By Kate Walsh and Julie Greenberg

How many of us have tried to help a young child who has been wrestling with a math problem--only to find that we struggle as well? We diffuse our own discomfort and the child's misery by pointing to the light at the end of the tunnel: "Once you?re done with school, you won't ever have to think about another math problem!" We are a nation of math phobics, passing on our weakness and fear of mathematics from one generation to the next.

NCTQ has just issued a report on the quality of the mathematics preparation that elementary teachers receive from our nation's colleges and universities. Of utmost concern is the need to tackle the root causes of that which threatens this nation's global competitiveness. We must set straight our rocky relationship with mathematics, demonstrated in such stark terms by our students' poor showing on international mathematics tests and expanding shortages of American-born engineers.

Just a few decades ago, our collective phobia of math didn?t much matter. In the era of globalization, it matters a lot. If we are to correct our course, we must start where mathematics starts: in elementary school. Though part of the job description of an elementary teacher requires the teaching of mathematics, most will generally admit to being "no good at it" and, generally speaking, they appear to be right. Elementary teachers perform well below the average college graduate and almost all other teachers except for special education on the SAT math test.

For this study, we carefully analyzed the required mathematics coursework and textbooks used in 77 representative education schools in every state except Alaska. The results are dismaying and go a long way towards explaining why American students end up performing so poorly.

First, when it comes to knowledge of mathematics, most of these education schools let just about anyone in. Nearly one out of six schools in our sample admits wannabe teachers without ever asking if they can successfully do grade school arithmetic. Most of the rest aren?t much better, testing only to verify that the applicant knows the mathematics we all should have learned in middle school.

What's even more problematic is what doesn't happen during the four years of college. The exit tests, essentially the tests administered by states to award a teaching license, assess virtually the same mathematics used on the admissions tests. In other words, the mathematics knowledge needed to get out is little more than the mathematics knowledge needed to get in.

In between these low entry and exit standards is a hodgepodge. The nation?s 1,200 some education schools act as free agents, in marked comparison to the carefully orchestrated programs of study in other developed nations. Some aspiring teachers complete their undergraduate degrees with not a single mathematics course, others up to six. Some schools require courses intended only to tame math phobia. Others are happy to let teacher candidates pick any math course depending on what tickles their fancy. Only one in eight schools in our study, led by an exemplary program at the University of Georgia, actually require the coursework that elementary teachers will need.

We can only conclude that many teacher educators and state policymakers think that it doesn?t much matter what math training elementary teachers receive, under the errant assumption that the only knowledge needed to teach second grade arithmetic is third grade arithmetic.

What sort of preparation is needed? With remarkable consensus, mathematicians and mathematics educators believe that elementary teaching candidates need a rigorous program of study that immerses them in the topics encountered in elementary and middle grades, but which is by no means remedial.

How does a college course deal with fractions without merely repeating fourth grade math? Children usually only acquire a procedural understanding of fractions, such as the need to invert a fraction divisor and make it a multiplier. Adults who teach them need a deeper, conceptual understanding of fractions so that, among other things, they can use fraction models to really teach concepts rather than the rules that provide progressively weaker support as students encounter more abstract mathematics.

The reforms needed are entirely within our grasp.

There are only three things needed: 1) mathematics standards for students and aspiring teachers that truly are world class; 2) higher admission standards into education schools to ensure that only individuals who have a high school level of math knowledge are admitted; and 3) the creation of new state licensing tests for elementary teachers in mathematics that would essentially force institutions preparing teachers to get it right.

Only then can we look forward to the day that more American school children may recognize mathematics for the unique opportunities that it provides, not only for their own futures but our country?s as well.