NATIONAL COUNCIL ON EDUCATION AND THE DISCIPLINES The goal of the National Council on Education and the Disciplines (NCED) is to advance a vision that will unify and guide efforts to strengthen K-16 education in the United States. In pursuing this aim, NCED especially focuses on the continuity and quality of learning in the later years of high school and the early years of college. From its home at The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, NCED draws on the energy and expertise of scholars and educators in the disciplines to address the school-college continuum. At the heart of its work is a national reexamination of the core literacies—quantitative, scientific, historical, and communicative — that are essential to the coherent, forward-looking education all students deserve. Copyright © 2003 by The National Council on Education and the Disciplines All rights reserved. International Standard Book Number: 0-9709547-1-9 Printed in the United States of America. Foreword ROBERT ORRILL “Quantitative literacy, in my view, means knowing how to reason and how to think, and it is all but absent from our curricula today.” Gina Kolata (1997) Increasingly, numbers do our thinking for us. They tell us which medication to take, what policy to support, and why one course of action is better than another. These days any proposal put forward without numbers is a nonstarter. Theodore Porter does not exaggerate when he writes: “By now numbers surround us. No important aspect of life is beyond their reach” (Porter, 1997). Numbers, of course, have long been important in the management of life, but they have never been so ubiquitous as they are now. The new circumstances arrived suddenly with the coming of com- puters and their application to gathering, processing, and disseminating quantitative information. This powerful tool has brought unprecedented access to quantitative data, but in so doing it also has filled the life of everyone with a bewildering array of numbers that often produce confusion rather than clarity. The possible consequences for our ability to direct our affairs are worrisome to say the least. For some observers, the flow of numbers amounts to an inundation that calls forth images of a destructive flood of biblical proportions. Looking toward the future, James Bailey warns that “today we are drowning in data, and there is unimaginably more on the way” (Bailey, 1996). Even if we manage to keep our heads above water, Lynn Steen writes, we can be sure that “the world of the twenty-first century will be a world awash in numbers” (Steen, 2001). Gina Kolata looks at this data-drenched environment from a special vantage point. She reports on science and health issues for the New York Times and often hears from readers who complain that numbers presented by experts seem to mean “one thing one day and another thing the next.” What are they to believe, readers ask, when a regimen first said to promote well-being is later said to undermine it? Kolata’s response is that they must learn to interpret the numbers for themselves. The only remedy, she says, “is that they have to learn how to think for themselves, and that is what an education in quantitative reasoning can teach them.” Such an education, she writes, “makes all the difference in the world in people’s ability to understand issues of national and personal importance and helps them evaluate in a rational way arguments made by the press, the government, and their fellow citizens” (Kolata, 1997). But, as a practical matter, Kolata counts on no such well-prepared readership in her own reporting. The attention to quantitative reasoning that she thinks so essential to sound judgment simply does not exist in the academic programs of most of our schools and colleges. Thus, even the college- educated often lack an understanding of how to make sense of numerical information. For a democracy, this is no low-stakes concern. If numbers are present everywhere in our public discourse, and many are more confused than enlightened by them, what happens to decision making in our society? If we permit this kind of innumeracy to persist, do we not thereby undermine the very ground and being of government of, by, and for the people? Robert Orrill is the Executive Director, National Council on Education and the Disciplines (NCED), and Senior Advisor at The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey. NCED brings together university faculty and secondary school teachers to address issues of educational continuity in the later years of high school and the early years of college. vii viii Foreword How, then, should we act to address this concern? If attention to A great many individuals contributed to the making of the Forum, quantitative literacy is absent from our curricula, how can we and I am very sorry not to be able to thank them by name in these make certain that it is given the priority it deserves? These are overly brief acknowledgments. But a special word must be said questions that many educators in our schools and colleges are about Bernard Madison, who, with unfailing geniality, led every beginning to ask, but, at this point, we are still far from having step of the way in turning the Forum from idea into reality. In all programmatic answers or anything approaching a plan of action ways that count, the Forum is his handiwork. Thanks also to Lynn scaled to the need. This should not be surprising given that the Steen, whose many contributions to the cause of quantitative penetration of numeracy into all aspects of life confronts us with a literacy have become legendary. The Forum benefited immensely rapidly evolving phenomenon that we understand at best imper- from Lynn’s wise counsel throughout as well as his expert editorial fectly. The need now is to make a start: to bring together the many work on the proceedings. Diane Foster also attended to the pro- scattered discussions that are taking place and mount a sustained duction of the proceedings with her uncommonly good executive national conversation about how schools and colleges can give sense, and Dorothy Downie watched over organizational matters effect to expectations for learning that better take account of the with the professional skill and tact vital to all cooperative initia- quantitative challenges of life in the twenty-first century. tives. To help launch this conversation, the National Council on Edu- References cation and the Disciplines (NCED) sponsored a National Forum on December 1–2, 2001, aimed at promoting discussion and Bailey, James. 1996. After Thought: The Computer Challenge to Human debate about Why Numeracy Matters for Schools and Colleges. Intelligence. New York, NY: Basic Books. Held at the National Academy of Sciences, the Forum was de- Kolata, Gina. 1997. “Understanding the News.” In Why Numbers Count: signed to bring together many different points of view — educa- Quantitative Literacy for Tomorrow’s America. Lynn Arthur Steen tion, business, government, and philanthropy were all represented (Editor), New York, NY: The College Board. in the deliberations. International perspectives on quantitative Porter, Theodore M. 1997. “The Triumph of Numbers: Civic Implica- literacy also were presented, making it clear that numeracy is a tions of Quantitative Literacy.” In Why Numbers Count: Quantita- growing global concern. The most immediate outcome is the rich tive Literacy for Tomorrow’s America. Lynn Arthur Steen (Editor), and abundantly informative proceedings presented in this vol- New York, NY: The College Board. ume, which we believe — in giving voice to a wide range of Steen, Lynn Arthur, ed. 2001. “The Case for Quantitative Literacy.” In opinion — provide a benchmark discussion from which the Mathematics and Democracy: The Case for Quantitative Literacy. needed national conversation can go forward. Princeton, NJ: National Council on Education and the Disciplines. In an introduction to the proceedings, Bernard Madison provides a comprehensive overview of the essays and commentaries col- lected in this volume. Here I need add only that thanks go to many who joined together in organizing the Forum and making it a success. Indeed, the event was a cooperative undertaking from first to last. Special thanks for hosting the Forum are owed to the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council and, for its cooperation throughout, to the Mathematical Association of America. Financial support and welcome encour- agement were provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The Many Faces of Quantitative Literacy BERNARD L. MADISON Quantitative literacy (QL), the ability to understand and use numbers and data analyses in everyday life, is everybody’s orphan (Madison 2001). Despite every person’s need for QL, in the discipline- dominated K–16 education system in the United States there is neither an academic home nor an administrative promoter for this crucial competency. Needs for QL extend across the traditional American guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Health concerns increasingly are immersed in risk analysis and probabilities; government decisions and political arguments are steeped in uses and misuses of quantitative data; and consumer issues, sports, and investments frequently are reported in terms of averages, rates of change, and changes in rates of change. To better understand quantitative literacy and the educational challenge it presents, the National Council on Education and the Disciplines (NCED) initiated a national examination of issues surrounding QL education, especially in the context of school and college studies. As a starting point, NCED published Mathematics and Democracy: The Case for Quantitative Literacy (Steen 2001), consisting of a case statement on numeracy in contemporary society and 12 responses. To expand the conversation about QL, NCED subsequently sponsored a national Forum, Quantitative Literacy: Why Numeracy Matters for Schools and Colleges, held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on December 1–2, 2001.