Dr. Shoecraft may be the only mathematician to thoroughly analyze arithmetic and how it has been taught since 1880 with the rise of the Progressive Education movement, which was not progressive. In Arithmetic Counts, he explains how every textbook-based presentation of arithmetic in every elementary school in America is holding children back in math. In writing this book, he hopes to start another round of national math reform, like the New Math for high school math teachers in the 1960s, but this time for elementary school teachers to learn how to make arithmetic a meaningful, joyful, and lasting learning experience for ALL children.
Dr. Shoecraft's breakthrough in teaching arithmetic came when he considered an alternative to requiring children to memorize it. The alternative was to teach the "why" in arithmetic: why addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are performed the way they are, instead of having children solve thousands of arithmetic problems until the algorithms they are using supposedly become cemented in their brains.
