In March, Berkeley’s Hung-Hsi Wu asked the European Mathematical Society a question that sounds too simple to need an hour: what is the mathematics we teach in school? His answer is that what American textbooks have carried for seventy years does not deserve the name — it defines almost nothing, explains almost nothing, and rarely says why any of it matters. Three reforms tried to replace it and fell short, he argues, because nobody had written down the alternative in enough detail for a teacher to use. So he spent twenty years writing it: six volumes, 2,402 pages, K through 12. The five principles he says any replacement must satisfy fit on a single page.
Our overview, with a link to the full talk: [link]
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2009 (!) University of Wisconsin-Madison Placement Office study of “reform vs traditional math” outcomes came to mind when reading Corrinne Hess’s 7 July 2026 article: “Fewer than half of Wisconsin students are proficient at math“.
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Singapore Math
Discovery Math
Connected Math (2006!)
Math Forum 2007
