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&2 Teaching Minds new sciences and social sciences came into being after 1892. But none of those will ever make it into the sacred group of math, science, Eng- lish, economics, and history because everyone seems to think that the big five were handed down on tablets to Moses. And everyone is sure that their favorite subject is the most impor- tant one, be it history, literature, math, or science. Math and science are having a big moment as I write this. We hear that the nation does not produce enough students interested in math and science. Some- thing must be done. I was a math major in college. I got 98 on every math Regents test offered. (I lived in New York where testing ruled in the world in the 1950s too.) My mother always asked where the other two points went. I grew up to be a computer science professor. Iam not a math phobe. But neither am I a math proponent. I have never used math in my professional life. I always start any discussion on education by asking if the person Iam talking with knows the quadratic formula. One out of one hun- dred knows it. (The last few times I asked, the people included the head of a major testing service, the governor of a U.S. state, various state legislators, and 200 high school principals.) Then why do we teach this obviously useless piece of information to every student in the world? Because math is important, of course. Why? As a person who was involved with graduate admissions for 30 years at three of the top ten universities in the country, I know what this hysteria is actually about. Nearly all applicants to graduate com- puter science programs (which is what I know—but it is true in most fields of engineering and science) are foreign nationals. We wonder why American kids aren’t interested in these fields—which is a reason- able enough question. But then we have come up with an extraordi- nary answer. What we say is that we must teach math and science better in high school when what we mean is that it would be nice to have some more American-born scientists. Do we really believe that the reason that there are so many foreign applicants to U.S. graduate programs is that they teach math and sci- ence better in other countries? China and India provide most of the applicants. They also have most of the world’s people. And many of HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023828