More Kids Use Calculators To Do Grade-School Math Critics Say Grounding In Arithmetic Undermined

Shelsie Lawson loves math.

The best part, says the Beaverton third-grader, is when her teacher pulls down a plastic bin full of calculators.

“When I don’t know what something is, I just get out my calculator and go, `Beep, beep, beep,”’ Shelsie said with a big smile.

To the delight of the Nintendo generation, calculators are multiplying fast in Oregon schools, trickling down as far as kindergarten in some districts.

The trend heartens math reformers, who say judicious use of calculators helps students leapfrog to more complex - and more fun - math concepts. It dismays traditionalists, who worry that calculators undermine students’ grounding in basic arithmetic.

Judging from national teacher and student surveys, Oregon uses calculators more in the classroom than the nation as a whole.

In a state survey last year, half of Oregon’s third-graders reported using calculators in class. By fifth grade, 70 percent do. By 10th grade, nearly all do. Oregon’s teachers also are more inclined to let students use calculators on tests, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress surveys.

Calculator use in kindergarten picked up in the 1990s after the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics advocated their benefit in every grade, educators said. But, they say, use by 5-year-olds is limited primarily to a few simple games and exercises.

Buzz Poleson, a math teacher at Lincoln High School, thinks Oregon schools should keep calculators under wraps until the seventh or eighth grade.

“The younger the kid starts using the calculator, the more likely they’ll develop the attitude that this rectangle in my hand is smarter than I am,” Poleson said. “Then they’re doomed.”

Math reformers say critics are overreacting. The calculator represents a small but important part of the curriculum, said Cathy Bernhard, a Beaverton School District math specialist and president-elect of the Oregon Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Whether the reduced focus on number crunching makes a difference could become clear this spring. For three years, Oregon has let students from third grade up use calculators on the state’s math tests for everything from simple addition to word problems.

That made it impossible to tell if students could do calculations without calculators, state officials concede. Starting with math multiple-choice tests this spring, students in third, fifth and eighth grades will have to put away calculators for the tests’ calculation section, which makes up about 20 percent of the test.

It’s not that the state is shifting away from calculators. In fact, all state-approved math textbooks advocate calculator use down to the early grades.

It was parent skepticism that prompted the Department of Education leaders to craft the new policy, state math specialist Cathy Brown said.

“John Q. Public wants to know if Johnny can add,” Brown said.

Brown and other math specialists worry that the shift sends the wrong message about calculator use. It could bolster traditional teachers who don’t want to stray from drills into advanced problem solving.

But some educators applaud the change, including Doug Smith, Klamath County’s curriculum and instruction director. His district puts off calculator use until the seventh grade.

“We still feel it’s important for kids to be able to calculate without a calculator,” he said.