Why Do Mathematicians Denounce Everyday Math and Other Reform Math Curricula?

Everyday Math and Connected Mathematics Program are examples of “reform” math programs (also known as “fuzzy math”). These programs are based on the 1989 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards. College professors say that these programs leave out important topics, do not teach fluency in arithmetic, and ignore the parts of math that are formal and abstract. This will harm those students who want to go into science, medicine, engineering and other fields requiring rigorous college math. Other students will not even develop basic math literacy because reform math programs are confusing and do not offer enough practice.

California was one of the first states to adopt reform math, and the results were disastrous. There was a dramatic increase in the number of college students needing remedial math. When math professors complained, California returned to traditional math standards, which were developed with the help of mathematicians at Stanford University. Under the new standards, California does not approve of Everyday Math or Connected Math for use in its public schools.

For a long time, the United States Department of Education ignored the California math disaster. In 1999, the Department tried to promote reform math by releasing a list of math programs labeled as “exemplary” and “promising.” Everyday Math and Connected Math were on this list. In response, over 200 mathematicians and scientists signed a letter of protest to the Secretary of Education, urging him to withdraw the list. The protest letter was endorsed by many of the nation’s most distinguished mathematicians and scientists, including seven Nobel laureates, winners of the Fields Medal, and the department heads at 16 universities including Caltech, Stanford, Harvard and Yale.

Supporters of reform math claim that “research shows” that these programs work. In an attempt to resolve the “math wars,” the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research on 19 math programs, including Everyday Math and Connected Math. The Academy found that the research was flawed and unreliable.

Due in part to Americans’ poor performance on international tests, the NCTM finally changed its standards away from reform math. Now it wants children to master a few “focal points” each year, including basic arithmetic. This is the approach taken by those nations that perform highest on international tests. It is in sharp contrast to the reform math approach, which provides superficial exposure to many different topics.

The members of our society with the deepest understanding of math oppose reform math programs. The programs are not supported by reliable research. The trend in education is away from programs like Everyday Math and Connected Math. Why is our school district still using them?

This is what college professors say about reform math programs like Everyday Mathematics and Connected Mathematics:

“[N]o one has ever done a longitudinal study of how students raised on Everyday Math perform in higher level math courses with serious pre-college level math content. My suspicion is that Everyday Math will make things worse because it fails to provide the math content knowledge, or fluency in such basic skills as the use of fractions, required for success in higher level math. “

Fred Greenleaf

Professor of Mathematics

New York University

“Among teachers and mathematics educators, the avant-garde reformers are the most energetic, and their voices drown out those skeptical of extreme reforms. On the other side, among academic mathematicians and scientists who have reflected on these questions, a clear majority oppose the new trends in math education.”

Wilfried Schmid

Professor of Mathematics

Harvard University

(emphasis supplied)

“[There has been] a dramatic drop in content knowledge that we have been seeing in students coming to the universities in recent years. … A large part of the blame rests with [reform math programs].”

Testimony to United States Congress

James Milgram

Professor of Mathematics

Stanford University

“What you will not find is an ‘A’ student in college math who went through any school using only these reform math programs … without some sort of intervention. The reason I can say this with such confidence is that there is too much content missing from these programs, content that is essential for college level mathematics.”

W. Stephen Wilson

Professor of Mathematics

Johns Hopkins University

“At the elementary level, I advise against ‘Everyday Mathematics’.

At the middle school level, I advise against ‘Connected Mathematics,’ known as CMP.

Students who follow these programs, unless they have outside tutoring, will not be prepared for high school mathematics. In my experience with districts afflicted with these programs, affluent parents have sent their children to private schools or hired tutors, while the less privileged, even if they ‘succeeded’ in these programs, were forever cut off from any further progress in mathematics or scientific professional education. Once finished with ‘CMP,’ remediation becomes impossibly difficult except by private tutoring.”

Ralph A. Raimi

Professor of Mathematics

University of Rochester

“In spite of some attractive approaches undertaken by Everyday Mathematics (EM), the topics and skills it leaves out will be seriously detrimental to the students in rendering them not being fully prepared to handle the learning of higher mathematical topics in middle, high and finally the college years. “

Tswei Wang

Professor of Chemical Engineering

The University of Tennessee

“Math is layered and deep and what these books do is undermine the very first layer.”

Alan Siegel

Department of Computer Science

Courant Institute

New York University

“Because I have written and spoken publicly about issues in math education, I regularly receive emails and phone calls from parents across the country asking for help and advice on how to avoid the negative effects of [National Science Foundation]-funded math programs in their children’s schools. I receive more complaints about Everyday Mathematics than all of the other NSF-funded programs combined. And the complaints are legitimate….Everyday Mathematics eschews the standard algorithms and does not develop fluency in basic arithmetic.

David Klein

Professor of Mathematics

California State University, Northridge

(emphasis supplied)

“Everyday Mathematics requires massive fixes at the most basic level. The program does not teach the standard procedures at all for subtraction and division, and offers a hopelessly confusing potpourri of methods for all the four elementary operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). The program has pedagogical features (notably, rapidly jumping around over different topics without staying focused long enough for pupils to achieve mastery) that appear to make it all but unworkable as intended.”

Bastian Braams

Visiting Professor of Math

Emory University

“In normal classrooms with normal teachers, I would characterize [Everyday Math] materials as ‘dangerous.’ My impression is that it would be very difficult to be sure that appropriate material has been covered adequately. One can expect a very high degree of teacher variability. Knowledgeable teachers, well grounded in the materials, may be able to pull it off; at least it’s clear from the assessment book that there are some things that the children are supposed to know. There is almost no routine practice, although a small amount is built into the activities.”

Wayne Bishop

Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science

California State University, Los Angeles

“’[Reform math standards] do not contain the rigor, algorithmic approach, formal methods, and logical reasoning which are required [of] students who will go on to become scientists, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, physicians, and educators of mathematics.’”

Chairs and Administrators of NYC Mathematics Departments

(Letter to Chancellor Joel Klein)

“As a mathematician, I find [Everyday Math] abysmal ….

[W]hat troubles me most is the fundamental philosophical flaw in EDM: It ignores the core beauty and power of mathematics, viz., that it is an edifice constructed out of pure reason, all of whose inferences and deductions flow logically and unarguably from more basic facts. EDM asks the students to flit willy-nilly from room to room or even floor to floor in this structure, without ever exposing them to the skeleton, the underlying architecture…..

The basic premise of EDM, so much so that it is part of its name, that math should be valued or appreciated only insofar as it can be applied to ‘everyday things,’ is worse than misguided, it is a lie promulgated by people who, quite frankly, don’t understand the first thing about mathematics.”

Anthony Falcone, Ph.D

Theoretical Mathematician (Ph.D UCLA)

Former Adjunct Assistant Professor, UCLA

“[Reform math] has the potential to change completely the undergraduate mathematics curriculum and to throttle the normal process of producing a competent corps of scientists, engineers and mathematicians. In some institutions this potential is already a reality.”

Hung Hsi-Wu

Professor of Mathematics

University of California, Berkeley

“[S]tudents whose K-8 mathematics programs de-emphasize or eliminate traditional algorithmic approaches will be effectively denied access to [formal and abstract mathematical competency], or indeed to any high school program designed to prepare them for rigorous college mathematics.”

Stanley Ocken

Professor of Mathematics

The City College of the City University of New York

“Overall, [Connected Mathematics Program] seems to be very incomplete, and I would judge that it is aimed at underachieving students rather than normal or higher achieving students…. The philosophy used throughout the program is that students should entirely construct their own knowledge and that calculators are to always be available for calculation.”

James Milgram

Professor of Mathematics

Stanford University

“Pushing this fuzzy approach denies people the skills they need to succeed in college and the work market … I am not a teacher of K-12, but for five years I taught the main first-year calculus course required for the majority of Caltech students. I was aghast at some of the gaps in their education [after being educated in reform math under California’s old standards].

I believe that the [new] California state math standards and state math frameworks are really superb.”*

Barry Simon

Professor of Math and Theoretical Physics

California Institute of Technology

*“Everyday Mathematics… does not address all of the content standards to the depth and extent required… In some cases, concepts and procedures are not well-explained or rely heavily on the teacher’s own content knowledge and understanding, resulting in a lack of closure to the mathematical discussion….

The program is not adequately organized and presented for efficient and effective use by the teacher to convey the subject matter content…

Assessment instruments are often inefficient and ineffective.”

State Board of Education (rejecting Everyday Math for use in California’s public schools under the new California math standards)

2001 Mathematics Adoption Report

State of California