Interesting to note from the US Metric Association:

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel was established within the U.S. Department of Education by President Bush in April 2006.  His Executive Order creating the Panel declares: “To help keep America competitive, support American talent and creativity, encourage innovation throughout the American economy, and help State, local, territorial, and tribal governments give the Nation’s children and youth the education they need to succeed, it shall be the policy of the United States to foster greater knowledge of and improved performance in mathematics among American students.”

A critical question: will it take a position on teaching the metric system?

The Panel will schedule several public meetings, and you can submit comments in writing if you’d like to express your opinions regarding education in the metric system (USMA President Lorelle Young attended the first meeting, but reports that the topic did not arise at that meeting). Metric-literate workers are essential to improving our competitiveness, so points you might want to address include two main areas: The need for education in the metric system, and the question of how much time to spend teaching the inch-pound system.

In 2000 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) issued a position statement encouraging the more widespread use of the metric system in schools: “With the globalization of commerce and information, our students also need to be competent with the metric system.” On the other hand, the NCTM position also recommends that “pre-K-12 curricula include both the well-established customary system and the metric system.”

Although students do, of course, need to know the basics of a small subset of the inch-pound system, schools can end up spending a lot of time teaching the intricacies of that system, much of which is wasted on skills needed only for that system. Consider arithmetic involving mixed numbers and combinations of units—6 feet 5³⁄₈ inches times 8 feet 10³⁄₄ inches, or even merely adding those two lengths—that you rarely need to do except with feet and inches and which, for that matter, can’t even be done easily on an ordinary calculator.

Having lived overseas for almost a year, I’ve found it very easy to become accustomed to the metric system.  Best of all, it makes so much more sense than the imperial system.

Various studies done over the past several decades (dating back to 1960!) reach the same general conclusion: mathematics teachers in elementary school spend around 20 percent of their class time driving home the details of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing common fractions.

As Thomas Friedman points out in his latest book, The World is Flat, the biggest challenge facing America in this century is not the “War on Terrorism,” but our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace where the playing field is increasingly being leveled. 

Our children will find it harder and harder to compete globally for good jobs, and are handicapped in this competition by our continued use of archaic standards such as the imperial measuring system.

Yes, but what can I do about it?

1. Visit the National Mathematics Advisory Panel website for more information about the public hearings that are being held.
2. Send your comments to the Executive Director of the Panel, Mr. Tyrrell Flawn.  His email address is tyrrel.flawn@ed.gov. 

Living in the United States, we tend to have a myopic view that the world: that it is basically an extension of the United States.  Because Baywatch is watched around the world, we reason, we must be doing things right.  But increasingly, we’re the odd man out when it comes to politics, education, culture, and global competitiveness.

We may not be able to recognize it yet, since we’re still the largest economy.  But unless we wake up and get on the same page with the rest of the world, we will be looking at the back of the cart as it leaves us behind.