Plank 9: Statement

[mathismore]

Our country must make a major investment over the coming decade to sustain and rejuvenate the ranks of mathematics teachers in our nation’s schools.

Many mathematics classrooms are staffed with unqualified teachers. This is because school administrators can neither find enough qualified teachers nor provide adequate resources to upgrade staff qualifications. Mandates that every teacher be qualified won’t improve the situation until there is a sufficient supply of mathematics teachers to meet the demand. To stave off this foreseeable crisis in our math classrooms, our nation needs to act to increase the numbers of young people entering mathematics and mathematics education disciplines in our universities and to significantly improve the continuing education of existing teachers. We must ensure that their education prepares them for current educational realities and that their working conditions as teachers permit them continuous mathematical and pedagogical improvements. We need to find more ways to support new teachers through the difficult induction years, especially young people who commit to teach in our least successful schools.