Washington has built a long and illustrious track record as a place where businesses that required employees with math smarts could find a home. Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon.com, and more recently, a host of biotechnology concerns, software companies and Internet ventures all chose to set up headquarters in the Evergreen State for more than just the temperate climate and the good coffee.

But many fear the state's youth will not be in a position to fill the growing demand for talented programmers, engineers and medical personnel because they lack the basic math skills required for those professions. Teachers and parents say that even talented students are graduating from high school unable to do long division, let alone algebra and calculus.

A growing number of corporate leaders are voicing concerns that a reputation for poor math education will cause problems beyond detracting from the region's ability to produce workers for its high-tech sector. "We believe this issue is very important to the state and the future of the state's competitiveness," says Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft Corp.

Smith says that if Washington schools develop a poor reputation, it will become more difficult for local companies to recruit people from out of state. "If Washington state doesn't quickly develop a higher-caliber math experience, it will make it harder for Microsoft and other technology companies to recruit people to this area," he says. "When we're trying to persuade talented people to move here ... it's very important to [let them] send their kids to great schools."

"This is a very high priority, given the economic backbone of the state and the relevance to our continued competitiveness," says Marc Frazer, vice president of Washington Roundtable, a Seattle-based public policy organization that includes top local executives such as CEOs Scott Carson of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual Inc.

A focus on curriculum

"It would be bizarre not to move the needle and move it quickly," Frazer says. Businesses are increasingly forced to import talent or outsource jobs because the people entering the workforce here are falling short in their math abilities, according to Frazer. "When students here don't have a chance at many of the best jobs," he says, "that's dubious for the marketplace."

"The curriculum issue is very important," says Microsoft's Smith. He adds that a lack of consistency in math education across school districts as well as in math teacher training also contributes to the problem.

The problem has grown acute. So many students failed the math portion of their Washington Assessment of Student Learning exam that Gov. Chris Gregoire decided to delay implementation of the WASL requirement for graduation. In early May, Gregoire signed a law that extended to 2013 from 2008 the date by which students must meet math (and science) standards for high school graduation that were set by the WASL.

"We must improve math and science teaching and learning, but we cannot penalize students when the system has failed them," Gov. Gregoire said in a statement at the time of the law's passage.

While some blame the standardized tests as a poor measure, many critics place the blame for falling math results squarely on "reform math" curricula, a relatively new approach to teaching math that focuses on learning math through investigation and discovery, rather than practicing basic skills. Reform math has been embraced by an increasing number of public schools over the past decade in several states including Washington. Seattle schools recently adopted the Connected Math program, which takes this approach.