Low Standards OSPI (Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction) sets the state standards. Previous standards for Washington state were rated F by the independent Fordham Foundation. The Washington state legislature directed OSPI to revise these standards. The new, revised the standards were published in 2008. Unfortunately, the new standards, according to many experts, is full two years behind high-performing states or countries by 10th grade. Compare our standards with syllabus from Singapore (you may check both in the Documents page). Pay particular attention to the widening gaps starting from 5th grade. By 10th grade all Singaporean high schoolers has to take calculus, a level of math only college freshmen are expected to take in the US. OSPI has not set the standards for high school mathematics yet, and the current debate is if all high school students need advanced algebra, a topic full two years behind calculus.
Chronic Low Expectations Washington state test, the WASL, only measures the performance of schools based on the number of students meeting minimum standards. However, this sets the bar low for all students, and leads to low expectations from all parties. There is little or no incentive to motivate students to excel. Good students do not feel challenged with the current curriculum, get bored, and usually tune out. The adopted curricula and materials are designed to help the slowest kids pass the test, but they are failing them also. Have you noticed that those math books spend extra ordinary amount of time driving the concepts in, but very little at achieving the mastery in any given topics? Scientifically validated research has shown that there is no such thing as understanding concepts without mastery of skills.
Quality of Teachers Teacher certification programs in Washington, especially for lower grades, do not require that the applicants have a degree in math or science. They do not require any particular level of mathematical proficiency in their high school education, other than a diploma. This has led to many of teachers currently teaching, especially in early grades, who do not feel comfortable teaching math. Recent NMAP report (attached in the Documents page) shows that the quality of teachers is the single biggest contributing factor in success of children's math performance. In spite of a small number of excellent teachers, this issue has grown over the years.
Ineffective Curricula Many curricula have been in fashion in public schools, which downplay building skill mastery, and focus on conceptual understanding. Group learning, and learning from hands-on activities is encouraged, and use of calculators is rampant, in some cases all the way down to kindergarten. Fractions are not taught until middle school, often in a very superficial way. Students who go through such curricula often do not do well in high school math, and have no choice but to go into low paying non technical careers. This may not have been much of an issue in the 20th century, but the new 21st century jobs pit our graduates against graduates worldwide. Companies are a lot more mobile, and since they can hire talent anywhere in the world, only the best trained technical people with world class mathematics education are likely to get the highest paying technical jobs.
Unproven Teaching Methods Training of teachers in math education (not mathematics as a college major) has recently tended to include unproven and ineffective methods of teaching, which can be termed as pedagogical fads. One of them is teaching math as a group activity. The teacher does not teach but 'facilitates' groups of kids to come up with their own solutions. Correct answer is not a requirement, but a reasonable argument is. Finding a quasi-answer to a simple multiplication question through a group discussion has negative effects such as overreliance on others, when the the students should be building individual skills. This method does not help solving higher algebra or calculus problems in the future. Memorizing the multiplication table and be able to recall the facts instantly does.
Education Establishment Our Colleges of Education have a very low bar for entry. Most colleges of education do not have entry requirements other than a high school diploma. Where SAT scores are needed, they are usually in the bottom 50% of the applicant pool. Courses that are taught are lower level than those taught at department of mathematics. The research conducted by the establishment has been very dubious in its conclusions. Indeed, the National Math Advisory Panel report (in the documents page on this website) noted that out of more than 16000 research reports on math education, only about 1% were scientifically sound.
WASL The "old" WASL test was designed around the wordy and fuzzy math curricula prescribed by the previous superintendent of public instruction. The new superintendent of the state has made some improvements by making the duration of the test shorter for early grades, and by making the grading of results less subjective. However, the high school WASL test has been removed as a requirement for graduation due to numerous issues. By 2014, this test will be phased out and replaced by end of course tests on each topic (Algebra, Geometry, and Advance Algebra).
Parental Apathy Parents have to share equal blame for letting the system ignore math achievement for years. Demanding excellence from their children, their teachers, principals, district administrators and officials is part of how a democracy is supposed to function. Ignoring the problem has not made it go away, but has made it worse. Making sure their children get adequate practice at home, and following through with the school to make sure their children get the right instruction should be every parent's responsibility. We would like to add "getting informed on the facts" to the list, since parents can only react to what they know. If all they know is that their child is getting A's and B's, and there is no problem, then they are missing a huge part of the problem.
Cultural Attitude The school culture in the US has been focused on sports and extra curricular activities. Parental culture has been supporting involvement in little league, youth soccer, pee wee football, and excellence in these activities is encouraged. High performing nations in international math and science tests routinely respect and reward academic excellence. Kids in those nations feel excited about performing well in school, because they are visibly rewarded and recognized by their peers, teachers, and community leaders.