Foreword: Mathematics for a Modern Age

Zell Miller

Governor of Georgia

Now more than ever, our daily lives are directly affected by mathematics. I'm not just talking about the grades students get or how many mathematics classes they have to take. I'm talking about answering the phone, faxing a document, or driving a car. I'm talking about buying medicine for your family, building a house, and listening to music. Mathematics has also helped bring us things that indirectly affect us, like the discoveries of DNA, weather patterns, and how to use light as a surgical tool. It has helped us walk on the moon, create microchips, and transmit images across thousands of miles. With mathematics, we design models to test our ideas and refine them, from nerve impulses to human behavior, volcanoes to food. Mathematics is everywhere. But mathematics has always been around, and the concepts it uses have always helped us.

     So why is mathematics so much more important to our lives now than it was then? Years ago, in the eras of the abacus or slide rule, information took a lot longer to sort through, but now it is easy to chart a course, assay a risk, or compare statistics. Information is more abundant than ever. You can find answers about everything from world politics to school lunches almost as soon as you think of the questions.

     This new speed of access to volumes of information obviously brings good things--like better medical information, better building materials, and more diverse options in business and education. The down side to all of this is that as easily as there can be information, there can be misuse of information.

     So what does this mean for our children? More than ever, they need to be mathematically savvy. Learning to think and reason mathematically is the only way our children can be sure that they are in control, not being controlled.

     More practically, almost every job these days requires at least some elementary understanding of mathematics. In fact, many of the jobs that keep our country competitive and successful in the global market are jobs that require more than basic mathematics comprehension. Not that everyone needs to be able to program a computer or predict the stock market, but with the vastly increased speed of statistical calculation (and manipulation) and easier and faster global communication, our children need to know what a number means, where it came from, and how best to judge its veracity.

     As the Governor of Georgia, I take all of this pretty seriously. I know the importance of bringing businesses to my state to create jobs for Georgians. The world, however, is their marketplace; to be healthy, competitive, and economically secure, our citizens must understand mathematics. They need to become comfortable with the notion of mathematics as a tool for life.

Governor Zell Miller was elected Governor of the state of Georgia in 1990. Since taking office, his love of teaching and commitment to education has resulted in one of the most ambitious agendas to improve public education in this century. Governor Miller's public career includes service at virtually every level of government: as mayor, as a member of the state senate, as lieutenant governor, and now as Governor. He is currently Chairman of the Education Commission of the States. He has also chaired the Southern Governors' Association, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Council of State Governments. Governor Miller keynoted the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York and chaired the Platform Drafting Committee for the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.