Mass Insight Education
April 2004
Mass Insight Education has released a "bicoastal" poll that shows the public in two states wants more math in K-12 education - and has less "math phobia" than most people would believe. The poll, conducted by MIE and the Seattle-based Partnership for Learning, a business group, polled the public on attitudes toward math education in the Massachusetts and Washington State, and found that 75 percent believe that all students should take algebra and geometry, while one-third think all students should take trigonometry and calculus. The poll also looked at the attitudes of business leaders in both states, who say overwhelmingly that students' math skills aren't up to snuff, especially for work in high-tech industries. The public also likes standards-based accountability measures and thinks they've helped to raise student learning. The poll doesn't do much that the American Diploma Project (http://www.achieve.org/achieve.nsf/AmericanDiplomaProject?OpenForm) hasn't done in more detail. But it's a useful temperature-taking exercise and adds additional evidence to support that project's central contention: that a high school diploma is not the useful marker for skills and knowledge that it used to be. You can read the full report at www.massinsight.org.