08/14/14: There will be math

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

WHICH IS bigger — 1/3 or 1/4? What is 97 percent of 28 percent?

Every day, numbers are included as a part of our conversations. But do we really know what they mean?

Americans are pretty bad at math. A survey released last October compared U.S. adults to their counterparts in 21 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The results were stark: U.S. adults’ math skills were the third worst in the survey. Eighteen other countries performed better.

Results of an international exam, released last December, show that U.S. teenagers scored below average on the math portion when compared to 64 other countries and economies.

And it’s not just poor kids from less-educated families pulling those scores down. A May 2014 study looked at math proficiency of students based on parental education.

U.S. students, compared to 33 OECD countries, actually ranked worse at higher levels of parental education. Where parents lack a high school diploma, U.S. students ranked 20th out of 34. The students ranked 30th for those who had a parent with a high school diploma and 28th for those who had a parent with a college degree.

Being bad at math not only affects how well we perform on the global stage but how we interpret everyday data. Take that question of 1/3 versus 1/4, for example.

An article published a couple of weeks ago has the Internet all abuzz over a case many marketing students are probably familiar with.

In the early 1980s, a restaurant chain introduced a one-third pound hamburger to compete with McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. Customers preferred the taste of the A&W burger and it cost the same.

But the product was a failure.

Post mortem market research revealed that more than half of the customers in the focus groups thought the A&W burger was smaller than McDonald’s because three — as in 1/3 — is less than four.

Maybe we’ve learned something in the intervening years — or not: Hardees sometimes runs ads for burgers that are bigger than McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. But they are careful not to say the actual weight; instead, they just say they have more meat.

Another kind of meat gets thrown around a lot in politics: red meat for supporters. And the latest red meat is the statistic that U.S. Sen. Mark Warner votes with President Barack Obama 97 percent of the time. Setting aside the premise — the president doesn’t get a vote — how exactly do you get the 97 percent?

As it turns out, the statement is based on looking at Warner’s roll call votes where the president has expressed a clear position, like on presidential nominations. Independent fact-checkers have determined that of the roll call votes cast by Warner since taking office in 2009, the president has staked out a position on only 28 percent of them.

The president’s judicial appointments are approved by the Senate 99 percent of the time. Using the same standard, the entire Senate votes with the president 99 percent of the time.

Somehow, we have to fix our understanding of math. Remaining a math-challenged society is not beneficial to us as consumers and voters.

Oh — and 1/3 is bigger than 1/4. And 97 percent of 28 percent is 27 percent.