Who's Teaching Your Child Math?

I'm not pointing fingers here. But I do want to bring up an important point.

When is the last time you checked your child's math teacher's credentials?....
Not lately huh....Hmmm....

Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to bash teachers. Many do an excellent job.

But on the other side of that, there are many elementary school teachers who don't have much math education in their background. In one study only 7 % of 1st through 4th grade teachers majored or minored in math or math education. It also showed in 5th through 8th grade math teachers, only 18 % majored or minored in math or math education.

Surprised?

Could that be part of the reason why U.S. high school seniors are among the worst in math in the industrialized world.

God bless all the wonderful math teachers out there. But we can't expect our kids to excel in math if their teachers are not equipped to help them get there..

It's up to parents to make sure their kids are getting a quality math education. In the lower gades you might not expect teachers to have a math degree. But around the intermediate grades children should have a specialized math teacher.

Parents more than ever need to be "aware" of what their kids are or are not learning in the classroom.

If you find out you're not satisfied with the math program at your child's school you might get a qualified math tutor to supplement. Another thing to do is maybe look into buying some math software to help out as well.