Here’s a sample New Standards math task for a fourth-grader: Your older cousin has a list of school supplies he needs to start the school year. He has $20 to spend and needs to buy these supplies: ...

When students create a visual resource to scaffold problem-solving, they can approach independent work with more confidence ...

A blend of family attitudes, cultural ideas, and frustration often lead students to believe that math ability is a fixed trait like eye color, teachers say. They believe they are either born with the ...

Any reader who had difficulty comprehending a recent letter captioned “New math requires actual comprehension,” is not alone. The writer, Ben Lanier-Nabor, devotes several hundred words to illustrate ...

Excerpted with permission from Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark. Available from Random House/Knopf. Copyright ...