THIS IS MATH?

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But talk to opponents--including newly aroused parents--and you'll hear horror stories of reformers dumping the most basic algorithms, or first-graders turning to a calculator to subtract 4 from 6, or "math" textbooks featuring lessons on endangered species and the Dogon people of West Africa. "Whole math," says molecular biologist Michael McKeown, "means less material covered in less depth with less rigor." Early last year, McKeown co-founded Mathematically Correct, a Website based in San Diego ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mathman/ that has become the nerve center for the counterinsurgency. Here parents like Marianne Jennings of Mesa, Ariz., share dispatches from the front. Not long ago, Jennings watched her daughter Sarah, a straight-A algebra student, reach for a calculator to find 10% of 470. "It made my blood boil," says Jennings. In response, she and other parents pressured the school district to offer traditional math as a choice.

Similar small-scale revolts have erupted from San Diego to Sonoma Valley, and the state board of education is expected soon to release a new, more traditional math framework for California schools. Meanwhile, McKeown and whole-math detractors like Lynne Cheney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, darkly warn that President Clinton's voluntary national test for eighth-graders, set for 1999, is being used to promote a whole-math agenda. Says Cheney: "Every single member appointed to the math [exam's] panel is a whole-math advocate." Department of Education officials bristle at the charge, saying the exam will test both fundamental math skills and high-order problem solving.

Is whole math really that bad? Few question the reformers' motives: to inject some much needed juice into American math education. But though the approach can certainly stimulate kids, it can just as easily leave them adrift. While the fifth-graders at Fernangeles were mulling over their handshake problem, a nearby fourth-grade class was fiddling with green and red tiles, trying to figure out how many green gates fitted into how many sections of red fence. "If there were 48 green doors," the teacher implored, "how many red fences do we need?" After a few minutes, one student incorrectly ventured, "Eighty." A few others tapped their calculators, with little success, and after 20 minutes, the solution seemed no nearer.

Of course, the most convincing defense of whole math would be evidence that it works. In a few states that have emphasized new-new math, such as Connecticut, there are early indicators of improved student performance. Critics in California, on the other hand, point to test scores in cities like Santa Barbara and Palo Alto that show at least temporary drop-offs after whole math has been introduced. One thing's certain: lukewarm results won't cut it. In the most recent worldwide comparison, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, U.S. eighth-graders fell below the international average and miles behind Singapore, Korea and Japan.

Be patient, advocates argue. Says Thomas Romberg, a University of Wisconsin professor who helped write the revolutionary 1989 math standards: "We knew there needed to be a fair amount of research and teacher training. We knew it would take 20 or 25 years to pull this off." Parents whose 12-year-olds still can't count on their fingers may not want to wait that long.