Professor on U.S. math panel

MU’s David Geary could play a decisive role in any changes to be made to mathematics education in the U.S.

Geary, a professor of cognitive psychology, was one of 16 experts appointed by the White House to participate on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said. The panel includes scholars from Harvard, Cornell and the University of California at Berkeley.

Created April 18 by an executive order of President Bush, the panel is supposed to “advise the president and secretary of education on the best use of scientifically based research to advance the teaching and learning of mathematics,” according to the Department of Education’s Web site.

Geary, who is a curator’s professor in the department of psychological sciences, met for the first time with other panelists on May 22 in Washington, D.C., to be sworn in and briefed on the panel’s basic duties.

He said its focus will be on algebra and related skills with these objectives: to re-evaluate student performance in the subject; to define the elements that make up a good curriculum; and to determine what prerequisite skills were necessary for student advancement in coursework.

“The ability of the U.S. to import scientists and engineers is going down because China, India and parts of Eastern Europe have industrialized,” said Geary. He pointed out that with better working conditions abroad, the burden has now fallen on the U.S. to produce its own technological innovators.

“A lot of things need to be improved,” he said. “Parents don’t think math is important, but a lot of American students actually like math, as opposed to their counterparts in China and India, where the coursework gets hard at an early age” and they like it less.

This urgency for reform is reflected in the panel’s creation by executive order, whereas the National Reading Panel, on which the math panel is based, was convened in 1997 by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The reading panel worked for the better part of three years before presenting its conclusions to a U.S. Senate subcomittee, but Geary’s panel must submit its findings directly to President Bush and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings no later than Feb. 28, 2008.