The Future of Math in Silicon Valley

Journalism Assignment for High school . I had to choose a beat (education) and interview 2 people for this article.  A big thanks to both the interviewees!

The Future of Math in Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley is noted for its expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). This helps it maintain its competitive-edge at a world level. Yet this area faces a severe shortage of Math teachers, as does the rest of California. An understanding of Math fundamentals and its applications is a skill that crosses many career paths and life skills. Laying this foundation and interest in Math, is often shaped by these very teachers. 

Love Math, Hate Math! Math can be the easiest of subjects and it can be the hardest of the subjects. Teachers face students from across the spectrum. I interviewed 2 High School Math teachers, Sita Murugan of Independence High School in San Jose and Sushma Bana of Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, to get their perspectives. 

Sita Murugan comes across both students who excel in math to ones who are unable to show the steps. Others lack basic math skills like adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, negative numbers, fractions, decimals, using distributive property etc. Monta Vista High School, on the other hand, is a high performing school, and some of the issues are very different. It is 75% Asian and it is presumed that all Asians are good in Math. Sushma Bana often comes across students who are pressured (parental and peer pressure) into taking higher-level math courses, even if interested in other areas. “In our school it is considered cool if you are a good student in math and science. Parents are very involved in their kids' education, which is a good thing for the most part. But sometimes they force their kids to take classes which are very challenging for them.” This reflects the wide underlying diversity of needs amongst students in Silicon Valley, which is presumed to be STEM-savvy.  

The teachers take different approaches in tackling the issues. Sita Murugan makes use of differentiated instruction with software like Accelerated Math or Apangea, to help her students with their math challenges. Classroom instruction, in addition to computer/web-based solutions, plus on-line tutoring by credentialed instructors can help “ensure that students can learn math anytime, anywhere.” For her students, Sushma Bana feels that teacher recommendations should be taken seriously, when deciding on a math placement and that parents need to let their kids make informed choices. 

While there is a fundamental shortage of math teachers, the issue is also a shortage of “good math teachers,” in Silicon Valley. The area has a very high cost of living, and qualified candidates with STEM degrees, often choose better paying careers. Attracting qualified talent loses out in the face of the cost of living. It is a critical problem, given the wide array of needs of students that live here and for Silicon Valley to maintain its competitive edge in the future. 

What can be done to reduce the issues of good teacher shortage, and quality Math education? One obvious solution is to make the salaries competitive for highly qualified candidates with STEM backgrounds. Sushma Bana suggests offering incentives such as subsidized housing to motivate teachers to live in the area. The current teacher pay scales are based on years of experience rather than their effectiveness. As with the tech industry, pay scales needs to be on merit-based, rather than seniority-based. Sita Murugan suggests that the credential course for Math be made less rigorous. They could for instance split the level: Lower level for teaching (Algebra1/ Geometry) and Higher level (Algebra2 and beyond)

Other local districts have tried different methods to dramatically improve their “student to valuable human time ratio.” The Los Altos School District recently overhauled the Math curriculum for their 5th and 7th grades by using software from The Khan Academy. This was outlined by Salman Khan, founder of The Khan Academy, in his speech at the TED conference talks on Mar 9, 2011. In effect, “by using technology, they were humanizing the classroom.” In this way, they were able to motive students with a wide range of needs, keep them on a continual learning curve, and yet work with the limited teacher resources. Bill Gates, who introduced Sal Khan at the TED conference, stated that this could well be the future of education in the US.