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Contributors
Gary M. Galles - Contributor
Mr. Galles
is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. [go
to Galles index]
 Maybe
We Want To Be Bad At Math
Avoiding reality…
[Gary M. Galles] 1/6/05
A major international
comparison using 2003 data is the latest in a long line to
conclude that Americans’ mathematics
mastery is inadequate. The Program for International Student
Assessment found that for 15 year-olds, “U.S. performance
in mathematics literacy and problem solving was lower than the
average performance in most OECD countries. The United States
also performed below the OECD average on each mathematics literacy
subscale representing a specific content area.”
If form holds, this will divide students, parents, teachers
and administrators into camps who blame each other. However,
what is unclear is whether all the finger-pointing ---indicates
a real desire to overcome our innumeracy. The fact that we frequently
use mathematics to intentionally fool ourselves and others argues
against that conclusion--. When we systematically abuse numbers
to distort reality, it is no surprise that we handle mathematics
poorly.
One of today's most obvious misleading number games is grade
inflation. Teachers have accommodated student desires for higher
grades to the point that the median GPA of graduating seniors
has risen about a full grade point since it was about 2.2 in
1965. At some elite schools almost everyone gets As and Bs today,
and who is valedictorian has become -how many 4.0 students will
share that title.
High schools have gone even further, making it possible to get
better than a 4.0. Many make advanced placement or community
college courses worth an extra grade point. These and other policies
(e.g., statewide comparisons crafted to show that, as in Lake
Woebegone, all children are above normal) have, however, thrown
away much of the useful information grades once contained-.
Price inflation is another form of ego-building by manipulating
comparison numbers. If I want to brag that I make more than my
father ever did, the effects of inflation can over-whelm every
other difference and make it so. On the other hand, older Americans
use it to prove how much better things used to be- (I remember
when bread was a nickel...).
Competitive inflation
also occurs in other dimensions. We regularly cheat on the
new in “new and improved.” Books and
new car models come out well before the year starts- (you can
already buy used 2005 cars). Magazines arrive with dates two
weeks into the fu-ture. - -
Statistics and percentages
are subject to the same abuse. “Giving
it 100%” was once going all out, but that has been replaced
with giving it 150%, 200%, and even 1000%. I’m 1000000%
sure there is something wrong with this inflated hyperbole. Similarly,
statistics are routinely manipulated to make insignificant changes
look signifi-cant. Instead of saying some drug increas-es the
probability of some cancer from -0.00001 to -0.00002, reports
scream that it doubles your risk.
We cheat on clothing
sizes. Adults want to feel be thinner, so what was a given
size dress years ago is now a smaller size.
Parents, however, want their children to be “ahead of the
curve," so some companies cut infant sizes smaller, so everybody
can have children that are ahead of their peers.
Everywhere you turn,
people “cheat” to make today's
results look better than yesterday’s. This is particularly
true in competi-tive sports, where we often judge quality by
numbers (e.g., baseball statistics). We have changed rules to
favor the offense in sports, so that more points get scored.
-We have tuned track surfaces with steel springs to make sprint-ers
faster and have designed more flexible poles so pole-vaulters
go higher.
It is time
we were honest with ourselves about our innumeracy. While we
understand
that better mathematics skills are important
and that we would like to handle numbers more deftly, most of
us are unwilling to put in the time and effort to do so. And
in many cases we simply do not want to “do it right,” because
that would force us to trade in some of the self-delusions we
want to keep for the reality we are often desperate to deny. tOR
copyright
2004 Gary M. Galles
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