Students are being taught maths at the most superficial level by teachers rushing to pass on the basic skills while shying away from complex ideas.

In yet another example of children being failed by national school curriculums, a special report for the state leaders finds maths teaching is failing students by setting the bar too low.

The National Numeracy Review report, released to The Weekend Australian, criticises the national benchmarks in maths, which assess students against minimum standards rather than requiring a desirable proficiency.

“The implication (is) that minimum standards are good enough, at least for some students,” says the report on numeracy commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments. “All students and their families, however, have a right to expect high-quality - not minimum - numeracy outcomes from their schooling.”

The review committee, chaired by the former head of the NSW Board of Studies Gordon Stanley, says the time spent teaching maths in classrooms has decreased over the past decade, yet students are expected to learn about a greater number of mathematical concepts.

“Curriculum emphases and assessment regimes should be explicitly designed to discourage a reliance upon superficial and low-level proficiency,” the report says. It recommends phasing out the streaming of students according to their ability, citing research that says it has little effect on achievement.

“It does produce gains in attainment for higher-achieving students at the expense of lower-attaining students,” it says.

The report recommends that all teachers, regardless of their intended speciality, be trained as numeracy teachers and maths be taught across all subjects.

The report says primary school students should spend five hours a week and high school students four hours a week on maths and numeracy, including time spent learning maths in other subjects.

The report also suggests introducing specialist maths teachers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with other teachers, particularly those without specialist training in maths teaching.

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24006438-663,00.html