Quotes



Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

— 

[]


While reforms are gradually taking hold, the majority of classrooms still rely on a traditional mathematics curriculum, that, as one cynical observer remarked, is largely composed of eight years of 15th century arithmetic, two years of 17th century algebra and one year of 3rd century BCE geometry.

— 
http://www.ams.org/delete/views-andrews.html
[]


Increasingly, high-stakes exams conflict with high performance standards. When teachers’ jobs or students’ graduation are on the line as the result of scores on a single test, it becomes very difficult to maintain political consensus on the value of high performance standards. One state after another
is postponing, reducing, or evading the consequences of students’ failure (or sometimes merely the prediction of failure) to meet the ideals of high standards.

— 
http://www.ams.org/notices/200408/commentary.pdf
[]