Achieving Quantitative Literacy: An Urgent Challenge for Higher Education

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A century after the United States crossed the threshold into universal
secondary education, we are crossing a quite different threshold into universal
postsecondary education. Consequently, society now expects of higher education
what in the early 20th century it asked of secondary schools, namely, to prepare
students for civic and economic life. In contrast to that earlier time, however,
our age is dominated by computers and data, not factory assembly lines. These
changes in society have created an urgent demand for multifaceted literacy far
more sophisticated than what previously served as the foundation of today's
curriculum.
This greater demand for higher order competencies is nowhere more apparent
than in the area of quantitative literacy. Although no less important for all
citizens than fluency in reading and writing, quantitative literacy too often
continues to be the province of the few. Indeed, for too long our educational
system has produced a scientific and mathematical elite while failing to nurture
the literate citizenry required for robust democracy. As a result, the gap
between expert and citizen has widened dangerously, most notably when numbers
and data are brought to bear in deciding public and private issues- and one can
scarcely think of an issue in contemporary life where this is not the case.
Achieving Quantitative Literacy: An Urgent Challenge for Higher Education is
a response to this need intended to stimulate and support QL conversations on
campuses across the country. Growing out of an interdisciplinary forum held at
the National Research Council, it summarizes for postsecondary educators and
policy makers the major curricular issues surrounding QL. Experts cited in
Achieving Quantitative Literacy stress the importance of embedding QL across the
curriculum and of providing context for learning mathematics. The report
includes findings and recommended responses concerning student preparation,
public awareness, recognized benchmarks, effective assessment, and professional
support.