Math Panel Urged to Identify Ways to Improve Instruction for Minorities

Chapel Hill, N.C.

Members of a national panel charged with identifying ways to improve how mathematics is taught were urged to examine strategies for engaging and raising the performance of minorities and non-native English speakers in that subject, at a public forum held here yesterday.

The White House-appointed panel listened to statements from a diverse cross-section of speakers, including teachers, academic researchers, designers of commercial classroom products, and advocates from interest groups, on the second day of its meeting on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

One of the 27 speakers was Karen S. Norwood, the president of the Benjamin Banneker Association, a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve the performance of black students in math. She urged the panel to examine available research on the disadvantages many minority students face in math classes, and what could be...