high-stakes, assessments at the state and national level, it makes sense to question the current system of math education.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel has taken up this issue and emphasizes the need for mathematically proficient elementary teachers in a recent report (see Recommendation 7, 17, and 19 of Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel at www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/mathpanel/report/final-report.pdf