Some Worry About Potential Bias on the National Math Panel

Supporters of a new expert panel on mathematics are confident it will help identify national strategies for improving student learning in that subject—even as critics ask whether its members have the classroom teaching experience, and the objectivity, needed to accomplish that mission.

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel, whose 17 voting members President Bush named last week, includes a number of mathematicians and cognitive and developmental psychologists from across the country.

But the advisory group, which was scheduled to meet for the first time May 22 in Washington, has only one member who currently teaches in a K-12 school, a lack of representation that some observers find puzzling, given the panel’s stated purpose of exploring math teaching and learning from basic math through...