Successful equation

NEA Today, Oct 2002

In Focus

A civil rights activist gives students a leg up in the Information Age.

Bob Moses thinks an education in algebra is a matter of civil rights. And he knows more than a little about both subjects. A math teacher since the 1950s, Moses was also a civil rights leader in the 1960s and fought hard in the the battle to end literacy tests for Black voters in the south.

In 1982, Moses founded The Algebra Project, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the goal of finding ways to expose more kids to advanced mathematics before high school.

"In the 1960s, literacy was put on the table as a prerequisite for the full rights of citizenship," says Moses. Today, he says, there's a new face on the same old problem. "The information age of computers and networks has put advanced mathematics - math with the symbolic, abstract representations of algebra - on the table as an educational necessity for anyone who strives to enjoy the full rights of citizenship," he says. Yet millions of kids, especially minorities, aren't getting that education and are destined to lose out, he adds. "They won't be able to access the economy at the level necessary to support families."

Through The Algebra Project, Moses has worked with middle schools to develop creative, game-centered mathematics curricula that expose students to abstract mathematics and prepare them for high school algebra. Moses himself introduced such a curriculum in Jackson, Mississippi, where he experimented with a variety of teaching techniques at Brinkley Middle School, then followed his students on to Lanier High School, where Moses still teaches.

"I was extremely pleased with the results," he says. Research studies that have tracked Algebra Project students confirm the benefits: Most go on to take advanced math classes in high school, and at a higher rate than their peers. To further this work, the National Science Foundation has awarded The Algebra Project a grant to create two new programs for high school freshmen.

"We need to keep expanding," says Moses. "It's not sufficient that a few students in each school will always excel in math. We need to build a floor, not a ceiling."

For more: E-mail Ben Moynihan at The Algebra Project at ben@algebra.org.