In fascinating and horrifying detail, Lynne Cheney elsewhere in this issue limns the efforts of Clinton administration education experts and a cabal of teacher bureaucrats to subvert mathematics -- the one subject you might think even the education establishment would have a hard time ruining (see page 25). But "innovations" in the math curriculum have a long history, as we are reminded by this joke circulating, as they now say, on the Internet.
1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $ 100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?
1970 (traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $ 100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price; in other words, $ 80. What is his profit?
1970 (new math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is worth $ 1. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set M. The set C of costs of production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C as a subset of M, and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?
1980 (dumbed-down math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $ 100. His cost of production is $ 80, and his profit is $ 20. Underline the number 20.
1990 (whole math): By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $ 20. What do you think of this way of making money? Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?