Three Formative Questions in the Quantitative Literacy Movement

In this essay we remember early discussions attempting to answer three questions that played a formative role in our understanding of and approach to numeracy, quantitative literacy, and quantitative reasoning: (1) What is numeracy? (2) Should the QL movement promote any specific kind of pedagogy? (3) What organizational structure will best support QL? As the QL movement has progressed, these three questions continue to be difficult to answer. As a result, they have been useful formative guides for institutions and organizations seeking to improve the quantitative reasoning of students. Now that the quantitative literacy movement has a firmer standing in the college curriculum, we offer for consideration some next steps, based on these three questions, for the QL movement in general and the National Numeracy Network in particular