aera-l | ". . . . .why do we as mathematics educators - I'm talking about the
research community and us higher education types - focus so much our
attention on the secondary years? If I was building a fourteen story
high rise and skimped on the first six floors, things would be
problematic indeed. Is it because we think secondary teachers can fix
students who struggle through those six years? Is it because we don't
really care and it is survival of the 'fittest'? Is it because we
have, in a sense, dumbed down the elementary school mathematics
education curriculum to the extent that elementary school teachers,
in their collegiate years, come away unsure and ill prepared and we,
in effectively a vicious cycle, write them off?"
Ed Wall's complaint about the "dumbed down the elementary school
mathematics education curriculum" is on target, but not IMHO because
"the research community and us higher education types - focus so much
our attention on the secondary years." Instead it's primarily because
of poverty in the U.S. - see e.g. "The Overriding Influence of
Poverty on Children's Educational Achievement" [Hake (2011a)]; and
secondarily because U.S. Mathematics Education Researchers (MER's)
have not devoted enough attention to the postsecondary years
