Government and state legislation and mathematics education

Summary: Legislation shapes the conditions in which mathematics education and research take place and mathematics quantifies the impact of proposed laws.

Government and state legislation impacts mathematics and mathematics education in many ways. For instance, legislators may guide research or teaching or mandate state or federal testing. They set funding levels that affect raises, the hiring or firing of teachers, and the daily operations at many state-assisted schools, colleges, and universities. Federal funding for mathematics programs at organizations like the National Science Foundation or the Department of Education, as well as state funding through Boards of Education, is often given as grants with the hope that they will lead to innovations in research and teaching. Some scholarship programs or economic incentives are designed to increase the number of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). U.S. House or Senate resolutions bring attention to mathematical events like Mathematics Awareness Month or π-Day. Professional mathematical societies organize or co-organize policy and advocacy committees that lobby the U.S. Congress and provide testimonies on issues related to mathematics. Another way that mathematics impacts legislation is through the quantitative knowledge of legislators. Scientists and mathematicians also serve on state or national committees like those at the National Academy of Sciences, which advise the federal government on STEM issues.

Structure and Representation

When citizens are not voting directly on legislation, they rely on elected representatives to give voice to their preferences. The constitutional democracy implemented in the United States was formulated expressly to prevent any one individual or group from exerting too much influence over the citizenry. Power sharing is manifested in the United States by partitioning governing responsibilities across the three branches of the federal government: judicial, executive, and legislative. The familiar system of “checks and balances” allows each branch to exert some measure of control over the other two.

Most state governments are structured in a similar way. The legislative branches at the federal and state levels implement further power-sharing measures in that they are often “bicameral,” meaning two separate bodies deliberate on laws and policies. Reflecting one of the great political compromises of American government, these two legislative bodies are formulated on two distinct representative principles. The U.S. Senate, for example, has equal representation from each state to ensure that each, especially smaller states, has equal voice in new policy formation. The U.S. House of Representatives features representation that is in proportion to the population size of each state, thereby ensuring that larger states have a voice that fairly represents their larger constituency. In a system of representation, a single representative usually stands in for a population of citizens. The primary technical and mathematical challenge in this system of representation is that not all representatives will represent the same number of citizens. That question forms the basis of the apportionment problem, which is a topic of great historical and theoretical mathematics study.

Government-Sponsored Mathematics Education

Many federal and state agencies impact STEM fields through legislated acts such as those related to funding or establishment of responsibilities. For instance, in 1867, the U.S. Department of Education was created in order to collect data on schools. The 1890 Second Morrill Act, which required states to prove that race was not a factor in granting college admissions or to land-grant institutions, led to new responsibilities for the Department of Education. As a result of the launch of Sputnik, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958: “To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.” In 1980, Congress established the U.S. Department of Education as a cabinet-level agency.

The Department of Education continues to impact mathematics education in the twenty-first century by focusing on educational excellence and equal access. Legislative funding and policies are an important aspect of curriculum changes through state or local agencies such as Boards of Education or Departments of Public Instruction. For example, in the late 1990s, concerns about student achievement led the state of California to adopt mathematics standards and the state’s legislature appropriated $1 billion for new instructional materials. Local agencies impact mathematics education through funding for teachers, charter schools, or voucher programs.

Another important federal agency for mathematics is the National Science Foundation. Under President Harry Truman, Congress established the National Science Foundation in 1950 via Public Law 81-507. The National Science Foundation provides grants and supports research and education in STEM. The agency attributes its founding to a response to the contributions of research scientists who helped win World War II, for example, with the creation of penicillin and the atomic bomb.

Professional Organizations

Mathematicians in professional mathematics organizations, such as the National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions, track federal and state legislation, help lobby legislators, and review legislation for potential positive and negative impacts. One well-known example of mathematics legislation with mathematical errors at the state level relates to the concepts π and squaring a circle. House Bill 246 read: “A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as contribution to education to be used only by the state of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties.…” This erroneous bill did not become law because of the intervention of mathematics professor C. A. Waldo.

Mathematics in Government

The extent of mathematics and scientific knowledge among legislators has long been a concern. Plato advocated the idea that learning to calculate “is a kind of knowledge which legislation must make a subject of study; and we must endeavor to persuade those who are in positions of authority in our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they properly understand the nature of numbers; nor again, like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling, but for the sake of their military use, and of the mind itself; and because this will be the easiest way for it to pass from the world of becoming to that of truth and reality.” Under President Abraham Lincoln, an act of Congress established the National Academy of Sciences in 1863 in order to conduct experiments on scientific issues and advise any department of the government that needed them to do so. The National Academy of Sciences created the National Research Council in 1916.

An example of how the National Academy of Sciences has impacted legislation related to mathematics is the twenty-first-century report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future,” also known as the “Augustine Report.” Congress had requested an economic competitiveness study and Normal Augustine, also a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, chaired the resulting National Academy of Sciences committee. He was educated as an engineer and served as chairman and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Through the report, the committee highlighted the ties between STEM innovations and the global economy and made international comparisons. It advocated improved education in mathematics and science as well as an increase in the number of students in the STEM pipeline. This report led to the American Competitive Initiative of 2006, which was enacted into law in 2007 as the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act, or the America COMPETES Act. It sets targeted federal funding levels for STEM, such as doubling funding for the National Science Foundation.

Congress has investigated many issues related to mathematics, which often first arose out of related congressional and National Academy of Sciences committee work. The twenty-first century Committee on Science and Technology or the historic Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures is one example. Congress passed the Metric Act of 1866: “It shall be lawful throughout the United States of America to employ the weights and measures of the metric system; and no contract or dealing, or pleading in court, shall be deemed invalid or liable to objection because the weights or measures expressed or referred to therein are weights or measures of the metric system.” Additional relevant legislative actions include the House Resolution: Expressing Support for Mathematics Awareness Month, or House Resolution 224, that supported the designation of March 14 as “π-Day” to help publicize mathematical events. Congress has also investigated or held hearings on issues such as how to close the gender gap in STEM or whether to relax H1B1 visa caps so that technology firms can hire more foreign workers. Mathematicians, scientists, and business leaders testify before Congress on STEM issues. Presidents can also issue executive orders related to mathematics, such as when President George W. Bush created the National Mathematics Advisory Panel in 2006 to advise both him and the Secretary of Education regarding best practices in mathematics education.

Bibliography

Crowley, James. “Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Testimonies.” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 43, no. 10 (1996). http://www.ams.org/notices/199610/comm-jpbm.pdf.

Dudley, Underwood. “Legislating Pi.” Math Horizons 6 (February 1999).

Jacob, Bill, and Joan Akers. “‘Research-Based’ Mathematics Education Policy: The Case of California 1995–1998.” International Journal for Mathematics Teaching and Learning (May 2000). http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/Journal/bjcalpol.pdf.

Lutzer, David. “Science Policy at the MAA.” MAA FOCUS: The Newsmagazine of the Mathematical Association of America 24 (2004). http://www.maa.org/features/101404sciencepolicy.html.

National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions. “Survey of State STEM Legislation.” http://www.nassmc.org/pdfs/nassmc‗stem‗legis.pdf.

U.S. Department of Education. “Federal Role in Education.” http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html.