Winning the Math Wars

No Teacher Left Behind

 Winning
the Math Wars
No Teacher Left Behind
艑
MA RT I N A BB OTT
D UA N E BA K E R
K A R E N S MI T H
T H O MA S T RZ Y NA

Washington School Research Center • Seattle

in association with
University of Washington Press • Seattle & London
 © 2010 by the Washington School Research Center
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winning the math wars : no teacher left behind / Martin Abbott ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-295-98967-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mathematics—Study and teaching—Washington (State) 2. Mathematics
teachers—Training of—Washington (State) 3. Curriculum planning—
Washington (State) I. Abbott, Martin, 1949–
QA13.5.W2W56 2010 510.71’0797—dc22 2009032579

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 Contents

Preface vii
Abbreviations Used in the Text viii

Introduction 3

1. What the World Is Thinking 11

2. The American Dilemma 49

3. Math Education in Washington State 102

4. Conclusions and Implications 123

Bibliography 136

Index 155

About the Authors 157

v
 Preface

Winning the Math Wars is the product of intensive research into

the math education debate in the State of Washington, the
United States, and the world. Researchers at the Washington
School Research Center (WSRC) reviewed the current litera-
ture, summarized their own research, conversed with experts
who hold widely differing opinions about the issues, and
explored the various curricula proposed for improving math
education. In the end, we have reached our own tentative
conclusions about the additional empirical research needed
into the teaching of mathematics. We also reached a conclu-
sion about the extent to which math reform has been imple-
mented in the United States and the places where support and
new policies may be helpful.
Readers will not find a strong argument either in favor of
traditional math education or in favor of a complete trans-
formation of math education. We do believe that the debate
over curricula, whether traditionalist, reform-based or con-
structivist, or ethnomathematical, must take second place to
a discussion about the kinds of support and education that
math teachers need in order to present any curriculum more
effectively.

vii
 Abbreviations Used in the Text

ACME Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (UK)

AYP Adequate Yearly Progress
CGI Cognitively guided instruction
EALRs Essential Academic Learning Requirements
EWU Eastern Washington University
FIMS First International Mathematics Study
GLE Grade level expectation
IAEEA International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement
MEC Mathematics Education Collaborative
MSP Math-Science Partnership
NAEP National Assessment of Educational Progress
NCATE National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
NCES National Center for Educational Statistics
NCLB No Child Left Behind (Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 2002)
NCTM National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
NMAP National Math Advisory Panel
NRC National Research Council
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
OSPI Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (Washington
State)
PISA Program for International Student Achievement
PLC Professional learning community
PRiSSM Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science and
Mathematics
RME Realistic Mathematics Education (The Netherlands)
SIMS Second International Mathematics Study
TAOP Teaching Attributes Observation Protocol
TIMSS Third International Mathematics and Science Study
UW University of Washington
WACTE Washington Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
WASL Washington Assessment of Student Learning
WSRC Washington School Research Center
WSU Washington State University

viii
Winning the Math Wars
No Teacher Left Behind
 Introduction

A student remarked recently that high school geometry “was

the most boring class I ever had in my life,” despite the fact
that he was very interested in math and science. As he looked
back on his high school math classes, he realized that what he
had chosen to study in college and beyond had been seriously,
and negatively, conditioned by this high school experience.
Now graduated from college, the student wondered how dif-
ferent his future might have been if he had learned math in
a different way. “We memorized formulas and proofs; if the
teacher had taken me outside and shown me that I could find
the distance to an unknown point just knowing an angle, I
would have been much more engaged with the question and
understood geometry as a discovery possibility.”
This is not an isolated comment; no doubt everyone reading
this book has heard similar things about math classes. Whether
or not a student learns geometry well is a function of many
things, not the least of which, of course, is the extent to which
he or she is engaged in the subject and the extent of his or her
overall aptitude for learning.
It is important to point out, however, that the reasons for
learning mathematics well often lie “outside” as well as “inside”
the individual. Learning is related not only to the student’s own
motivation and capability, but also to the nature of teaching,
the curriculum in use, features of the learning environment,
district policies that affect math offerings, and so on. One

3
 Introduction

could argue, for example (and it has been argued forcefully

and repeatedly), that if the teacher were more interesting,
the problem would be solved. But the same “inside/outside”
dynamic applies. Whether or not the teacher is “more inter-
esting” is a function of the teacher’s own motivation as well
as other factors: Is professional development relevant and
timely? Do other math teachers regularly interact on lessons
and about individual students? Do district policies ensure
an adequate support system for mathematics instruction?
Researchers, practitioners, educational leaders, parents, and
policy makers all have suggestions about these and other fac-
tors and how they can be changed to positively impact student
learning in math. Moreover, these individuals and groups can
have very strident opinions that are often in conflict. Who is
right and who is wrong?
One of the main premises of this book, consonant with
much previous research, is that the teacher’s role is critical.
Teachers stand between the students, with their mixed readi-
ness to learn, and the school system, which can be helpful or
harmful to a teacher’s efforts to provide meaningful learning
experiences in the classroom. We therefore want to note the
elements of current and proposed educational reforms that
have the potential to leave math teachers behind. We hope to
underscore the need for supporting teachers to do their best
in what they are called upon to do.

Four Critical Insights

Over the course of our research, we identified several factors
that seem to affect the nature of math education reform and
student academic achievement. Our insights are not necessarily
new, but they do suggest new directions for resolving the
debates about how to improve math teaching and learning.

4
 Introduction

1. Fidelity
Reform efforts have not led to improved student outcomes because
teachers have not been given the support necessary to change/align
instruction with the standards-based system of education.
Our research suggests that tests of mathematical achievement
do not tell us much about the value of reform efforts because
these reforms have not been implemented fully. Reform efforts
may be unsuccessful because teachers are not given the sup-
port necessary to change the way they teach or even to under-
stand the mathematical and pedagogical ideas at the center
of the reformed curricula. The most sophisticated and well-
conceived reform effort imaginable may fail because the means
of carrying it out are not in place. This is a two-fold problem.
First, fidelity to reform efforts usually requires change in the
approach to teaching and learning. Faced with a lack of appro-
priate resources and information, school leaders and teaching
staff may revert to what they have always done rather than
grapple with the new expectations.The second problem relates
to support: Is the reform effort comprehensive? Changing one
part of a system may be helpful, but if the entire system is not
changed and aligned with reform principles, the partial effort
is usually ineffective. To put the point baldly, you cannot point
to test results to prove the success or failure of a particular
textbook or approach to instruction, because what really hap-
pens behind the closed doors of many classrooms may not be
what the reform efforts mandated.

2. Focus on Instruction
Effective reform requires coordination among three essential com-
ponents: curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Math reform is usually approached from the standpoints of
curriculum/standards and assessment/accountability, leaving

5
 Introduction

out instruction. It may be easier to adopt a new curriculum

or devise a new assessment than require teaching itself to
change in fundamental ways. Not that any of these is easy!
Reform efforts can lose momentum in any of the three related
components, but it is probably more difficult to completely
revise the way teachers view their craft than to restructure
the way a district organizes its learning protocol. Leaving out
instruction means that no attention is paid to what teachers
know about their subject or to the skills they need to commu-
nicate effectively to students. Instead, reformers have tended
to assume that fresh approaches to instruction and enhanced
abilities to understand and teach math would follow naturally
once teachers were given the “right” curriculum and told that
they would be held accountable by statewide tests. But this
has not been true on a large scale or for most teachers and
programs.
3. Mathematical Knowledge
Mathematics knowledge is essential to successful reform.
While high-quality curricula along with appropriate and effec-
tive assessments are necessary to improve math education, it
is critical for teachers to know their math thoroughly and also
to have well-honed abilities to convey mathematical ideas.
Research suggests that many teachers in the elementary grades,
where the real foundations of mathematical understanding
are laid, do not know enough mathematics and in some cases
are uncomfortable with math. Therefore, efforts to enhance
the mathematical knowledge of teachers are highly impor-
tant, as Stigler and Hiebert (1999) and others have argued for
many years. However, it is not enough simply for teachers to
know their math well, because as Ball, et al. (2007) and Ma
(1999) have shown, teaching math well requires a specialized
knowledge of techniques for communicating the abstractions
of mathematical ideas. Researchers are only just beginning to

6
 Introduction

understand what makes some math teachers truly great—how

they talk about abstract ideas, how they respond to questions,
how they deal with common errors of understanding, and
how they use examples and a multiplicity of learning tech-
niques to help students to make math their own.

4. Transformational Change
As the view of teachers toward their work and themselves changes,
systematic and meaningful reform can occur and persist. But the
educational institution must provide a supportive context that will
not inhibit but rather will foster the “living out” of these changes in
the classroom.
This fourth “dimension” of reform follows closely from the
preceding three. Overall reform efforts require structural and
organizational support for teachers once reform efforts begin
(“fidelity”). This support enables teachers to adopt more
efficient pedagogy rather than rely on changes to curricula
and assessment alone (“focus on instruction”). But real change
requires greater teacher knowledge of mathematics in combina-
tion with revitalized pedagogy (“mathematical knowledge”).
Finally, at a fundamental level, educators must continually chal-
lenge the views they hold of themselves in their work with
students, and the districts that support their work must con-
tinually re-evaluate their support systems for teaching and
learning.
There are two components to transformational change:
intra-individual change and institutional change. Both of
these areas are best understood through examining the pro-
cess of change in educational practice. The work in the WSRC
on meaningful change in education has identified the impor-
tance of “first-order changes” (external components thought
to lead to better student performance, such as smaller classes,
having access to student data, etc.) leading to “second-order

7
 Introduction

changes” (e.g., capitalizing on the use of smaller classes and

student data to qualitatively change the learning experience
for the student). That is, the first-order changes do not repre-
sent reform by themselves; true reform occurs when second-
order changes emerge from the successful negotiation of the
first-order assets.1
If transformational change is to occur, teachers of mathe-
matics (“intra-individual change”) must fundamentally change
the way in which they interpret themselves vis-à-vis math-
ematical knowledge, specific lessons and/or curricula, and
their goals for teaching mathematics. In the language of first-
and second-order changes, they must undergo a second-order
change in their understanding and practice of mathematics,
building upon the advantages of the first-order changes that
accrue from reform efforts.
The second component of transformational change is
institutional support. If the intra-individual changes are not
allowed to bloom within the institution of which the teacher
is a part, the momentum and outcomes in math education
will wither and die. This follows a very old sociological prin-
ciple that points to the nature of the world “outside” the indi-
vidual having a good deal to do with how the individual sees
the world from the “inside.” In the dynamic of changes to
math education, we might say that even if teachers gain pro-
found new views of themselves in their role as math teachers,
they will revert to their old views unless institutional supports
are in place to ensure that the teachers can “live out” and
practice their new identity. If school administrators and other
teachers have not changed their thinking, if the teachers are
not provided appropriate professional development and time
to consolidate their thinking with like-minded individuals,
the “new thinking” will not gain a foothold.
1. See Fouts (April 2003) for the complete explanation of first- and
second-order changes.

8
 Introduction

The Problem in Context

We have chosen to review the state of math education by
looking at a wide swath of materials published by scholars
and commentators throughout the world, the United States,
and the state of Washington. Our primary conclusions mirror
some of those published by such scholars as James Stigler at
UCLA, Deborah Ball at the University of Michigan, and Liping
Ma at Stanford University. As educational researchers and con-
sultants, we have been active in math education, in educa-
tional assessment, and in policy development, and we bring
that experience to this study. We have also entered into open
and respectful conversations with experts who represent the
principal, often opposing, and sometimes fiercely held, posi-
tions in the discussion. Across the world, advocates of tradi-
tional methods have crossed swords with partisans of a variety
of new methods, from the New Math of the post-Sputnik
years to the reform-based or constructivist mathematics of
the present. Their debate over the best curricular designs and
educational objectives has been further affected by the emer-
gence of “ethnomathematics.” Readers who are not familiar
with these fascinating debates will find a historical review of
these trends here.
We have also drawn on research by the WSRC on math-
ematics education and, more broadly, on all aspects of educa-
tional reform, not only in Washington State but in other parts
of the United States. Our own conclusions do not necessarily
affirm one curricular approach over another. Increasingly, we
found ourselves focusing on the basic interaction between
teacher and student, and like a number of major scholars in
this field, we have been led to ask what we know about what
happens when math is well taught. What goes on between
student and teacher? What special knowledge of both math
and the teaching of math does the teacher possess? Does the

9
 Introduction

student learn something else, such as problem-solving skills,

besides the answer to the math problem?

Plan of the Book

Our discussions therefore focus on the teacher, on “no teacher
left behind,” rather than on the virtues of any particular cur-
riculum or the power of any testing regimen. We conclude
with a call for additional research into the best methods for
helping the present generation of math teachers to enhance
their mathematical competencies. That work needs to be under-
girded by studying the best practices of those teachers who
understand how mathematics is learned and how to commu-
nicate with their students and point them toward success.
There is a glut of programs across the country attempting
to change math education. But few educators understand the
components of transformational change, i.e., that no matter
how good the training, how innovative and clear the new cur-
riculum, the teachers must fundamentally change the way they
interpret mathematics, and the educational institution must
accommodate the playing out of these new ways of doing
business in the classroom. Many initiatives and programs will
implement training and new curricula, but most will fail due
to lack of attention to transformational change.
Our plan for this book is to consider the four principles we
discussed above within the research and study of mathematics
education on the international stage and across the United
States. We include a study of the reform efforts in Washington
State as an example of the processes we identify. Following
these topics, we introduce several change efforts that contain
the elements that might have a meaningful impact on math
education generally. None of these is sufficient by itself, but
each is a good example of what can be done at different stages
of reform.

10
 1
What the World Is Thinking
The international, American, and Washington State discussions
of math education can be accurately described as microcosms
of all the issues raised by the emergence of a global economy.
Such discussions are driven by concerns about global economic
and technological competition. The debates have a rich histor-
ical dimension that recalls the concerns of the Cold War, and
they pit competing theories of education against one another.
Just underneath the surface, these discussions reveal roots in
ongoing analyses of how race, class, and colonialism have
affected and continue to affect educational policy. Meanwhile,
teachers around the world have been trying to convey com-
plex mathematical ideas to generations of students while a
debate rages around them and while being asked to modify
their teaching practices according to one new curricular idea
after another.
The world’s math teachers are not doing so badly, all things
considered. International surveys of math achievement are
commonly used to show how nations rank and to level accu-
sations, and yet careful study of those statistics indicates that
most nations’ overall performance is good. Every nation could
do better, of course, and many nations would profit intellec-
tually and economically if they were able to produce more
graduates with baccalaureate or advanced degrees in math
and engineering. If those improvements are to be achieved,
what are the most important issues to address? Where can
policy makers, teachers, educational administrators, parents,

11
 What the World Is Thinking

and other citizens make the most effective investment of time

and public resources?
Concern about math education pre-dates Sputnik, although
the Soviet Union’s successful launch of a satellite, with the
resulting crisis of confidence in the West, is generally consid-
ered a defining moment.The news media have continued since
then to report falling math scores, new methods of teaching
math have been introduced (and often scorned), and govern-
ments and foundations have commissioned numerous reports
and systems of testing. Yet in spite of the often expressed con-
clusion that the world’s system of education is in trouble,
the pace of invention and technological innovation seems to
increase rather than decrease.
A review of the world’s discussion of math education
therefore requires a framework of questions that can be used
to sort and analyze what is being said. First, what is broken?
Was there in the past some system for teaching math that has
been lost because of unwise experimentation or some other
deep cause? Second, what kind of mathematical knowledge,
if any, is at risk? And third, what purposes are served by that
mathematical knowledge? Why is math important? What is the
value of a nation’s ability to produce mathematicians?

Is the System Broken? (Or, Are We Falling Behind?)

Determining how to measure what is and is not working is
the place to start. One such measure was implied by a recent
newsletter published by the University of Michigan (Rho
n.d.), which discussed the number of Americans who had
won Fields and Abel medals, which are the equivalents of the
Nobel Prize for mathematics. This kind of measure, in which
America excels, shows the level of mathematical creativity.
American universities are respected throughout the world
for their excellence and their productivity, so the number of

12
 What the World Is Thinking

medalists may be an indicator of the continued creative and

inventive abilities fostered in the relatively open environment
of the American university, where students have more oppor-
tunities than elsewhere to explore, to change majors, and to
learn through inquiry. This approach to measuring excellence
is open to criticism as elitist, however. As later chapters will
show, the U.S. mathematics teaching establishment has made a
strong commitment to serving all students rather than to put-
ting the emphasis on training a small elite.
Some demographic evidence indicates that America has in
fact been working gradually to increase access to math and
science. A 2007 report in Science Daily, for example, reports that
in 1930, only 29% of Americans graduated from high school,
and of those, 15% took classes in physics, a typical math-
intensive discipline. By 1970, 77% graduated from high school,
and of those, 22% took physics. Since 2000, the number of
students taking physics has increased 31%. Are these statistics
consistent with the view that there is a crisis in math and
science education?
To the contrary, however, David Klein’s paper on the his-
tory of American mathematics education includes a graph
that shows enrollment in algebra dropping from 56.9% in the
1909–1910 school year to 24.8% in the 1954–1955 school
year (Klein 2003, p. 6).
Observers cite other measures, such as the declining number
of Americans who complete degrees in mathematics and the
increasing proportion of foreign students completing doctoral
degrees in math at U.S. universities. Do these findings indi-
cate that the U.S. is not producing enough students trained
in math at the secondary level? Or do such statistics indicate
that American universities are attracting the brightest students
from around the world, which helps maintain the quality
of our own research and which also benefits U.S. students
enrolled in those programs? As for the argument that fewer

13
 What the World Is Thinking

Americans are completing degrees in math, a fair analysis

would have to take into consideration the number of students
with good mathematical and logical skills who have entered
emerging fields such as computer science.
Another reasonable objection might be made to some
Americans’ concern that the United States is falling behind in
math. Judgment as to which nations’ citizens do best cannot be
made simply in terms of numbers of degrees, or top scores on
tests, or even comparisons of national average scores (which is
the statistic most frequently cited in newspaper reports). Some
nations excel when their top and average scores are compared,
but the range of their students’ scores is huge, indicating that
many students are not well served by the national curricula
and are truly left behind. The current American slogan for edu-
cation, “no child left behind,” translates into a national pro-
file of test scores in which no child would have an extremely
low score, but where the national average and the national
highs may be a little lower than in those nations where there
is more emphasis on differential placement of students and a
greater willingness to leave some students behind.
The evidence for a crisis in math education is questionable
on other grounds as well. Major international tests of math-
ematics competency compare very different kinds of students.
As Iris Rotberg (1998) wrote of the 1995 Third International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), “In Cyprus, students
taking the advanced mathematics test were in their final year
of the mathematics and science program; in France, the final
year of the scientific track; in Lithuania, the final year of the
mathematics and science gymnasia; in Sweden, the final year
of the natural science or technology lines; and in Switzer-
land, the final year of the scientific track of the gymnasium”
(p. 1030). Rotberg observed, finally, “In contrast, students in
several countries, including the United States, attended com-
prehensive secondary schools. The major difference in student

14
 What the World Is Thinking

selectivity and school specialization across countries makes it

virtually impossible to interpret the rankings” (Rotberg, n.d.).
To summarize Rotberg’s point, comparing a random sample
of American high school students to Swedish students in
selective science and math academies tells us nothing useful
about the relative standing of American education. The fair
comparison group for highly selective European gymnasia
would be specialized math high schools in New York City, or
the students of elite prep schools such as Phillips Exeter in
New Hampshire or Lakeside in Seattle, Bill Gates’ alma mater.

What Is at Risk?
The underlying concern appears to be a fear that America may
find itself in a position where its economic and military domi-
nance falters because the nation’s schools and universities no
longer produce an adequate number of geniuses to advance the
economy and an adequate number of well-trained specialists
to fill all the available positions in high-tech corporations and
research centers. Reasoning of this kind leads to recommen-
dations for tracking students early in order to achieve national
expectations for numbers of degrees earned in specific areas
of math and science. The latest British model of math educa-
tion is returning to this kind of tracking, over the objections
of some British education experts, such as the Advisory Com-
mittee on Mathematics Education (ACME) (2004). On the
new UK model, which is perhaps a rebirth of previous UK
tracking systems, students can choose to take a lower level math
sequence that prepares them for blue collar work, or they
can take a second and higher math track that readies them
for advanced study and opportunities to pursue university
degrees that have a high mathematical content. South Africa
is another nation that has moved toward a kind of tracking that
is driven by national assessment of the kind of “mathematical

15
 What the World Is Thinking

literacy” necessary for students to “contribute to modern life.”

The new lower math curriculum in South Africa focuses on
what might be called business math, as reported by Sue Blaine
in Business Day (June 2005).
The American system of higher education has differed from
the European precisely in this detail, that the American system
does not categorize students in such a final and irrevocable
manner so early in life. The American model, while it may
be inefficient, leaves open the possibility that students will
bloom later, or may choose to work harder later. This debate
over egalitarian versus highly selective or elitist education
will probably grow more strident, particularly in Europe,
where European Economic Community policies of open col-
lege enrollment are being reconsidered for two reasons. First,
students are moving about the continent more freely, which
creates difficulties for enrollment management, and second,
many European nations are debating whether they can afford
educational policies that allow less prepared students to take
highly valuable places in university classrooms (Corbett 2005).
This same debate between elitism and egalitarianism features
prominently in the American discussion of mathematics edu-
cation, especially since the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM) made equality of access the top priority
in its list of values for math education.
Categorizing students or tracking them into different levels
of curricula seem at least partly rational at first glance. How-
ever, the problem with such tracking is that it is not clear
what constitute the most basic skills that students should
have to be able to function well in ordinary business settings.
The most reductive approach to this question is to assure
that all students have enough math to keep accounts. But
other descriptions of basic math are possible if one takes into
account new technologies and global business. Perhaps an
understanding of interest rate calculations and foreign cur-

16
 What the World Is Thinking

rency fluctuations are truly basic math. Perhaps, in a world

where teenagers learn computer programming and dream
of contributing to gaming, a knowledge of fractal geometry,
quaternions, and Taylor series are basic math that may need
to be taught in an order far different from the way they are
traditionally introduced.

What Purposes Are Served?

As this and later chapters will explore, those who call them-
selves traditionalists in the math debate argue that the math
that America needs is precisely the kind that allows students
to do well in college calculus, differential equations, statis-
tics, linear algebra, and the applications of those subjects. To
the degree that current math education does not produce
enough students with high skills in those areas, the nation
has a problem. A professor at an Ivy League university pub-
lished an argument to this effect, using as evidence the abili-
ties demonstrated by his calculus students over a period of
thirty years (Harper 2001). His students’ performance had
declined, from which he concluded that the teaching of math
had deteriorated at the pre-college level, even for the best
students. What our book explores is whether such a conclu-
sion is justified, since the limited evidence available indicates
that reform curricula, of whatever description, probably have
not been adopted thoroughly in American classrooms. More-
over, our knowledge is limited concerning exactly how much
American math teachers know about math and the teaching of
math. To put this another way, we do not know how teachers’
knowledge of mathematics and the teaching of mathematics
has changed in the United States or elsewhere over the last
thirty or fifty years.
One response to the concern about learning calculus has
been a push to teach calculus in high school, a phenomenon

17
 What the World Is Thinking

that has grown over the past generation. Some constructivist

scholars argue that it is a mistake to teach calculus in high
school because colleges have done this very well and because
there are more important basic reasoning skills that need
to be mastered in high school and the lower grades (War-
field 2007, Mallinson 2007). Throughout most of the world,
including those nations that generally score higher on math
tests than America, calculus is not viewed as the zenith of
mathematics education. More time is spent on other matters,
such as problem solving, statistics, and discrete mathematics.
Hence the current NCTM guidelines suggest that more time
ought to be spent teaching probability and statistics, which
are in any case more useful than calculus to the average citizen
for understanding public issues, and to those doing biomed-
ical and social science research.
Even if we knew enough about math curricula and math
teaching methods, it might still be true that the teaching
methods that are letting some elite students down—in the
sense that they don’t achieve the same level of math ability as
in previous generations—are the same methods that assure
that the lower performers and those afraid of math are doing
far better than their counterparts a generation ago. So in the
end, the choice of a curriculum, which is an important social
choice, may not depend solely on whether a nation wishes to
keep up the supply of engineers and physicists.That choice also
depends on how well a nation wishes to educate the majority
of its citizens to understand new developments in science and
technology. It has been observed that lower math scores on
national tests may be due to a larger proportion of students
having access to elementary, secondary, and tertiary higher
education. But as later parts of this chapter demonstrate, it is
difficult to form conclusions about such assertions.
And here another aspect of the issue emerges. School cur-
ricula and the informal curriculum of social learning now

18
 What the World Is Thinking

cover far more topics than in the past. Children in developed

nations now commonly know basic computer programming
and understand many technical details and have skills asso-
ciated with digital cameras, video recorders, and advanced
computer graphics systems. People are also exposed to highly
technical information on television medical programs and
through advertising for pharmaceuticals. In the face of this
evidence that ordinary people are becoming more technically
and scientifically literate, it is hard to believe that we are in the
presence of an educational crisis.

How Do We Fix a Broken System

(If It Is Broken)?
Whether the problem of math education is worldwide or
American is an extremely complex question. The debate is
complicated by disagreements over tests, bases of comparison,
curricula, educational goals, underlying social and polit-
ical goals, and many other factors. Whatever the positions
taken by the participants in this debate, everyone who enters
this contested territory wants mathematics to be understood
better, more deeply, and more widely, applied more routinely,
appreciated more universally, and approached with less fear
of its being too difficult or too abstract for most people to
understand and use. At the same time, there is little agree-
ment about the answers to the questions posed at the begin-
ning of this section. Was there a superior math curriculum
in the past? Fifty or a hundred years ago, fewer students took
advanced science and math, and technology was far simpler.
What kind of mathematical knowledge is most important now?
Americans aim for calculus, while much of the world places
more emphasis on statistics and applied math. Our children
may be more interested in shortcuts to learning the kinds of
math that undergird computer graphics. What is the purpose

19
 What the World Is Thinking

of math education and should that purpose be the same for

all segments of the population? Some would argue that the
point is to maintain an economic, technological, and even
military edge. Others see more value in assuring that everyone
attains at least a competency sufficient to thrive in the busi-
ness world.
Instead of asking about the reasons for the failure of math
education, it may be helpful to ask, instead, how math educa-
tion can be enhanced. What features of math education have
been the subject of experiments? What, from an international
perspective, is the full range of variables in the teaching of
math? However, because the debate is framed so often in
terms of problems and failures, it is easier to ask where the
problem lies.

Where Does the Problem Lie?

In many nations, the results of international studies of math
performance raise little public heat. The Japanese, for example,
concluded that they ought to try harder to help students like
math, in addition to mastering it (Macnab 2000). Some places,
such as Hong Kong, have responded to the test results by
adopting new curricula, abandoning traditional drills and
tracking in order to serve more students who have been poor
performers or who have shown math phobia (Lam n.d.). Per-
haps in a generation it will be possible to look back and see if
these changes have had any effect. Norway adopted a construc-
tivist or new-new math curriculum and suffered a decline in
national competency, though on close analysis it appeared that
the curriculum was imposed without offering much training
to teachers in how to use the methods (Bjorgqvist 2005).
Above all, the United States and Britain have tried to find the
reasons for lower mathematics performance as measured in
major international tests that have been created and admin-

20
 What the World Is Thinking

istered to a large degree by Anglo-American and Canadian

experts. A quick review of the likely culprits for the perceived
fall in achievement provides a context for understanding this
debate—keeping in mind, of course, that those international
tests may not provide comparable data at all.

Is the Real Problem American Culture?

Cultural and family educational values are often cited as impor-
tant factors in math learning. Japanese parents drive their chil-
dren to excel (Harper 2001). The Japanese educational system
is designed to move pupils toward fearsome examinations
that determine an individual’s entire future. Students often
go from long school sessions to afternoon and night cram-
ming academies. Therefore, some experts argue there is little
point in comparing Japanese (or Korean) education to US
education, because it is not likely that America will adopt the
parenting and schooling practices of these Asian nations. The
studies by Rho (n.d.), Ellington (2005), and Harper (2001)
address this question.

Is It a Time Issue?
Time on task is a second variable, as is evident already from
the example of Japan. Records indicate that the amount of
time spent in math classes has fallen in many nations as other
subjects have been added to curricula. Moreover, time spent
on math today is different from before, because the subject
has broadened to include mapping, graphic presentation, and
other topics that traditionalists consider outside the bounds
of basic mathematical learning (i.e., the four principal opera-
tions of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,
standard algorithms for those operations, elementary algebra,
and geometry) (Ellington 2005, Harper 2001). There has also
been pressure over recent decades to teach more math, sooner.
Algebra has been pushed from ninth to eighth grade in many

21
 What the World Is Thinking

schools, and many high schools now offer calculus, a subject

formerly taught primarily in the first year of college (Mal-
linson 2007). Obviously, these curricular choices are loaded
with social and political values. The geographical knowledge
communicated in studies of maps, for example, addresses a
significant gap in American education. How might one choose
between knowledge of geography and better knowledge of
division?

Could the Problem Be the Mathematics Curriculum?

The scope of the curriculum is a third variable that is closely
related to time on task. A common complaint about con-
temporary math curricula is that they are “a mile wide and
an inch deep.” Underlying this concern is a subtle argument
that a lot of what is presented is not traditional math at all.
Chapters on population geography that teach how to interpret
charts and statistics are sometimes criticized on this ground.
This concern about scope, however, touches implicitly on the
question of teacher competence. Elementary teachers who do
not have extensive training in math, or who are even afraid of
math, may find this kind of curriculum a haven from teaching
the basics, though conversely one might just as well say that
such a curriculum offers a talented math teacher a rich chance
to teach statistical concepts.
Those who study the scope of the math curriculum and time
on task often use methods that are open to question. Asking
a teacher to self-report the amount of time spent on new
content compared to review of older material, for example,
may have little meaning. New content often requires review of
older material or reinforces older material. Combative reviews
of textbooks written by partisans of one approach or the other
commonly reduce an “enemy” textbook to a few stereotypes.
One side claims that another’s textbooks produce nothing but
confusion; another side claims that the other’s offers nothing

22
 What the World Is Thinking

but meaningless drill with no useful applications. The bibli-

ography on these issues includes work by Raimi (2006), Ellis
and Berry (2005), and Agarkar and Shirali (2001).
A more sophisticated critique of the tendency to include
social science content in math textbooks is that students might
be taught to take a fundamentally statistical approach to math-
ematical questions, an approach in which it is understood
that math problems have no correct answers, only a plurality
of possibilities for which arguments can be made on the basis
of presentations of data through charts, tables, graphs, and
even essays. Such an approach to truth is consistent with the
notion that all values are socially constructed and that students
should invent their own approaches to solving mathematical
problems. This social constructivist or statistical approach to
finding answers is a problem when, in fact, there are correct
answers to well-defined questions. Of course, there is a dif-
ference between social constructivism and moral relativism
on the one hand and constructivism as the term is used in
education, where the intent is to emphasize the importance
of students participating in problem solving by constructing
answers rather than just memorizing methods. In a construc-
tivist or reform-based curriculum, students come to under-
stand through an internal process of grappling with problems
and making sense of them.
Before proceeding to look at the competing models of
math instruction in the world, it is helpful to examine a
simple math problem to see the different kinds of answers
that are so hotly contested. Consider the following problem.
A farmer asks his two children to count the numbers of pigs
and chickens in their yard. One child reports that there are
70 heads, the other that there are 200 feet. A standard alge-
braic solution to the problem is to recognize that the solu-
tion requires two equations with two variables, the number
of pigs (P) and the number of chickens (C). In this standard

23
 What the World Is Thinking

approach, the two formulae are: P + C = 70 and P × (four

legs per pig) + C × (two legs per chicken) = 200 legs. Sub-
stituting P = 70 – C into the second equation, you soon come
to the conclusion that there must be 30 pigs, which have a
total of 120 legs, and 40 chickens (which have a total of 80
legs). The algebraic method accomplishes two objectives: it
produces an answer and it also implicitly demonstrates that
there is only one answer.
A student who uses a guess and check approach to find an
answer may get the same result, but guess and check will not
show that there is only one answer to the problem because it
does not frame the problem with the same kind of abstrac-
tion and generality. Using the guess and check method, a stu-
dent might say, “I found only one answer to this problem,”
but statistically speaking, there may be five or six other and
equally good answers. Of course, a student who just learns
the rote method and creates two formulae out of habit may
wonder in the end why that method worked and whether the
answer actually makes sense. Therefore, a traditionalist may
say that learning the algebraic method is the only approach
to finding the correct answer, while a constructivist may
say, with equal conviction, that guess and check or some
other creative method may help a student think through the
problem, with the result that the student actually develops
better problem-solving skills and more confidence in the face
of puzzles. The constructivist curriculum builds on what the
student has learned by finding the answer any way he or she
can, by then introducing algebraic approaches to solving the
same problem. The ethnomathematical approach, which will
be introduced later, adds another, political dimension to such
a problem. And what if one of the chickens had two heads, or
the children counted each other’s heads and feet?

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 What the World Is Thinking

Are the Teachers the Problem?

Teacher preparation is a fourth important variable and, as we
will discuss, perhaps the most important variable for Amer-
ican, if not world, education. In some nations, teachers must
have completed two full years of college mathematics courses,
the equivalent of a strong math major, to teach math at almost
any level. The underlying logic of such a social choice appears
to be that a teacher who is adept at working with math of all
kinds is likely to be a creative and effective instructor of math-
ematical principles, even in first grade. The findings of this
book, and one of our discussion points, is that while it may be
important for math teachers to enjoy math and to know a great
deal of math, there is a difference between knowing math and
knowing how to teach math. More particularly, those who
“get” math easily may not always be the best people to help
students who need to be taught by instructors who recog-
nize common errors of learning and who can provide support
and alternative strategies for understanding the mathematics
needed in any given context.
To return to the issue of basic preparation, American pri-
mary teachers, like their peers in many other nations, often
have as few as nine college credits of math and math-teaching
classes. Moreover, the school systems in which they teach
may not provide the kind of in-service education that would
help them learn the specific skills necessary for teaching math
effectively. Whether the world has an adequate knowledge of
those pedagogical skills is a question taken up at the end of
this volume. Ole Bjorgqvist, writing of the success of Finnish
math education, provides a picture of a complete system with
all of its elements created for success. Finland is ethnically
homogeneous. Teachers are well paid. All teachers must have
extensive training and also complete a master’s degree in ped-
agogy with a research thesis, and pre-service teacher training

25
 What the World Is Thinking

is extensive (Bjorgqvist, 2005). James Stigler and James Hiebert

of UCLA say of the state of American math education, “our
biggest problem is not how we teach but that we have no way
of getting better” (Stigler and Hiebert 1997, p. 1). Stigler and
Hiebert describe the vast network of American math teachers
at all stages in their careers and ask what kind of interven-
tions and research can be used to identify best practices and
teaching knowledge and how to impart that knowledge across
the nation to current and future teachers alike.
America is not alone in this discussion. Japanese and Chi-
nese teachers participate in ongoing professional development
activities aimed at improving basic knowledge of math and
the effectiveness of daily math instruction (Ma 1999). In stark
contrast, in some nations there are discussions about whether
teachers should be required to complete even a bachelor’s
degree (Blanco 2003, Ding 2004).
Chinese math teachers focus on math instruction. When
they are not teaching math, they are meeting with their peers
to discuss methods for communicating content and problem-
solving skills more effectively. In other nations, teachers at
the primary level teach every subject. How can they be as
adept at math instruction with such a diversity of teaching
assignments and such broad expectations for knowledge and
pedagogical competence? Ma’s (1999) widely cited study of
Chinese math instruction analyzes this issue in depth.

An Incomplete Approach to Fixing the Problem

Much of the debate about the teaching of math, however,
seems to focus on only one of these inputs: the design of cur-
ricula and the textbooks that encapsulate curricula. Teachers,
it is apparently assumed, can quickly present any new curric-
ulum, though the conventional wisdom on teaching practice
is that once the classroom door is closed, teachers return to
the practices that make sense to them, even if those teaching

26
 What the World Is Thinking

and learning principles differ from those presented in the

mandated textbooks. The debate over textbooks has three
components. One concern is how much math overall can be
learned by the end of high school and how that total amount
of mathematical mastery compares to what is necessary to
succeed in college math classes. A second, slightly different,
concern is whether the specific math topics taught in high
school prepare students for college math courses. Will a mas-
tery of sets and statistics be a good foundation for calculus?
Or should more time be spent on algebra and trigonometry?
A third concern is how the subject is taught through the text-
book. Is math taught at all, in fact, or does the curriculum
merely guide students toward discovery of mathematical ideas
without ensuring mastery of mathematical procedures?
The sections that follow survey the present world situation
in somewhat greater detail with the objectives of introducing
some of the key players and of offering further examples of the
various schools of thought. The structure of the debate itself
helps explain who is interested in dominating science and
industry, who is willing to pay for large studies, and which
groups most actively spread their views through conferences
and through contracting with textbook publishers.
Many nations and their educational leaders do not feel a
strong need to participate in the debate; some are satisfied
with their educational systems, some are too poor to change,
and some are preoccupied with other agendas. Among those
who do join the discussion, the Chinese spend the most energy
rating world universities and show a strong interest in devel-
oping better doctoral education, as demonstrated by the elab-
orate study of world research productivity carried out each
year by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai Jiao Tong,
World’s Top Universities). The Americans spend the most on
studies of math education to maintain leadership in tech-
nology. The European Community, like China, is working to

27
 What the World Is Thinking

improve both undergraduate and graduate education through

the Bologna process, the discussion of new standards for col-
lege degrees that is being carried out by the members of the
European Community. South Africa is confronting brain drain,
and India the decline of educational productivity outside the
most prestigious Indian technical institutes.
These different kinds of national interest in education
remind us that the discussion of math education is associated
with discussions of many other values. For some, the goal
is economic or military dominance; for others, the goal is
equity of access to knowledge and jobs; for still others, the
goal is to assure that the world remembers its past civiliza-
tions and affirms its diversity.

Are Textbooks and Curriculum the Real Issue?

In one common characterization, the traditional math cur-
riculum is a rigorous introduction to the principal topics of
mathematics, often presented in historical order, so that (as
some parody the curricular design) phylogeny recapitulates
ontogeny. In this view, math is a set of building blocks that
need each other for support, so it is reasonable to learn math
in the order it was invented or discovered. Students learn many
algorithms or formulaic techniques for solving problems, and
they often learn those techniques without understanding why
they work. Dividing fractions by reversing and multiplying
is one such algorithm that many students learn without
grasping what it really means. One advocate of this approach
commented that it is like teaching the proper placement of
the hands to a piano student. You don’t need to explain that
if the student develops sloppy technique he or she will never
be able to perform Liszt. You just insist that the student do it
the right way. A constructivist may respond, however, that if
it only takes a few minutes to show why poor hand position

28
 What the World Is Thinking

will later limit the performer’s ability, why not spend those
few minutes to impart a deeper understanding? Why impose
rote learning and make a mystery out of something that could
easily be explained? Traditionalists will counter that if you
gain facility with basic calculations, for example, by memo-
rizing multiplication tables and basic formulae, the student
then has the mental “space” necessary to contemplate truly
difficult problems.

Traditional Mathematics
American math teaching was taken to task by the public,
whether justly or unjustly, after the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik in 1957. In retrospect, since America put a person
on the moon just eleven years later, the Russian success with
Sputnik may not have required changes in American educa-
tion at all, much less changes such as the experimental math
and science curricula that were hastily written and prescribed
to American schools. Nor is it clear why new curricula were
considered to be the answer, rather than better teacher training
or some other modification in education, if education was
indeed at fault. At any rate, writing new curricula was the
step taken, and the development of math curricula coincided
with another development so strange as to be comic. Math-
ematical theorists at the time found it useful to reconcep-
tualize math in terms of set theory, and a group of French
mathematicians, writing under the pseudonym of Monsieur
Bourbaki, developed curricula and textbooks for basic math
that were grounded in set theory. And that became the New
Math. A theoretical insight into the structure of mathematics
was turned into a method for teaching every Pierre and Yvette
around the world. Were teachers adequately prepared to use
this method? Was there good reason to think it superior to
traditional methods of teaching?

29
 What the World Is Thinking

Reform-based Math
Following New Math came a movement that at least closely
tracks the general trends in social values in America and else-
where. The NCTM curriculum now in print places equity first
among values. The teaching mandate is to reach all students,
not just the elite. Constructivism, or reform-based math
(sometimes called rain forest math and other epithets by its
opponents) grew out of the desire to lay a firm foundation
for mathematical understanding by helping students of all
abilities to understand why mathematical operations work.
If writing essays about problems helps, then students should
be allowed to write essays. If work with physical models or
“manipulatives” helps students to visualize complex ideas,
then those will be employed as long as they are useful. If work
in groups is helpful, as Uri Triesman’s (1992) research showed
at Berkeley, then math classes will include opportunities for
group problem solving. The Norwegian experience cited on
page 12 provides an example of the adoption of constructivism
without adequate teacher training. Handing manipulatives to
students can result in geometrical insights—or it can result
in a classroom of students building houses with sticks if the
teacher has not been educated in the method. Worse still,
some school districts that have adopted constructivist ideas
have actually prohibited students from learning standard
skills, such as multiplication tables. Such extremes were never
part of any informed educational agenda.
Some scholars consider Dutch Realistic Mathematics Edu-
cation, known as RME and taking its origin from the Freud-
enthal Institute at the University of Utrecht, to be a form of
constructivism. RME scholars take exception to this character-
ization, because while RME encourages “guided reinvention”
of mathematical ideas, it also requires mastery of traditional
skills and algorithms.

30
 What the World Is Thinking

Ethnomathematics
The ethnomathematics agenda places a very high value on
diversity and therefore emphasizes learning the mathemat-
ical traditions of all nations, including the early calendars and
mathematical ideas of civilizations long gone. Ethnomath-
ematics is the creation of Ubiritan D’Ambrosio, a Brazilian
mathematician. Math has always been a multicultural enter-
prise. Our “Arabic” numbers come from India, as does the
concept of zero. Egypt and Greece gave us geometry; Arabia
contributed algebra and many elements of number theory.
Italians, the British, the Swiss, Russians, and people from all
over Europe, the Americas, and Asia contributed theories and
applications. Some nations have made contributions to math
that are not present in the standard curricula, and those people
may feel they are being victimized or colonized by a foreign
subject when they learn math. Therefore, the ethnomathema-
ticians argue, all students should have a chance to understand
how their own ancestors developed methods of mathematics.
Once students learn that their own ethnic group also created
math, they can learn without feeling that the subject is an
imposition from outside. Central American children should
study the Mayan calendar; African American children should
study Harlem street games that involve probability; West Afri-
cans should appreciate the complex math implicit in textiles
and basket weaving. Underlying this agenda is the assertion
that the standard curriculum is not the birthright of all people
but rather a form of colonialism.
Ethnomathematical writings raise important political and
philosophical questions. To return to the pig and chicken
problem, consider that the most important answer may be
to ask why the world is so constituted that one farmer can
own so many animals while others have none, or to con-
sider how the close relationship between pigs, chickens, and

31
 What the World Is Thinking

people has led to the transfer of many dangerous diseases to

the human population. Many would say such reactions are
not math at all; others would respond that focusing on the
numerical answer to the problem keeps students from seeing
the far more important social issues. Ethnomathematics is not
so much an approach to teaching mathematics as a correc-
tive or enrichment of the mathematics curriculum that helps
students see connections between math, ethics, politics, geog-
raphy, history, and other disciplines.

Mathematicians and Mathematics Educators

Another curriculum advocacy group consists of mathemati-
cians and their organizations, but in an odd sense. If one looks
at the websites of various national mathematical societies,
what strikes one immediately is that very few national math
organizations include divisions that focus on K–12 pedagogy.
National mathematical societies indeed organize competitions
for gifted K–12 students and in some cases address issues in
collegiate education. Otherwise, with few exceptions, these
societies focus their efforts on theoretical questions. Profes-
sional mathematicians and physicists know what they want
students to have mastered by the time they reach college; they
often express dissatisfaction with the students they encounter;
but to a large degree the profession of mathematics appears to
be divorced from the profession of teaching math, especially
at the primary and secondary levels.
Put simply, mathematicians and math educators don’t talk
to one another (Ocken 2007). This divorce is not necessarily
benign neglect. Sometimes there is absolute hostility expressed
by one group for the other, with mathematicians emphasizing
the skills necessary to function in advanced fields while
math educators explain what is possible when your teaching
agenda includes reaching all students, overcoming math anx-
iety, addressing inequities, and planning curricula for people

32
 What the World Is Thinking

who will never go to college. Once again, the core issue is

elitism versus equity, and the pedagogical issue is what kind of
teaching and curricula best serve these different audiences.
The disconnect between professional mathematicians and
the teachers of mathematics serves as a microcosm of a larger
problem that this book has raised and will raise repeatedly.
Is there evidence that any of these curricular models is supe-
rior? Can curricula and textbooks be evaluated apart from the
work of preparing teachers to understand them and use them
effectively? Does the history of the “math wars” or the math
debate indicate that math teachers, and their special abilities
for fostering abstract mathematical thinking and procedural
skills in their students, have been adequately taken into con-
sideration? Or is it the case, rather, that in all the talk and
theorizing, all the debate and the sales of textbooks, both the
teachers and the students have been left behind?

The Big Tests

The latest round of concern about world math education began
with the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS), which
was administered in 1964. One can cite earlier dates, such as
the Pilot Twelve Country Study of 1959–62, or the later forma-
tion of the International Association for the Evaluation of Edu-
cational Achievement (IAEEA) in 1967. FIMS was followed by
the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) in 1980–
81. And this, in turn, was followed by the Third International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995. TIMSS has
now morphed into a continuing project called Trends in Math
and Science Studies, which may carry out additional world-
wide samplings of student math performance.
These large-scale studies were supplemented by other proj-
ects sponsored by different international agencies. Particularly
notable are the tests called PISA (Program for International

33
 What the World Is Thinking

Student Achievement), sponsored by the Organization for Eco-

nomic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which released
results in 1997 and 2001. Some tests focused on math, others
on science and reading. These studies were largely funded and
led by American, Canadian, British, and European organiza-
tions and scholars. Nations dropped in and out of the studies;
in some cases, nations that participated did not meet thresh-
olds for numbers of schools or other statistical measures, so
their participation was incomplete.
While the results of the studies themselves are reason-
ably nuanced, the media and politicians picked up chiefly
the national rankings, which seemed to show that the major
Western industrial powers were falling behind various Asian
and Eastern European nations in mathematical ability. What
“falling behind” means can be debated, as was noted earlier.
The United States is not a standard deviation away from Singa-
pore, for example. Relatively small differences in average raw
scores can be made to appear catastrophic, and the data are
generally presented in newspapers without much explanation
of such important matters as the different types of students
tested. As explained earlier, when the full range of American
students is compared to graduates of elite math and science
academies, the result will always show that the elite students
have higher scores.
Scholars outside the Anglo-European orbit have pointed
to several other limitations of these global tests. English is
the primary language of testing and of the conferences that
discuss the results. There seems to be an implicit expectation
that the entire world should adopt one arguably superior cur-
riculum, and many fear that that means the imposition of
an Anglo-European model on the rest of the world. There is
also fear that other international agencies, such as the Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF), will require the adoption of
such a curriculum as a condition for relief and loans (Atweh,

34
 What the World Is Thinking

et al., 2001). And will third world nations be used to test

potentially ineffective programs? What of the heavy reliance
on technology in some of the new teaching designs? How can
computerized instruction be paid for and updated in nations
where the average citizen earns a few dollars a day or less?
Broadly speaking, the nations that paid for these tests, and
whose citizens appeared to demonstrate only modest perfor-
mance, have set to work on additional studies, legislation, and
curricular reforms. Most of the subsequent conferences on
these topics have been hosted in these same nations, with lim-
ited attendance by representatives from the poorer sections of
the globe.
Macnab (2000) from Northern College in Aberdeen, Scot-
land, has published a careful review of what nations have
done with the results of the TIMSS tests. Using questionnaires
and other data from the 40 nations that participated in the
tests, 19 of which did not meet all the TIMSS criteria for par-
ticipation, Macnab identified 23 nations that started down
the road to some kind of educational change. Fourteen of the
23 countries made a “national response.” In most cases, this
consisted of the publication of a national report. Fewer nations
organized countrywide or regional conferences. Seven formed
“policy groups to promote change.” Two nations were con-
sidering policy initiatives, and only three nations or parts of
nations had started “development projects”: the United States,
Norway, and Flemish Belgium.
Macnab’s summary indicates that the UK and New Zealand
also initiated curricular reviews and articulated new standards.
France and Sweden had changes underway before TIMSS.
Macnab’s research also points to the problems created by a
lack of centralization of educational planning in such feder-
ally organized nations as Canada and the United States, whose
federal governments have no power to mandate national math
standards or policies.

35
 What the World Is Thinking

Categorizing these results, Macnab observes that among the

nations that participated, “not all countries made use of this
opportunity; of those that did, not all were prepared to accept
what was revealed; and that among those who did accept the
verdict of TIMSS, there was not agreement as to the nature and
depth of the changes required” (p. 13).
Howson (1999), a senior consultant to several interna-
tional studies, has commented that “it is by no means easy to
make significant changes in a beneficial way” (p. 167). How-
son’s observation may seem utterly banal until one considers
that much of the international discussion of math education
has assumed that changes in textbooks, curricula, teacher
training, teacher in-service education, and the mathematical
thinking of teachers and students can be accomplished in
short periods of time.
Howson concluded that the real value of comparative tests
and studies lies in the willingness of good teachers from sim-
ilar cultures to consult with one another about ways to teach
more effectively. This insight has many components. First, it
reinforces Ma’s conclusion that dialogue among teachers is
critical and Ball’s conclusion, discussed extensively in a later
chapter, that the key to good math teaching is for teachers
to share insights about instructing complex numerical and
abstract concepts. Second, Howson’s conclusion means that
comparisons among nations that have dissimilar cultures are
not pedagogically useful. The British and Americans will not
start parenting like the Japanese or Koreans. However, con-
versations between teachers in Washington State and Alberta
or British Columbia might be very useful on all sides. Fur-
ther, Howson’s analysis speaks to the importance of change
that comes from teachers, not from policymakers or outside
experts. He supports his conclusions with references to a
number of consultations that have taken place among teachers
in Europe. Finally, Howson points out that these low-tech

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 What the World Is Thinking

meetings, conversations, or consultations among teachers

within a school system, or between teachers in neighboring
districts or nations, can accomplish a great deal at relatively
low cost.
The Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group spon-
sors precisely this kind of conversation. As the organization
emphasizes in its invitations, this is a “conference based on
conferring.” Working groups share perspectives and teaching
points; some working groups are set aside for senior practi-
tioners, others for beginning teachers, and there are also “ad
hoc sessions” that can be organized to treat any emerging idea
(Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group, 2006).
Perhaps the most severe critique of international mega-tests
has been written by Keitel and Kilpatrick (1999) in their essay
“Rationality and Irrationality of International Comparisons.”
After pointing out how reports of average scores, without any
reference to standard deviations or the meaning of the differ-
ences in scores, lead to useless rank-ordered lists of nations,
and after making several observations similar to Howson’s
about the limited use of comparisons between cultures with
radically different approaches to childhood and personal
choice, Keitel and Kilpatrick raise a number of additional
issues. What correlations, if any, exist among scores on the
one hand and important output measures like degrees earned,
patents issued, publications in leading journals, or national
economic health? Those who are concerned about the inter-
national rankings express fear that a low ranking means that
creativity or economic standing is draining away, but there
are no studies that show such causal connections.
Keitel and Kilpatrick focus their criticism of the big tests on
what they call irrational conclusions made by interpreters of
the test results. “TIMSS,” they write, “threatens to poison for
some time the waters of educational policy, as politicians and
researchers scramble to take advantage of what TIMSS alleg-

37
 What the World Is Thinking

edly says about the teaching and learning of mathematics in

their country. . . . International comparative studies are trum-
peted in educational journals and the press as triumphs of
rationality. . . . Researchers conducting the studies have too
much vested in the outcomes to engage in sufficient reflection
about the foundations of their work” (Keitel and Kilpatrick
1999). This judgment is worth keeping in mind because of
the extent to which those who organize and support studies
and particular positions on math education are linked to par-
ticular foundations and textbook companies. Their concerns
also point to the importance of keeping perspective. If nations
are persuaded that they are on the brink of a crisis, or are about
to fail in the international economic competition, they may
be less able or willing to address issues of educational equity.
As will be made clear in the next chapter, this is an issue at
the heart of the American discussion of math.

How Do Responses to the Tests Play Out

in National Curricula?
This section offers a bird’s-eye view of recommendations for
improving math education from the world’s various curric-
ular camps. Our intent is to give a sense of the breadth of
opinion and the passion with which these views are held.

Ethnomathematics Revisited
An extreme challenge to traditionalism and constructivism
comes from ethnomathematics. Two advocates of this view are
worth quoting at length to give a flavor of this side of the
debate. “It goes without saying that the mathematics of the
21st century has allowed impressive scientific achievements
to emerge in all parts of the planet, yet this came with incal-
culable costs to the millions of people, their cultures and civi-
lizations as European/North American ideas, morality and

38
 What the World Is Thinking

science have come to dominate and control, and capture our

imagination. It has, as well, enabled some of the most horrific,
social, scientific, ecological and cultural disasters in the his-
tory of the planet. The Ethnomathematics Program considers
a concept of mathematics which includes a critical, moral,
holistic, and global perspective. That is, a mathematics curric-
ulum that ‘walks the mystical way with practical feet’” (Orey
and Rosa 2006).
Davidson (1990), writing about teaching Native Ameri-
cans, suggests that students with high math scores may in
fact know very little about math, which is evident when one
asks them to write essays on the subject. Conversely, students
who can write essays about mathematical questions may have
an equally important, though different, mathematical knowl-
edge. From the perspective of these authors, it might follow
that math teachers should obtain more training in political
theory, contemporary liberation ideologies, and comparative
ethical and cultural systems. More pointedly, Frankenstein
from the University of Massachusetts sees ethnomathematics
as a means for combating capitalism: “We believe that major
objectives of all education are to shatter myths about how
society is structured; to understand the effects of, and inter-
connections among racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism,
monopoly capitalism, imperialism and other alienating, total-
itarian institutional structures and attitudes; to develop the
commitment to rebuild those structures and attitudes; and, to
develop the personal and collective empowerment to engage
that task” (Frankenstein n.d.).
Ubiratan D’Ambrosio, founder of ethnomathematics, once
defined the issue in these words written for the Chronicle of
Higher Education: “Mathematics is absolutely integrated with
Western civilization, which conquered and dominated the
entire world. The only possibility of building up a planetary
civilization depends on restoring the dignity of the losers and,

39
 What the World Is Thinking

together, winners and losers, moving into the new. [Ethno-

mathematics] is a step toward peace” (Greene 2000). Here
D’Ambrosio offers a vision of his field that differs from another
formulation he has offered, which recognizes that mathe-
matics is in fact the creation of all societies, with contribu-
tions from many nations and peoples well outside what is
generally considered Western civilization.
Ethnomathematicians (as well as others) also express con-
cern about the digital divide. Computers are not necessary for
basic education, and to the extent that some European and
American textbooks and educational systems encourage the
use of advanced technology, those systems of education can
prove too expensive for poor nations (Koblitz 1996)). On the
world scene, ethnomathematics is particularly important both
in Brazil and in Portugal, which have large immigrant pop-
ulations and a deep concern for improving the educational
opportunity of minority populations. Ethnomathematics does
not offer a curricular model for teaching math or for training
teachers how to teach math. It does not offer an alternative
mathematics. In fact, the extremity of its challenge to both
traditional and reform-based math instruction lies in the
claim that learning to quantify, measure, and manipulate the
world has led to warfare, colonialism, and genocide, so that
it might have been preferable if there were no math at all.
Ethnomathematics, however, does offer a supplemental cur-
riculum focused on human values.

Constructivism Revisited
Constructivism, sometimes called the new-new math, has in
fact been around for a long time in other forms. The Park City
Math Conference in Utah and its predecessor conferences, asso-
ciated with the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, have
been working with talented American teachers for decades to
develop math education programs that produce graduates who

40
 What the World Is Thinking

have excellent abilities not merely in all the traditional math

skills, but also in individual and group problem-solving. Top
American prep schools, such as the Philips Exeter Academy
in New Hampshire, have used a small-group, constructivist
approach to teaching math and other subjects since their
founding (Mallinson 2007).
Constructivism is now the dominant theoretical model in
Anglo-American math education, as it is in other areas of edu-
cation as well, though one view is that the battle between
traditionalists and constructivists is to an important degree a
battle over a straw man, because no one knows enough about
what actually goes on in classrooms or what kinds of peda-
gogical knowledge the best teachers have. To put this another
way, just because one theory of education has perhaps dis-
placed another theory, and just because textbooks may now be
written more out of one theoretical perspective than another,
there is no reason to conclude that teaching and learning in the
classroom reflect any particular model. In the United States,
the websites of such groups as “Mathematicallycorrect” (on
the traditionalist side) and “Mathematicallysane” (on the con-
structivist side) trade salvos as if it were abundantly clear what
teachers have been well trained to do, and as if we knew how
math was, in fact, being taught. An international perspective is
helpful precisely because it allows us to see how the same bat-
tles are played out in the same hot language across the world. A
recent Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Education in
Zimbabwe concluded that the British model of education had
failed, pointed to the “international disaster” of New Math,
and argued simultaneously for creative teaching, avoidance of
memorization, and the importance of teaching strict math-
ematical proofs (Memorandum to Presidential Commission
of Enquiry into Education, n.d.). The Commission’s list of tar-
gets includes most of the slogans of both traditionalism and
constructivism. Keele University’s “Thinking Maths” program

41
 What the World Is Thinking

in the UK offers one definition of the constructivist approach.

“While each lesson has a clear agenda involving fundamental
concepts in mathematics, the lesson does not focus directly
on pupils learning these concepts, but rather on them ‘strug-
gling on the way’ towards these concepts. The emphasis is on
pupils in small groups, individually, or in whole-class discus-
sion, producing formulations and gaining insights at different
levels of complexity, all related to the concepts. The outcome
of the lesson is the thinking process and the sharing of ideas
rather than the specific knowledge and the skills themselves”
(Keele University n.d., p. 1.). A traditionalist might well point
out that it would be good if the outcome of each lesson was
both the thinking process and specific knowledge and skills.
Many constructivists would agree that the point is both/and,
not either/or.
One American version of reform-based curriculum is
the “Connected Mathematics Project” that was developed at
Michigan State University from 1991 to 1997 on the basis
of the standards recommended by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).The website for this curric-
ulum explains that the approach is problem centered, involves
the teacher as a guide, and requires that the teacher have a
deep knowledge of mathematics. Connected Math provides
teacher training materials. At issue, of course, is whether we
know enough yet about that pedagogical knowledge, which
is part of the current research agenda at MSU. How many
teachers have a sufficiently deep knowledge? This is not solely
an American issue. A recent report from the Czech Republic
makes the same point. Stehlikova and Hejny of Charles Uni-
versity describe how difficult it is for experienced math
teachers to change their methods, which is the same point
made by Stigler and Hiebert of UCLA about the very complex
task of changing a dynamic educational system that is already
in place and fully staffed with teachers of varying abilities

42
 What the World Is Thinking

(Stehlikova and Hejny1999, Stigler and Hiebert 1997).

If, as mentioned earlier, Norway is the poster child for the
problems of introducing a constructivist curriculum without
adequate teacher training (Braams 2002), the poster child
for the success of constructivism may be the Netherlands,
whose scores on the various international tests have remained
high. The complete Dutch model of math education, based
on the Freudenthal Institute’s Realistic Mathematics Education
program (RME), joins both a constructivist inquiry model of
learning with rich opportunities to learn and practice tradi-
tional algorithms, problem-solving techniques, multiplication
tables, and other skills (Hanlon 1998, van den Heuvel-
Panhuizen 2000). Many scholars have emphasized this dis-
tinction between constructivism and RME, including Zulkardi
et al. (n.d.) and Widjaja (2004) in Indonesia. Other scholars
have assessed the difficulty of moving from a rigidly structured
traditionalism that emphasizes rote learning to any model that
requires teachers to lead inquiry and to have enough knowl-
edge of math, and enough special pedagogical ability in the
teaching of mathematical ideas, to make the transition from
traditionalism to either RME or constructivism. Monteiro and
Pinto (n.d.) in Brazil, Fletcher (2005) of the University of
Cape Coast in Ghana, and Zanzali (2003) in Malaysia all make
similar observations that training teachers to use new methods
is difficult and that often, as Zanzali writes, “the constructive
nature of learning mathematics inherent in the curriculum is
not reflected in classroom teaching” (p. 37).
Ellis and Berry (2005) take a different perspective on con-
structivism by asserting that it is a work in progress rather
than a complete curriculum. They term the traditionalist
approach the “procedural-formalist paradigm” and the newer
approach the “cognitive-cultural paradigm.” As the new par-
adigm develops, they judge that curriculum designers and
teachers “deliberately refrain from issuing rigid prescrip-

43
 What the World Is Thinking

tions for classroom practices and static lists of criteria for

measuring learning, opting instead to share varied descrip-
tions of learning environments and multiple examples of the
sorts of outcomes to be expected.” An example of this broad
approach to creating constructivist education can be found in
the agenda of the Mathematics Education into the 21st Cen-
tury Project (n.d.), which began in 1986. The conferences
held by this group are designed to produce a “Super Course”
in math that includes “problem solving, use of technology,
new ways of assessment, ways of dealing with cultural differ-
ences, overcoming gender and social barriers, improving the
curriculum, teacher preparation and ongoing development,
policy initiatives, school organization, classroom practices,
using statistics in everyday life, effectively utilizing new para-
digms in teaching and learning, rich learning tasks, applica-
tions of mathematics and modeling in the real world, and
computer graphics.” One cannot contemplate such a large
agenda without reflecting on which issues are most basic and
on what most nations can afford. The Government of Bhutan
publication (Dorji 2006) offers the perspective of a poor
nation; the guide for teachers written by Grouws and Cebulla
(2001) and published by the International Academy of Educa-
tion, with support from UNESCO, provides another example
of how teachers might be prepared to offer a broader form of
math education that can address the needs of citizens in both
technology-rich and technology-poor nations.
Is constructivism a description of the way that truly excel-
lent math education has been offered for centuries? Is it a
work in progress? Does it truly lack attention to the basics
offered by RME and traditionalism? Does it assume too much
content and pedagogical knowledge from math teachers who
in many cases across the world have limited math education?
If there is a problem, is it a problem of theory, of curriculum,
or of attention to what teachers need to know to convey this

44
 What the World Is Thinking

complex subject? A brief survey of the literature on tradition-

alism offers both a critique of the other major trends in the
world and an opportunity to examine whether traditionalism
has answered its critics.

Traditionalism Revisited
Traditionalism is an appropriate place to end this chapter,
because the advocates of traditional mathematics teaching,
however that may be defined, play a large role in the American
debate over math, which is the subject of the next chapter. It
is not clear whether advocates of traditional approaches have
proposals for solving all of the perceived problems that the
other curricular theories are trying to address, such as making
math more accessible to women and minorities or helping
average students to understand the underlying logic of stan-
dard algorithms. Nor does traditionalism necessarily have an
answer to the teaching problems created by the sheer expan-
sion of knowledge. As was noted earlier, students today may
wish to learn quaternions, Taylor series, and fractal geometry
to do graphics programming. The NCTM recommends more
statistics, which gets more attention in Europe and which
is useful to citizens and researchers alike. If these topics are
added, then what must be cut, and where (Warfield September
18, 2007)?
Traditionalists often frame their contribution to the math
debate in four ways. First, they make comparisons between
the high scores of Asian nations and the lower scores of Anglo-
American countries. Some traditionalists, particularly those
who home-school, tend to adopt textbooks from Singapore
to try to capture the excellent results of Asian teaching, some-
times without considering the differences both in parenting
and in the training of math teachers and also without noting
that Singapore itself is moving toward the adoption of a more
constructivist approach. Second, traditionalists argue that the

45
 What the World Is Thinking

constructivist curriculum does not give enough attention to

learning basic skills and methods, so that students leave high
school with far less knowledge than past generations. Third,
traditionalists call for the mastery of a standard curriculum
whose outlines are sometimes merely implied. At an absolute
minimum, this curriculum includes memorizing multiplica-
tion tables, pencil and paper methods for basic operations,
basic geometry, proofs, and standard formulae for common
mathematical problems, so that all students can take algebra
in 8th grade and have the potential to learn calculus either
in high school or college. Calculus is considered the goal by
American traditionalists, whereas constructivists in the U.S.,
like most European teachers of math, set a goal of spending
more classroom time on statistics and applied math. Fourth,
traditionalists express concern about the falling numbers of
U.S. students taking degrees in math and science.
Critics of this traditionalist agenda observe that while these
methods apparently work well for elite students, they do not
necessarily serve less talented students very well. The core
philosophical issue is, therefore, equity. As we have hypoth-
esized before, the other issues are that elite students may
have been exposed to a constructivist approach to teaching
all along, and it is not clear what theory of teaching is actu-
ally being lived out in the world’s classrooms because teacher
training and in-service work have not kept pace with theory
and textbook development.
Studies of what happens in international classrooms have
produced a variety of results. McNaught and Won’s 2006 study
of Korean and American education found that five factors
explained 56% of the variation between the teaching styles
of the classrooms studied, yet their research did not look at
teachers’ backgrounds. Ma’s now famous study (1999) of the
differences between Chinese and American math teachers, by
contrast, focused precisely on teacher training and teacher

46
 What the World Is Thinking

assignments. She found that Chinese teachers had extensive

backgrounds in math, could answer math problems that most
American teachers could not solve, and spent their careers
teaching only math. These research findings are reinforced by
a study performed on an American school district that adopted
Singaporean math texts in the hope of reproducing Singapore’s
high math scores. While three of the schools in the district
showed higher scores, many of the schools in the experiment
dropped out. Garelick (2006), an advocate for traditionalism
who evaluated the experiment, found that problems with the
texts included a poor fit to the state tests, a lack of contextual-
ized examples, and a lack of teacher preparation. Singaporean
teachers, he concluded, also had more knowledge of math—a
point that tallies with Ma’s findings.
Ahuja (2006) of Kent State University offered a useful set
of recommendations based on his study of traditionalism and
the other theories currently on offer in the world. He calls
for a combination of the traditionalist and constructivist
paradigms, development of textbooks that convey this joint
paradigm, attention to issues of educational equity, and efforts
to assure that the world’s math classrooms are filled with well-
trained, highly honored, and well-compensated teachers.

A Different Conclusion
One observation in the face of this information about the
world debate is that, after the various paradigms and theo-
ries are compared, the discussion always gravitates back to
what teachers know about math and what excellent teachers
know about how to teach math. There is a difference between
knowing math very well and having a vocabulary, a set of
examples, the ability to assess student difficulties, and other
skills that make one a superb instructor of mathematical ideas.
The other key issues in the world debate concern the content
of the curriculum—whether calculus, practical math, statis-

47
 What the World Is Thinking

tics, or applied math, and for which students—and the issue

of educational equity—how all students will be taught well,
not just an elite. Finally, as Stigler and Hiebert and others have
stated often, changes to math teaching never take place in a
vacuum. Any innovations must take into consideration the
existing systems of teacher selection, teacher preparation, in-
service learning, student preparation, parental understanding
of the curriculum, and many other social and cultural factors.
But, above all, it is clear that the math teacher is the most
important link. We know too little about what math teachers
know, and we need to learn much more about the best prac-
tices of the most gifted math teachers on the planet.

48
 2
The American Dilemma

Now that we have a sense of the larger issues in the world of

mathematics education, we turn to a discussion of the influ-
ences that contribute to or distract from our national capacity
to improve mathematics education and, as a result, improve
student learning of mathematics. You can hardly pick up a
newspaper or news magazine, let alone professional journals
or articles offered by scholarly commentators, without finding
rallying cries for schools to improve student achievement in
dynamic ways. Many policy makers, educators, and members
of the public see our country’s current status—often referred
to as a crisis with respect to international comparisons of
student performance in mathematics—as unacceptable and
a precursor of certain economic doom. This perception has
characterized the collective view of mathematics education in
this country for many years.
In 1981, Secretary of Education T. H. Bell created the
National Commission on Excellence in Education in response
to “the widespread public perception that something is seri-
ously remiss in our educational system” (National Commis-
sion on Excellence in Education 1983). The commission’s
report, titled A Nation at Risk, summarized the evidence for
concern and proposed improvements. Reforms since 1983
have been led by government agencies and have focused on
raising standards and improving teaching to enhance student
performance (Martin and Crowell 2000). President George W.

49
 The American Dilemma

Bush’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001, also

known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), was passed in
2002 and has four principles: “accountability for results; local
control and flexibility; enhanced parental choice; and effec-
tive and successful programs.” These principles do not self-
evidently mandate what constitutes success or effectiveness,
so it is fair to ask, successful for whom and as measured by
what standards?
Since the 1880s, one of the goals of American education has
been to prepare people for different career paths. The NCLB
was designed to secure high levels of achievement for all stu-
dents. From the standpoint of many educational researchers,
the mandate to serve all students opened an opportunity to
apply the latest theories about human learning, such as
described in various government reports and educational
research literature, including How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experi-
ence, and School (National Research Council 1999a) and How People
Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (National Research Council
1999b), and supported by cognitive research, such as Caine
and Caine’s Making Connections: Teaching the Human Brian (1991).
These documents describe principles of “powerful teaching
and learning” that have been adopted throughout the nation
and also in Washington State, and the principles are some-
times called reform-based education or constructivism. On this
model the teacher attends to the individual learning needs of
each student and creates a learner-centered environment where
students learn through hands-on involvement and real-life
situations (Sutherland 1992). Hyerle (1996) called this shift
in thinking about the classroom a “cognitive revolution” (p.
13) that takes education away from rote behaviorism. New-
mann and Wehlage (1993) divided this “authentic” approach
to education into five components: 1) higher-order thinking,
2) depth of knowledge, 3) connectedness to the world, 4)
substantive conversation, and 5) social support for student

50
 The American Dilemma

achievement. All of these require alternative assessments.

Although the theoretical model of education and the assess-
ment strategies changed, instructional practices did not
necessarily change (Baker, Gratama, and Bachtler 2002; Baker,
Gratama, and Bachtler 2003). Nor did many citizens’ expec-
tations for the content of math education or their opinions
about how math ought to be taught, according to a research
study (Davis, 2007) quoted in Education Week, entitled “Parents
Less Worried Than Experts Over Math, Science.”

What Is the Problem?

In the United States, many people say that they “just aren’t good
at math.” Moreover, they feel no embarrassment about this self-
analysis. While these same people may not be good readers,
they are unlikely to admit it, because illiteracy is equated with
ignorance, lack of education, and even stupidity.
Why is it acceptable to do poorly at math but not at reading?
Based on our review of the national literature on mathematics
and math education, we offer four explanations. First, people
think mathematics is something you are good at because you were born
that way. In a public opinion survey conducted in Washington
and Massachusetts (Mass Insight Education and Research Insti-
tute, April 2004), over a third of the adults surveyed agreed
that “even many smart people don’t have the ability to learn
math.” Unfortunately, many teachers also believe that a large
proportion of the student population cannot learn math, even
with good instruction. Second, many adults believe that all you
need is “shopkeeper arithmetic.” Experts can do higher level math for
you, so there is no need for students to be proficient in algebra,
geometry, statistics, and other topics mandated in state and
federal standards. Third, math is a subject where only the elite will ever
shine. Educators should therefore sort out those people, wash
out the rest, and even stop providing remediation at the college

51
 The American Dilemma

level for those who don’t get it. Fourth, math should be studied at an
advanced level only by those who are going into math-intensive careers such
as computer science, physics, economics, engineering, and
rocket science. The only good reason to raise the bar for all
students is to assure that in the end the nation has enough of
these talented people to fill the jobs in math-intensive fields.
A less commonly held view about math is that it is the
“language of the physical world.” Some adults discover math
later in life and find that it is enjoyable and eminently useful.
Teachers who align themselves with the NCTM goals include
those who had poor learning experiences when they were
children but later developed a love for math through teacher
education programs and professional development activities.
These teachers have a passionate commitment to reforming
math education to make it accessible to all learners from an
early age, before children can develop negative attitudes.
Given these opinions of mathematics as a subject, it is no
wonder that the United States, like other nations, has such dif-
ficulty deciding what math ought to be studied and what level
of proficiency ought to be obtained by which students. As
pointed out in the first chapter, a key issue in this discussion
is whether educational equity should be the goal or whether
the objective is to train an elite. In either case, it seems that
teachers’ attitudes, as well as their competence, lie at the heart
of instruction.

Instructional Issues
Educators agree that improving math achievement presents
more complex challenges than improving literacy (Mass
Insight Education and Research Institute, May 2004). Produc-
ing highly capable math students requires instruction that
enables them to think abstractly about quantitative informa-
tion and to work easily with complex calculations that include

52
 The American Dilemma

many steps. A majority of teachers, however, appear to believe

that math is procedural and formulaic, with questions that
have one answer and only one way of getting to that answer
(Ma 1999, Stigler and Hiebert 1999). Even many mathema-
ticians believe that this traditional, formulaic approach to
learning math is the best. Teachers still tell students that all
of math boils down to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and
dividing. This view does not align with the emerging technical
economy, nor does it further the goal of preparing all students
to think skillfully about the quantitative aspects of the world
and their work. The ongoing attempts by the NCTM, the NRC,
and other organizations to broaden the content and methods
of math instruction therefore face a continuing backlash to
return to the basics, whatever those basics are understood
to be (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2000,
National Research Council 2001).
American math education is also impacted by what some
research literature refers to as the “happiness factor.” U.S.
educators have made self-confidence, relevance, and joy of
learning important goals in instruction. Most American par-
ents want their children to like school and be confident and
capable. But as the Third International Mathematics and Sci-
ence Study (TIMSS) data have shown, happiness is not a high
priority in some nations that demonstrate high math achieve-
ment. In fact, the more math a child knows, the less likely he
or she is to be happy about learning math (Loveless 2006).
Constructivist approaches to learning, which leave students
groping for answers, can produce far less satisfaction than
curricula that provide formulaic answers.
Continuous demands for change and for compliance with
one new set of standards after another, whether those of the
NCLB or, in Washington State, the Washington Assessment of
Student Learning (WASL), have further impacted American
math education. Werner Heisenberg’s basic principle of obser-

53
 The American Dilemma

vation applies here: doing an experiment changes the reality.

In the United States, new curricula have seldom been given
much time to succeed, and teachers have not been prepared
to carry out their ever-changing assignments. We have no
patience for incremental improvement in schools, we give
little time for reforms to produce results, we want imme-
diate gratification, and we tend to blame someone if positive
change does not result quickly. Consequently, the pendulum
of reform swings from one fad to another, parents complain
about their children becoming lab rats, and educators retreat
into the conviction that “this too shall pass.” Michael Fullan, a
researcher and leader in the study of educational change, has
been telling us for two decades that institutionalization of any
big change takes at least three to five years, with an “imple-
mentation dip” that occurs once reform efforts are seriously
launched. Often, due to the backlash that inevitably occurs,
school leaders will abandon new instructional programs or
move to different strategies that critics may find more accept-
able, before fully trying out what was attempted in the first
place (Fullan 1993, 2001, 2003, 2008). This is perhaps one
explanation related to our critical insights about first-order
and second-order change. In a later chapter, we address what
it takes to sustain large-scale reform.

Haves and Have Nots: The Issue of Equity

Mathematics education has become a civil rights issue because
proficiency in mathematics is critical for entering many pro-
fessions with higher pay and status. “Math has long been rec-
ognized as a critical filter. Coursework in math has traditionally
been a gateway to technological literacy and to higher educa-
tion” (Schoenfeld 2002, p. 13). Disproportionate numbers of
poor and minority students perform below math standards.
For this and other reasons, the NCLB targeted four subgroups

54
 The American Dilemma

for particular attention in “closing the achievement gap”: the

poor, ESL students, racial and ethnic minorities, and students
who require special education. What can schools do differ-
ently to address these needs? The National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics (NCTM) placed equity first in its list of objec-
tives in the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000).
How to achieve that goal continues to be a controversial
educational and cultural issue. Efforts to equalize access to
high-quality math education are hampered in many ways. For
example, research from one district in Texas indicates that low
achieving students are far more likely to be assigned to inef-
fective teachers than to effective teachers (Hall and Kennedy
2006). We will return to this issue, and to evidence of a dif-
ferent kind, in the next chapter.
A deeper analysis of this issue is offered by Stigler and
Hiebert’s The Teaching Gap (1999), which assesses and reflects
upon the results of the TIMSS. They conclude that “cultural
activities are represented in cultural scripts, generalized
knowledge about an event that resides in the heads of partici-
pants. These scripts guide behavior and also tell participants
what to expect. Within a culture, these scripts are widely
shared, and therefore they are hard to see” (p. 85). Teaching
is one such cultural activity, they claim, and they illustrate
their point by contrasting teaching and learning methods in
the United States and Japan, with an emphasis on the dif-
ferent cultural beliefs about education. According to Stigler
and Hiebert (1999), American teachers believe that school
mathematics is a set of procedures for solving problems and
that learning terms and practicing skills is not exciting but
is just something that students must do. Japanese teachers
approach math differently. They think of mathematics as a set
of relationships among concepts, facts, and procedures, and
they feel their students should find it inherently interesting
to explore those relationships and to develop new skills for

55
 The American Dilemma

thinking about those concepts. American teachers believe math

is “learned best by mastering the material incrementally” and
that “confusion and frustration . . . should be minimized”
(p. 90). Japanese teachers believe, instead, that learning must
involve frustration and confusion. American teachers “act as
if confusion and frustration are signs that they have not done
their job” (p. 92).
Japanese and American teachers also have divergent per-
spectives on individual differences among students. In the
U.S., individual differences are viewed as obstacles, because
meeting every student’s needs involves diagnosing student
ability and providing different levels of instruction, which
is difficult in large classes. The Japanese view individual dif-
ferences as a natural part of any group of learners and as a
resource in problem-solving (p. 94). Stigler and Hiebert note
that American and Japanese teachers tend to use visual aids
differently, too. American teachers use an overhead projector
as a means for keeping all students focused on the teacher’s
presentation, whereas Japanese teachers tend to use the chalk-
board to develop answers with the participation of the class.
These generalizations are not absolute, of course, and part of
what we discuss in the next chapter is the evidence that there
are some excellent American teachers, including teachers in
Washington State, who in fact are skilled in working with
student differences and in helping groups of students learn
together in spite of significant differences in their mathemat-
ical ability and their approach to problems.
Stigler and Hiebert summarize their findings by saying that
“if teaching were a non-cultural activity, we could try to
improve it simply by providing better information in teachers’
manuals, or asking experts to demonstrate better techniques,
or distributing written recommendations on more effective
teaching methods. Note that this is exactly what we have been
doing” (p. 101). They conclude that we have not focused on

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 The American Dilemma

teaching itself because of its constant, deeply rooted cultural

nature. “Teaching is so constant within our own culture that
we fail even to imagine how it might be changed, much less
believe that it should be changed” (p. 103). Current research
suggests that the gap between the mathematically gifted and
the rest of us cannot be bridged until the way Americans teach
and think of teaching math is changed at a deep cultural level.

Can All Students Master Math?

Some scholars believe all students can learn mathematics. “The
research over the past two decades . . . convinces us that all
students can learn to think mathematically. There are instances
of schools scattered throughout the country in which a high
percentage of students have high levels of achievement in
mathematics. Further, there have also been special interven-
tions in disadvantaged schools whereby students have made
substantial progress” (National Research Council 2001, p. 16).
A recent report (Kitchen et al. 2007) entitled Mathematics
Education at Highly Effective Schools that Serve the Poor, concluded
that there exist three major aspects of schools that “overcame
injustices associated with poverty” (p. 3). These are: high
expectations (although what “high expectations” actually
means is unclear), challenging mathematical content and
high-level instruction, and the importance of building rela-
tionships among teachers. These findings are consistent with
the research conducted by the Washington School Research
Center, which is the focus of the next chapter. Kitchen et al.
write further that, in unsuccessful schools, “instead of stressing
high-level thinking and the development of students’ critical
thinking skills, the focus has been on instruction of rote skills
for success on standardized tests. This has led to low educa-
tional expectations, which has catastrophic consequences for
[students in poverty]” (p. 2).

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 The American Dilemma

Math education may boil down to this: if you teach them,

they will learn. But first, teachers need to agree on what they
will teach, and second, teachers need to determine whether
they know how to teach that content. Some criticism is
directed toward teachers and teacher education to the effect
that teachers do not know enough content and are not getting
it from their teacher education programs (see, e.g., Greenberg
and Walsh 2008). Yet the American debate over educational
standards focuses on only one of these components: what is
to be taught.

Mathematics Standards in the United States

The United States differs from most other nations in that our
math standards are determined state by state rather than by
the nation as a whole. To address the diversity of state stan-
dards, and to establish comprehensive learning goals for
math, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics pub-
lished its Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics
in 1989. NCTM was the first professional organization to
define learning goals in terms of a set of standards, and this
document was followed by additional publications: Professional
Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM 1991) and Assessment
Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 1995). Each of these docu-
ments has been revised over the past decade of implementa-
tion and evaluation.
NCTM’s 2000 publication, Principles and Standards for School Math-
ematics, pulled together everything that had been learned since
1989. The updated version is supplemented by a Research Com-
panion (NCTM 2003) that provides support and justification
for NCTM’s positions, something that was lacking in the first
edition. In 2005, NCTM published Standards and Curriculum:
A View from the Nation. This document was developed with the
assistance of the Park City Math Conference and the Associa-

58
 The American Dilemma

tion of State Supervisors of Mathematics. In the preface, the

book states that “The movement to develop state standards
has continued, and it appears that the United States has come
closer than ever before to having a de facto national curric-
ulum” (p. 1). NCTM’s still more recent Curriculum Focal Points
for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence
(2006), responds to further calls for clarity in the approach
to standards, although early childhood mathematics educators
worry that children’s cognitive development can be negatively
affected in the attempt to implement tightly specified grade
level expectations for prekindergarten and primary grades
(Richardson 2008).
The underlying principles of the 2000 Principles and Stan-
dards for School Mathematics are: equity, a well-articulated cur-
riculum, teaching with understanding of what students know,
learning with a deep understanding, assessment that supports
learning, and technology that enhances student learning (p.
6). The NCTM standards are “descriptions of what mathe-
matics instruction should enable students to know and do”
(p. 7). There are content standards and process standards. The
five content standards specify learning goals in the areas of:

• Number and operations, including the basic operations,

number systems, and estimating
• Algebra, including symbolic representation of unknowns
• Geometry, including two- and three-dimensional
shapes and methods of representing spatial relationships
• Measurement
• Data analysis and probability, including basic statistics
and statistical inferences.

Under each of these headings the standards offer specific

expectations for each group of grade levels: Pre K–2, 3–5,
6–8, and 9–12.

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 The American Dilemma

The five process standards define the mathematical rea-

soning and problem solving skills that should be developed
by all students. These include:

• Problem-solving
• Reasoning and proofs
• Communication of mathematical ideas to others
• Connections, meaning the ability to see connections
among mathematical ideas and to apply those ideas
both within math and to problems that are in contexts
outside of formal mathematics
• Representation, or the ability to use multiple methods
of representing mathematical ideas and their application
to other contexts

Although the NCTM did not set out to establish a single

national standard, much of the activity in U.S. mathematics
education since 1989 has been defined by responses to the
NCTM documents, which are characterized by such curricular
recommendations as downplaying the role of rote learning and
emphasizing a variety of approaches to problem solving. Many
states have based their standards on the NCTM standards,
often with little adaptation. At the same time, the individual
states have created high stakes achievement tests to assess stu-
dents’ ability to meet the standards. The important point here
is that the emphasis has been on setting standards and evalu-
ating students. Textbook companies have produced materials
based on the standards and have published teacher’s manuals,
but little attention has been paid to what teachers know, how
they might actually teach these materials, and what systems
of support teachers need to teach this or any other form of
mathematics with greater proficiency.

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 The American Dilemma

Traditionalism or Constructivism?
It is appropriate to comment here that from the perspective
of the two most important groups of educational theorists,
the traditionalists and the constructivists, the NCTM standards
raise many hotly debated issues. Should problem-solving be
taught by traditional rote learning, or should it also include
opportunities for experimentation with other approaches if
those approaches help students learn the material deeply?
How much time should be spent on formal proofs when even
mathematical experts disagree about the meaning of proofs?
How important are group work and writing exercises that
help students learn how to communicate their approaches to
problems? And if such communication is not a top priority,
how will the next generation of math teachers learn to convey
their insights to the next generation of students?
Adoption and implementation of the NCTM standards
varies from state to state, and many states have revised their
standards repeatedly over the last decade or more. Observing
these changes, the National Research Council’s 2001 report,
Adding It Up, commented that “the fragmentation of these stan-
dards, their multiple sources, and the limited conceptual
frameworks on which they rest have not resulted in a coherent,
well-articulated, widely accepted set of learning goals for U.S.
school mathematics” (p. 36). In 2005, the Fordham Founda-
tion, which strongly advocates a traditionalist approach, eval-
uated the various states’ standards (Klein 2005). The Fordham
scholars gave low grades to states that were aligned with the
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) because,
in their view, that assessment was based on the 1989 NCTM
standards. California and Massachusetts, which diverged most
from the NAEP guidelines, received the highest grades (Love-
less 2006). Washington State received an F; this grade has been
reported often, particularly by those who advocate traditional

61
 The American Dilemma

approaches to math education. But as we have stated previ-

ously, it is not clear what is going on in the classrooms of
Washington or any other state, because passing standards,
publishing textbooks, offering limited in-service training, and
writing state-wide tests leave out both the teachers and the
process of teaching itself. Those who blame test results on one
approach to teaching or another might be surprised by an
inventory of what was actually being taught. But we do not
have such an inventory.

Mathematics Assessment
More testing has been required as a result of legislation such
as NCLB, but is there reason to believe that more testing
results in better instruction? Many educators doubt it. As Auty
(1994), an assessment coordinator in Oregon, once put it,
“testing students is like sticking a thermometer into a turkey
as you’re fixing Thanksgiving dinner; you can find out how
done it is, but taking its temperature doesn’t cook it.” Schoen-
feld (2002), an educational researcher at the University of
California, Berkeley, puts it this way: “Stakeholders in the
educational system have to understand the great variability
inherent in testing. People put great faith in the stability of
test scores . . . most people attribute significant meanings to
particular test scores and to minor variations in them. In fact,
test-retest differences on almost all standardized tests can be
substantial . . . the public needs to understand . . . that gains
in test scores are often illusory or artifactual, and that high-
stakes testing can result both in curricular deformation and in
the loss of intrinsic motivation for students” (p. 23).
In the United States, the confusion surrounding test scores
has been increased by the (perceived) “dumbing down” of
SAT scores in 2005 and by various states’ decisions to change
what constitutes a passing score on high-stakes tests intro-

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 The American Dilemma

duced either before or since the passage of NCLB (Cech

2007). A brief review of the major tests illustrates these dif-
ficulties of interpretation.
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS) of 1995 was described in the previous chapter. One
of the key problems with TIMSS data is that a representative
sample of American students has been compared in many
cases to samples drawn from elite academies in other nations.
Within the United States, a key assessment is the NAEP, the
National Assessment of Educational Progress, which calls itself
“The Nation’s Report Card.” According to its website (http://
nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/), “The National Assessment
of Educational Progress is the only nationally representative
and continuing assessment of what America’s students know
and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are con-
ducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing,
the arts, civics, economics, geography and U.S. history. NAEP
does not provide scores for individual students or schools;
instead, it offers results regarding subject-matter achievement,
instructional experiences, and school environment for popu-
lations of students (e.g., fourth graders) and groups within
those populations (e.g., female students, Hispanic students).
NAEP results are based on a sample of student populations
of interest.” There are two different NAEP instruments, the
Main and the Long-term Trend. For mathematics, the Main
measures math content, including numeration, measure-
ment, geometry, data analysis, statistics, and probability, and
allows the use of calculators; the Long-term Trend measures
a larger number of traditional arithmetic items and more
sophisticated computational skills, without the use of calcula-
tors. According to Loveless, a senior scholar at the Brookings
Institution and national commentator on issues in education,
between 1990 and 2004 the Main and Long-term Trend tests
agreed that students are gaining in mathematics but disagreed

63
 The American Dilemma

about the size of the increase. These discrepancies may indi-

cate that the Trend scores are finally catching up with the huge
gains reported on the Main in the 1990s (Loveless 2006).
There are at least two concerns about the NAEP. First, results
may not be accurate because, from the perspective of students,
this is a low-stakes test. Second, the NAEP is aligned with the
NCTM mathematics standards, which traditionalist mathema-
ticians and educators criticize. NAEP has responded that it has
a long run of tests whose results are comparable to those of
other instruments, implying that the NAEP has high validity.
In addition to these international and national tests, each
state develops and administers its own tests which, since the
passage of NCLB, have been used to determine AYP, adequate
yearly progress. AYP is used to allocate federal funds and to
impose sanctions on schools that show low performance.
Each state test is tied to a set of state standards, which differ
from state to state even though each state’s standards may
align in many ways with NCTM standards. The same is true
of the definitions of proficiency which are also set by each
state. NAEP appears to “set the bar” higher than many states
(Loveless 2006), though students do better overall on state
tests, perhaps because the state tests are the ones that have
high stakes. These state tests are now being administered with
increasing frequency. In the past, for example, Washington
State tested at 4th, 7th, and 10th grade, and Oregon tested at
3rd, 5th, 8th, and 10th. Now there is mandatory testing of all
students every year from 3rd through 8th grade, plus once in
high school.
Obviously, there is no higher stake than having a school
district’s funding dependent on test results, and that stake has
risen since some states require passing scores for the high
school diploma. Mass Insight Education and Research Insti-
tute (April 2004) and Partnership for Learning (2007) have
been studying Massachusetts and Washington since the late

64
 The American Dilemma

1990s, describing these states as “two bellwether states of

school reform,” which are comparable for many reasons.
Both states are “new economy states that made a substantial
commitment to standards-based reform,” they have similar
demographics, and they have challenging exit exams for grad-
uation from high school. There is a critical difference between
the two states, however. Massachusetts targeted 2003 as the
first year that high school diplomas would be dependent on
achievement; in Washington this requirement was to have
been implemented in 2008, but for math the date has now
been put off until 2013.
Mass Insight’s May 2004 report, “Lessons from the Front
Lines of Standards-Based Reform: Four Benchmarks for an
Effective State Program,” states that in Massachusetts there was
a large jump in scores when scores began to count, but that
achievement in Washington has not climbed yet among 10th
graders. The lessons learned in this study resulted in four rec-
ommended policies:

1. No double standards. Every student should be expected

to meet challenging state standards.
2. State tests need to be aligned with standards and measure
skills that really matter.
3. High school graduation exams should make achieve-
ment count.
4. Encourage schools to improve by linking funding to
results.

The report also recommended that public funds should be

invested in ways that help educators learn from each other.
From the perspective of the four theses that drive the anal-
ysis presented in this book, these findings raise important and
familiar questions. The emphasis is placed on student results
on tests, and the motivators are threats of punishment. Stu-

65
 The American Dilemma

dents who fail will be denied diplomas, and schools that “fail”
will be denied funding that might help them to improve.
Schools that serve students who are poor or whose first lan-
guage isn’t English will be at a distinct disadvantage. Finally,
these recommended policies do not speak to the expertise or
the needs of teachers.
Educators who work with such state testing regimens face
two additional frustrations. Districts and schools rarely receive
assessment data in a timely fashion. For example, in Wash-
ington State the results of the WASL, the Washington Assess-
ment of Student Learning, for the 2006–2007 academic year
were released in late August 2007, leaving limited time for
administrators or teachers to analyze student performance
and plan changes to the curriculum or teaching methods.
What is the value of annual testing if results are released too
late to be used? Further, it is not clear that instruction in any
state is well aligned with the content of these tests. According
to the National Research Council’s report of 2001, at that time
there were few studies that examined the fit of tests to curri-
cula. An earlier NRC report (1999), Teaching,Testing, and Learning,
reinforces a well-known pedagogical truth. The most useful
testing is regular, in the classroom, tied to individual students’
progress, and related directly to what the teacher is presenting.
Moreover, testing should use a variety of methods of assess-
ment to get a full picture of what students are learning. Many
teachers view state tests and other standardized instruments
as less informative for teaching, and teachers also resent the
time it takes to administer such tests. A common complaint in
the classroom is that “All we ever do is test the kids. We don’t
have time to teach anymore.” What educators want is for the
resources put into testing to make a difference. So what will
improve instruction?

66
 The American Dilemma

Math Curricula
We have already surveyed the competing camps in the debate
over the American versus the world math curriculum. In the
United States, traditionalists and constructivists each pro-
mote instructional programs and materials that are aligned
with their agenda and can point to test results that justify
their positions and materials. An expanded description of the
beliefs and practices associated with each camp (Smith 1993)
explains the rationales for the different methods of instruc-
tion, curricula, and supporting technology.

Traditionalism
Traditionalists and back-to-basics advocates look for highly
sequential instructional programs that emphasize arithmetic,
the memorization of “math facts” at the elementary level, and
such skills as algebraic operations and procedures, geometry
with proofs, and related abstract applications at the middle
and high school levels. This sequential approach is based on
the belief that mathematics is an abstract and symbolic manip-
ulation of quantitative information performed by operations
on numbers. Teaching mathematics at the K–12 level from
this perspective is designed to develop mental proficiency in
numeric procedures. Because there are proven, effective and
efficient techniques for learning mathematical reasoning and
for doing computations, it follows that students who learn
this way will be able to solve problems both quickly and
accurately. The teacher’s job is to transmit this knowledge
and the necessary procedural skills. This style of pedagogy is
rooted in behaviorist learning theory and is sometimes called
a “teacher-centered” methodology, although the method has
also been called “teacher-proof,” because the delivery of the
curriculum is so highly prescribed and sequenced that in the
minds of some advocates, teachers do not need much training

67
 The American Dilemma

to deliver the material. Many parents who home-school their

children use this approach because it seems to lend itself
to independent learning. A key component of the method
is repetitive practice. Teachers move through the textbook
chapter by chapter to maintain the prescribed and preferred
sequence of learning, although there are some “word prob-
lems” that require reasoning skills and that illustrate applica-
tions of what is learned.
Scholars such as Ball (1991, 2000, 2007) and Ma (1999),
who have studied the pedagogical knowledge of excellent
math teachers, provide evidence that the traditional method
is flawed in that it places low value on a master teacher’s skills
for identifying common errors, developing concepts that
many students can more easily learn, and generally facilitating
the learning process. To put this another way, a completely
mechanical application of the traditional teaching methods
does not offer much help for students who just can’t “get it,”
students for whom this abstract subject is inherently difficult.
A typical math lesson using this method, at almost any
level of schooling, consists of reviewing the previous lesson;
introducing and explaining the procedures to be learned next;
assigning problems that students work on while the instructor
monitors progress and intervenes to make sure that students
are correctly applying techniques, and assigning problems
that will be checked in the next class period. This describes
the vast majority of U.S. mathematics classrooms. As the
National Research Council states (NRC 2001), “mathematics
teaching in the United States clearly has not changed a great
deal in a century” (p.50). This finding is important for two
reasons, which we emphasize here. First, if math teaching has
not really changed in a century, the various “new maths” have
never really been implemented, because teachers were never
trained to use them or to be comfortable with them. Second,
the traditionalist camp is not in a strong position to claim that

68
 The American Dilemma

test scores are low because math teaching has been changed,
because there has been no change at the roots of the system,
down in the classroom. Scores may have dropped because
school districts worked to keep a larger percentage of children
in school, or because less time is being spent on math educa-
tion because the curriculum has broadened to include other
subjects, or for some other reason. Most Americans, young
and old, have been instructed in the traditionalist manner, and
many like this kind of math, because it is reassuring to have
one way to find a correct answer and clear formulae to follow,
even if we are not particularly adept at applying those tech-
niques to the “real-world problems” of life.
It may be that people, particularly parents, are reacting
to bad experiences in their or their childrens’ math classes
and don’t think they should have to learn mathematics in
new ways that they don’t understand, but the almost religious
fervor displayed by some of the most committed traditional-
ists appears to be generated by their certainty that this is the
one right way to teach math and that any other way is wrong.
Websites such as NYC HOLD (http://www.nychold.com) or
Mathematically Correct (http://www.mathematicallycorrect.
com) provide testimonies, some supported by research, about
the effectiveness of instructional approaches built on the tradi-
tionalist philosophy of math education. The Saxon Math (http:
//saxonpublishers.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/saxonmath_
home) textbooks are a good example of materials written from
a traditionalist perspective. Indeed, many mathematicians and
parents avidly attack practices that do not adhere to the tra-
ditionalist paradigm. As noted in the first chapter, traditional-
ists often observe that constructivist curricula do not assure
that students learn enough of the basics to master any later
approach to mathematics.
Schoenfeld (2004) describes how religious and political
conservatives came to influence mathematics education in

69
 The American Dilemma

the 1970s, when an innovative National Science Foundation-

supported elementary school science and social science
curriculum met with initial success and then experienced a
political backlash. The program was called “Man: A Course of
Study,” or MACOS. A Baptist minister objected to the content
and approach of MACOS and initiated a media campaign that
“claimed that the materials advocated sex education, evolution,
a ‘hippie-yippie philosophy,’ pornography, gun control, and
Communism” (Schoenfeld 2004, p. 260). The resulting public
controversy led the NSF to conclude that it should not sponsor
anything that might be viewed as a national curriculum. For
math education, this meant that only a private organization,
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, could step
in and make national curricular recommendations.
The concern of traditionalist educators and parents about
the lack of memorization in elementary-level math classes is
similar to parental concern about phonics and whole-language
approaches to reading. When traditionalists ask “where’s the
math?” they mean “where are the memorized multiplication
tables and memorized formulae?” As we pointed out in the
previous chapter, many constructivist programs, such as the
Dutch Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), include this
basic memorization. At the same time, it is true that some
elementary teachers have been told that students should not
be pushed to memorize math tables. Again, the qualities and
qualifications of the teacher become the critical issue. How
much does the teacher know about teaching math? How pre-
pared is the teacher to help slow learners master basic mate-
rial, to identify errors that students are making, to introduce
other forms of math instruction, including memorization of
multiplication tables, where the students need those skills?
Where is the teacher?

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 The American Dilemma

Constructivism
Constructivism is the other main camp in what have been
called the American math wars. Constructivist teaching is
aligned with the NCTM standards and is the approach used by
those who think math should be not only useful but should
also make sense. Constructivist or reform-based math teachers
want to promote conceptual understanding and meaning-
making along with procedural knowledge and knowledge of
math facts. Constructivists think it important to engage stu-
dents in hands-on learning activities, often using physical
models, simple sticks, and other objects, called manipulatives,
and “real-life” applications to provide the context and moti-
vation to learn math.
Mathematics teaching from this perspective is about
locating contexts and setting up opportunities to develop the
learners’ knowledge and skills through their own actions,
interactions, and mental abstractions. Contrary to what some
traditionalists claim, learners are not asked to reinvent math-
ematics; rather, teachers structure appropriate activities and
guide learners to acquire mathematical concepts and skills.
This approach is “learner-centered” rather than “teacher-
centered,” and it calls for a high degree of sophistication from
teachers, because the dialogue about solving a problem can
take many more directions than a typical dialogue about how
to understand a formula. For example, at the elementary level,
a teacher might introduce numerical patterns by looking at
the calendar or the clock; or use pennies, dimes, and dollars
for modeling place value; or set up tables for learning about
angles by building bridges.
Using a clock to teach basic numbers, rather than just
learning the number system, presents interesting problems that
may require more knowledge from a teacher than teaching
the traditional way. Obviously a clock puts the numbers in

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 The American Dilemma

order and provides a real-life example of the use of numbers.

But a clock also introduces a number system based on 12, not
10. And on a clock, the answer to 12 + 1 is 1, not 13. Using
pennies and dimes to indicate place value raises other prob-
lems. How can a dime be ten times the value of a penny when
a dime is smaller than a penny? These examples are offered
merely to show that for an elementary teacher, even teaching
the simplest ideas about number requires anticipating these
clever questions and responding with intelligent answers that
can be grasped by very young learners.
Research showing the effectiveness of reform-based pro-
grams has been widely published and includes, among others,
articles by Issacs, et al. (1997), Carroll (1998), Briars and
Resnick (2000), and Riordan and Noyce (2001). The web-
site for Mathematically Sane (http://www.mathematically-
sane.com) includes a wealth of information by such authors
as Van de Walle (2007), the author of the widely used text-
book for aspiring teachers, Elementary and Middle School Math-
ematics: Teaching Developmentally. Warfield’s assessment (Warfield
April/May 2007) of the value of constructivist math can
be found at http://www.math.washington.edu/~warfield/
news/news139.html.
Boaler (2002) reported the results of one such study (an
ethnographic case study) during the late 1990s that contrasted
traditional and reform approaches to mathematics education
at two English schools. Basing her conclusions on classroom
observations, staff and student interviews, student assessments
scores, and other credible evaluations, Boaler found that there
was a measurable difference in the performance of the 13- to
16-year-old students whose cohorts she followed for three
years. Boaler concluded that the reform-based school out-
performed the traditional school on mathematics assessments.
While the performance of students at the traditional school
did somewhat better on the “purely procedural aspects,” those

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 The American Dilemma

at the reform-based school did much better on the “concep-

tual parts,” and there was “no contest on tests of applications
or problem-solving” as described by Schoenfeld (2002), who
states in his preface that “Boaler’s book thus provides some
of the first comparative evidence that students who receive
project-based instruction that does not focus on skills learn
more—and different—mathematics than students receiving
traditional skills-based instruction” (p. xi). Ball comments, on
the cover of Boaler’s book, “Boaler’s compelling study pro-
vides a vivid portrait of contrasts in students’ opportunities to
learn in two dramatically different approaches to the curric-
ulum and teaching of mathematics, supplying much-needed
evidence about the teaching and learning of mathematics.”
People who are well versed in constructivism and the
approaches to instruction associated with it tend to believe
that all people can become mathematically proficient; that
learning mathematics is no more difficult than learning to
read fluently and to write with facility; and that all Americans
have the right to high-quality instruction that will allow them
access to educational and economic prosperity. The latter
belief is not really different from that of the traditionalists,
but the means and methods of the two sides are substantially
different, though there are also significant overlaps in content
and pedagogy.

Curriculum and Textbooks

Right now, constructivist or reform-based math education,
based on the NCTM Principles and Standards, is guiding much
of the development of curricular materials in the United States.
This is in spite of the fact that most math instruction in the
classroom is still probably done in the traditionalist manner.
One of the difficulties facing educational leaders is that they
really do not know what approach is used within classrooms.

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 The American Dilemma

In Washington State, for example, there has been no study of

what is actually happening in the classrooms, what texts have
been adopted by school districts, how those texts are actu-
ally being used, and so on. Meanwhile, among advocates of
one approach to math education or another, debate continues
about different aspects of the curriculum.
When math educators discuss the format of a curriculum,
they have in mind either a linear, sequential approach or
what is called a spiral approach. In the spiral model, topics
are taught and then revisited, so that students get an increas-
ingly more sophisticated grasp of the skills and ideas. In the
linear model, education begins with drill in basic facts and
formulae, and then other skills are introduced. When higher
math is introduced, a spiral model blends geometry, algebra,
and trigonometry together, whereas on a strictly linear model,
geometry is often taught independently of algebra and trigo-
nometry. These distinctions are to some extent false, because
trigonometry, for example, is by its very nature a combination
of algebra and geometry.
There is a related debate about what is sometimes called
the sequence of instruction. On a traditionalist model, stu-
dents learn to count and recognize numerals in kindergarten,
learn addition and subtraction to 20 in first grade, add and
subtract to 100 in second grade, learn multi-digit operations
in third grade, start division in fourth grade, and so on. Later,
students are tracked into advanced or basic math classes. The
reform-based model of education is similar, though more
advanced concepts are generally presented earlier, as they are
in European schools.
Increasingly, textbooks are supplemented by manipula-
tives, visual representations, models, and technological tools
such as graphing calculators and software for computer mod-
eling. The National Research Council’s 2001 report Adding It Up
states that “In 1996, teachers of 27% of the fourth graders in

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 The American Dilemma

NAEP reported that their students used counting blocks and

geometric shapes at least once a week; 74% used them at least
once a month; leaving 26% who seldom if ever used them.
Teachers of 8% of the eighth graders said that their students
used such manipulatives at least once a week, and teachers
of more than half the students reported essentially no use”
(p. 45). However, newer textbooks and instructional mate-
rials require more consistent and integrated use of physical
models and manipulatives, along with technology software
and the like, and publishers often provide workshops for
teachers in such use when districts adopt new curriculum.
Even with the availability of newer programs, however, there
is scant evidence that a majority of teachers are integrating the
hands-on materials into their instruction in ways intended
by the developers. Without sufficient research regarding the
fidelity of implementation of these new programs based on
constructivism, we cannot say that teaching of mathematics
has changed substantially. And, indeed, the TIMSS video study
bears this out (Stigler and Hiebert 1997).

The Math Wars in the United States

In light of these characterizations of math education and the
competing educational models, why has there been such
intense conflict over math education? If the research shows
that most teaching still follows a traditional model, how can
traditionalists assert that any failures are caused by construc-
tivism? If constructivist materials are adopted, but classroom
instruction defaults to older methods of teaching, how can
constructivists claim that the results of their programs are
superior or different? If the comparisons to the achievement
of other nations are deeply flawed, how can we know what is
the underlying problem? And as we have observed repeatedly,
where is the teacher and teacher preparation in this picture?

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 The American Dilemma

According to the Mathematics Learning Study Committee,

sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences and Engi-
neering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research
Council in their 2001 report Adding It Up, “Apparently there has
never been a time when U.S. students excelled in mathematics,
even when schools enrolled a much smaller, more select por-
tion of the population” (p. xiii). Obviously, our citizens have
been dissatisfied with math education for a long time. The
changes that launched the reforms started in the late 1970’s
with NCTM’s An Agenda for Action (1980) and its proposals for
ensuring that all students have access to mathematics instruc-
tion that fosters greater understanding. Opponents set out to
put reformers on the defensive by asking parents to ques-
tion any new methods. Schoenfeld, professor of education
at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the time vice
president of the U.S. National Academy of Education, offered
his view of the conflict in 2004, when he wrote (Schoenfeld
2004, p. 254) that this “story is told from the perspective
of a participant-observer who sits squarely in the middle of
the territories claimed by both sides. I am a mathematician
by training and inclination, hence, comfortable with the core
mathematical values cherished by traditionalists. I have also
. . . conducted research on mathematical thinking, learning,
and teaching; I am thus equally at home with the ‘process
orientation’ cherished by reformers.” Schoenfeld continues,
“An historical perspective reveals that the underlying issues
being tested—Is mathematics for the elite or for the masses?
Are there tensions between ‘excellence’ and ‘equity?’ Should
mathematics be seen as a democratizing force or as a vehicle
for maintaining the status quo?—are more than a century old
. . .” Who gets to learn mathematics, and the nature of the
mathematics that is learned, are matters of consequence.
This fact is one of the foundations of the math wars. It
has been true for more than a century” (Schoenfeld 2004,

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 The American Dilemma

pp. 253–4). Schoenfeld refers to Stanic’s description (Stanic

1987) of the historic philosophical stances underpinning “the
four perspectives on mathematics: (1) Humanists believed in
‘mental discipline,’ the ability to reason, and the cultural value
of mathematics; (2) Developmentalists focused on the align-
ment of school curricula with the growing mental capacities
of children; (3) Social efficiency educators thought of schools
as the place to prepare students for their predetermined social
roles; (4) Social meliorists (similar to those who believed in
education for social mobility) focused on schools as poten-
tial sources of social justice” (Schoenfeld 2004, pp. 255–6).
These competing forces have driven a competition over the
authoring and adoption of textbooks, particularly by the
largest states, such as California, Texas, and New York, where
state boards make decisions for all schools. So a debate that
is rooted in economic reality is played out through an eco-
nomic competition over the sale of textbooks, where the deci-
sions are made by state boards that may or may not include
teachers.
Schoenfeld goes on to describe the combat in the State of
California during the 1990s in these terms. The NCTM Stan-
dards were published in 1989, and the state adopted its own
standards in 1992, building on the NCTM model. Textbook
publishers had reform-based books available by 1993. The
first cohort of students learned with these textbooks through
the 1990s, with test data available at the turn of the century.
“As it happens,” Schoenfeld writes, “the evidence at this point
is unambiguously in favor of reform . . . But such data turn
out to be largely irrelevant to the story of the math wars.
When things turn political, data really do not matter” (pp.
269–70). Things turned political in part because the new text-
books looked so different from the old ones. As Rosen (2000)
summarized the problem: “The new textbooks were radically
different from the traditional texts’ orderly, sequential presen-

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 The American Dilemma

tation of formulas and pages of practice problems familiar to

parents. New texts featured colorful illustrations, assignments
with lively, fun names, and sidebars discussing topics from
the environment to Yoruba mathematics” (p. 61).
These conflicts, which have flared up in one state after
another, have raised important questions. The conflicts have
also deflected attention from what happens in the classroom.
Reys, professor of mathematics education at the University of
Missouri, Columbia, puts it this way: “I am tired of hearing
from doomsday educational critics who would have us abandon
new ideas and return to the “good old days”—particularly in
math education, where American students fall way behind the
rest of the world. Efforts to reform mathematics education
are under way, but they have not reached many classrooms in
the United States” (Reys 2002). Therefore, many researchers
advocate for building a stronger research foundation to be
able to work more effectively with the teachers who actually
deliver the math curriculum. This is the finding of the RAND
Mathematics Study Panel (2003), which published Mathemat-
ical Proficiency for All Students:Toward a Strategic Research and Development
Program in Mathematics Education. Another group of math leaders
gathered in 2004 to find common ground in the math wars
(Ball, et al. 2005) and identified a set of principles on which
they could agree:
1. Basic skills with numbers continue to be vitally impor-
tant for everyday uses.
2. The ability to reason about and justify mathematical
statements is fundamental, as is the ability to use terms
and notation with appropriate degrees of precision.
3. Students must be able to formulate and solve problems.
(p. 1056)
The group also agreed that students should have auto-
matic recall of certain basic facts, should use calculators in

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 The American Dilemma

a limited and appropriate way, should learn basic algorithms

fluently, should master the basic operations with fractions,
should learn how to solve real-world problems, should learn
through a mixture of methods including exploration of ideas,
and should be taught by teachers who know how to do all
the math that they are teaching and also have skills in “how
to reduce mathematical complexity and manage precision in
ways that make the mathematics accessible to students while
preserving its integrity” (pp. 1056–8). Once again, the last
and most important words focus on that special ability that
excellent math teachers have to illuminate complex ideas so
that all students can grasp them.
Wu at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that
“Education seems to be plagued by false dichotomies . . . in
mathematics education, this debate takes the form of ‘basic
skills or conceptual understanding’. . . This bogus dichotomy
would seem to arise from a common misconception of math-
ematics held by a segment of the public and the education
community: that the demand for precision and fluency in the
execution of basic skills in school mathematics runs counter
to the acquisition of conceptual understanding. The truth is
that in mathematics, skills and understanding are completely
intertwined . . . In good art as in good mathematics, tech-
nique and conception go hand in hand” (Wu 1999, p.1).
A more subtle explanation for the math wars may be rooted
in psychological phenomena that appear in any major cul-
tural change, in this case the movement of the United States
toward a K–12 math curriculum that would be appropriate
for a society increasingly dependent on mathematical knowl-
edge to keep up with technological progress. Both teachers
and parents tend to want the next generation to learn as they
did. Although states that introduced constructivist methods
have offered teacher workshops, it takes a long time for the
teachers themselves to re-learn mathematics in terms of the

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 The American Dilemma

new models and to develop the vocabulary necessary to help

students—and above all those students who have a hard
time learning math—to comprehend math fully, not just as
memorized facts and formulae, but also as a set of complex
approaches to problem solving that makes the world more
understandable. Elkind, author of The Hurried Child (2001),
described how he pushed for the adoption of manipulatives
in the classroom only to find that, instead of integrating them
into instruction as meaningful representations of mathematics
concepts, the teachers simply gave them to the students, who
ultimately used the manipulatives to build “houses” or throw
at each other (Elkind 1981), which turned out to be the same
kind of problem that Norwegian teachers faced when they
adopted a constructivist curriculum without adequate teacher
preparation.
Stigler and Hiebert (1999) describe this problem in these
words: “A problem in the U.S. approach to reform [is that]
teachers can misinterpret reform and change surface fea-
tures—for example, they include more group work; use more
manipulatives, calculators, and real world problem scenarios;
or include writing in the lesson—but fail to alter their basic
approach to teaching mathematics” (pp. 106–7). The same
researchers assert that “reform documents that focus teachers’
attention on features of ‘good teaching’ in the absence of sup-
porting contexts might actually divert attention away from
the more important goals of student learning . . . they may
inadvertently cause teachers to substitute the means for the
ends—to define success in terms of specific features or activi-
ties instead of long-term improvement in learning” (pp.
107–8). As a result, the general public, as well as tradition-
alist mathematicians, may be led to believe that reform-based
instruction is inferior, ineffective pedagogy. This is truly the heart
of the matter. When traditionalist critics complain about teachers

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 The American Dilemma

who adopt surface features of a new math program, some-

times going so far as to postpone indefinitely the memoriza-
tion of multiplication tables, the traditionalists are right that
the new programs don’t work—because they have never been
implemented. When a master teacher at a top prep school,
who has taught years of workshops at the Park City Math con-
ference, explains the extraordinary power of constructivist
methods when they are well applied, of course he or she is
right—but many teachers do not have that level of knowledge
either of math or about the teaching of math.
Does mathematics teaching and learning have to be either/
or: traditional or reform-based? Can’t it be both/and? Many
think so. Yet without a critical mass of teachers skillfully teach-
ing in a both/and model and students clearly demonstrating
that the goals of the reform-based movement in mathematics
education have been realized, few educators have the energy
and will to sustain the effort. It is important to keep in mind
that just returning to full traditionalism, with teachers drilling
students, may not be an appropriate fallback position, because
the American experience indicates that while that approach
serves bright and gifted kids well, it will always leave others
without a good grasp of math. (See, for example, NCTM
2000).
What then does it take for teachers to successfully instruct
their students so that they are able to demonstrate high pro-
ficiency in the skills and knowledge that are rated on cred-
ible international comparisons that examine truly comparable
groups of students? Mathematicians and mathematics educa-
tors, who do not always communicate, agree that “teachers’
mathematical knowledge must be developed through solid
initial teacher preparation and ongoing, systematic profes-
sional learning opportunities” (Ball et al. 2005, p. 1058).

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 The American Dilemma

Teacher Knowledge of Math

According to the research reported in Education Week (2007)
“the specific characteristics that constitute an effective teacher
are hotly debated.” There is, however, widespread agreement
that teacher quality matters; “in fact,” according to Rice
(2003), “it is the most important school-related factor influ-
encing student achievement,” a point re-iterated by the
American Federation of Teachers (2007): “Research findings
demonstrate that teacher quality is the single most important
variable affecting student achievement.” Citations of this kind
can be multiplied (see the 2007 Center for Teaching Quality
report, “What We Know,” for example). Yet there is disagree-
ment about what teacher quality is, exactly, and how to mea-
sure it. As we have argued, this is not a question that can be
approached simply in the abstract. While the definition of
general teacher quality is important, what we need to under-
stand better in both the United States and the world is what
makes a good math teacher. The National Center for Educa-
tion Statistics notes the important distinction between teacher
preparation, on the one hand, and teacher practices, on the
other (NCES 1999b).
The Economic Policy Institute (2007) names five broad
categories of measurable and policy-relevant indicators of
teacher quality, although there appear to be differences among
the criteria most important for elementary as compared to
high school teachers. These indicators are teacher experi-
ence, teacher preparation programs, teacher certification,
teacher coursework, and teachers’ own test scores. Advanced
degrees in the teaching subject area, as opposed to degrees
in education, have a greater impact at the high school than
at the elementary level. A mathematics certificate or endorse-
ment is particularly important at the high school level. Con-
tent coursework is important, as is coursework in pedagogy.

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 The American Dilemma

Finally, teacher test scores that show high verbal ability are
associated with higher levels of student achievement, though
test scores that measure basic content and teaching skills are
less consistent predictors of teacher and student performance.
One may therefore hypothesize that really good math teachers
are people who have good content knowledge, good peda-
gogical training, good analytical thinking skills, and the verbal
skills to describe, develop, and explain mathematical concepts
at the students’ levels of understanding.
Teacher training programs are accredited by professional
accrediting organizations, such as the National Council for
Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Teachers in
training complete extensive practica and pass both content
exams and tests of their pedagogical skills. Teachers are then
hired and assessed by districts. Some districts have a wide
choice of applicants and can be choosy, but most have diffi-
culty filling positions with well-prepared, experienced math-
ematics teachers. Schools provide extensive opportunities
for learning on the job, and there is frequent evaluation of
teachers’ performance, with a dynamic tension about eval-
uation that plays out among administrators, school boards,
parents’ associations, and teachers’ associations. About half
of America’s teachers have earned masters’ degrees (NCES,
January 1999). Continuing professional development classes
are required for continued licensure. Unfortunately, much of
the continuing education of teachers is performed in a tra-
ditional “sit and get” approach, even when the objective is
to help teachers learn other techniques of teaching such as
those encouraged by constructivist teaching models. Teachers
often complain about the quality of in-service classes, and
in the case of training in new textbooks, the trainers are
often not teachers themselves but representatives of textbook
companies.
Additional options for teacher development include National

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 The American Dilemma

Board Certification (National Board for Professional Teaching

Standards, 2008), graduate degrees and coursework, and other
experiences, such as Math-Science Partnerships, regional “Math
Learning Center” classes, and “Math Academies” such as the
Center for Mathematics and Science Education at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin and the Park City Math Conferences,
all of which provide teachers with various opportunities for
mastering math and teaching skills. WestEd is “a non-profit,
research agency with a staff of over 500 educators located
in 16 offices throughout the country” that offers “Math
Matters, a comprehensive, long term development program”
(www.wested.org). Math educator Marilyn Burns runs math
workshops of a similar kind (Math Solutions Professional
Development, 2008). Ruth Parker’s Mathematics Education
Collaborative (Mathematics Education Collaborative, 2008)
and Kathy Richardson’s Math Perspectives Teacher Develop-
ment Center (Math Perspectives, 2008), located in Wash-
ington State, operate workshops in many states. What one can
conclude from the presence of such resources is that many
committed people have been working to improve the content
and teaching knowledge of math teachers and that many of
these programs aim to supplement whatever is provided in
traditional teacher education programs and teacher in-service
programs. The existence of these programs is evidence of the
problem as well as the many creative solutions available across
the nation right now. Without offering an exhaustive content
analysis of what these programs teach, it is possible neverthe-
less to observe that, while these programs touch upon some
of the same issues, they also can take different perspectives.
Some focus more on mastering math, others on pedagogical
knowledge. The work of scholars such as Deborah Ball would
suggest that while such programs may contribute a great
deal to the quality of American math education, we need to

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 The American Dilemma

know still more in order to offer better teacher education in

mathematics.
One relatively new approach to helping teachers is the
idea of employing math “coaches” to support both teachers
and students in the classroom. The role of these instructional
coaches varies, but it usually includes professional develop-
ment, ensuring that district-mandated curricula are used, and
sometimes working with students in the manner of math
tutors. Because math coaches are sometimes hired from pools
of math graduates who do not necessarily have extensive
experience as teachers or specialized knowledge about the
teaching of mathematics itself, these programs have had mixed
results in various districts. A paper titled “Math Coaching in
Boston” (Center for Leadership and Learning Communities
2005) states that “it is increasingly apparent that math coaches
need to develop a specialized kind of knowledge—knowledge
that is distinctly different than the pedagogical content knowl-
edge coaches developed as classroom teachers—in order to
effectively support mathematics leadership development in
schools.”
Two issues are confounded here. Math teaching is not the
same as leadership in mathematics curriculum and instruc-
tion. It also appears that the specialized math teaching knowl-
edge is similar to that at the heart of Ball’s and Ma’s research.
A selection of job and program descriptions from California
and Washington (see, for example, Silicon Valley Mathematics
Initiative (2006) and Smaller Learning Communities (2006))
underlines this reality. These programs discuss methods for
increasing teacher content knowledge and for building com-
munities of math teachers. The Silicon Valley program speaks
of coaches who can help teachers understand student thinking
about math, though it is not clear where the coaches get this
knowledge, where it is reported in the literature, or how they

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 The American Dilemma

are selected for these roles. Of course, coaches without exten-

sive teacher training may be very helpful to teachers who are
teaching outside their areas of study, as in the case of many
elementary teachers who do not have extensive backgrounds
in mathematics or in the case of middle grades teachers who
may be assigned to teach basic math when their training is in a
different field of study. Holmes and Ingersoll (Holmes Group,
1986) discuss the problem of “out of field” teaching. This issue
is important enough to deserve additional attention.

Teaching Mathematics
Across the United States, there are different expectations for
math teachers at different levels of schooling. At all levels,
instruction is grounded in at least one of the competing
learning theories. At the elementary level, all American
teachers teach mathematics, and there are few, if any, specific
requirements for math endorsements. People who choose to
teach at the elementary level are rarely proficient mathemati-
cians, although some come from subject fields or work expe-
riences that are math-intensive. Some elementary and early
childhood-level educators have specialized in math education.
These teachers seek to become experts in how children learn
mathematics and develop strategies and methods for effec-
tively instructing our youngest learners. However, it is widely
documented that most elementary and many middle-school
teachers do not have the math content knowledge that their
secondary colleagues must demonstrate through the courses
and assessments they take as part of their endorsement. Under
NCLB, to be considered “highly qualified,” teachers whose
primary responsibility is math (secondary-level teachers for
the most part) must have a bachelor’s degree and full state
certification or licensure and must prove that they know each
subject that they teach through a demonstration of compe-

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 The American Dilemma

tence (i.e., a major or equivalent coursework in math, pas-

sage of a state-developed test such as Praxis II that assesses
content knowledge, etc.). However, the focus is on content,
not pedagogy or instructional effectiveness. Many high school
teachers, of course, do not have this “highly qualified”
standing, because there is a significant shortage of math and
science teachers at American secondary schools. The NRC
2001 report, Adding It Up, shows, as well, that U.S. elemen-
tary and middle school teachers have a limited knowledge of
math, including the math they teach. Altogether, it appears
that American children stand a high chance of learning the
most basic mathematical ideas, which require a new kind of
abstract thinking, from teachers who are not well prepared to
convey this information and this type of conceptualizing.
We have mentioned Ma’s work previously. Schoenfeld called
Ma’s book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics (Ma 1999),
“an underground hit, perhaps the only manuscript I know that
has the attention and favor of both sides of the ‘math wars’”
(Schoenfeld 2004). Ma’s study compared the responses of
U.S. and Chinese elementary teachers to questions about how
they would present four kinds of problems: subtraction with
regrouping, multi-digit multiplication, division by fractions,
and area and perimeter. What Ma found is both shocking and
compelling. Although the American teachers, who were con-
sidered above average math teachers, demonstrated a method
for solving the problems and teaching their students how to
calculate correct answers, these teachers’ arithmetic knowl-
edge was procedural and shallow compared to that of their
Chinese counterparts. The Chinese teachers, for example, did
not merely instruct students to “borrow” in subtraction, but
used the opportunity to explain place value. In division by
fractions, “only one among the 23 U.S. teachers generated a
conceptually correct representation,” while “90% of the Chi-
nese teachers” could explain what division by fractions meant.

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 The American Dilemma

Moreover, all of the Chinese teachers could calculate a correct

answer to the problem 1¾ divided by ½, while only 40% of
the American teachers could. When the teachers were asked
to tell a story to illustrate this problem, only one American
teacher, but over 90% of the Chinese teachers, could do so.
Ma did not set out to discredit American teachers but
wanted to find out what was behind the differences in teaching
and learning math that she saw in her experiences as an edu-
cator in both countries. Ma was perplexed about why well-
educated American teachers performed differently from their
Chinese counterparts. She discovered that Chinese teachers
begin their teaching careers with a better understanding of
basic math. Moreover, their understanding was more coherent,
and they systematically used a mathematical vocabulary. Ma
summarized her findings by commenting that “Although U.S.
teachers were concerned with teaching for conceptual under-
standing, their responses reflected a view common in the
United States—that elementary mathematics is ‘basic,’ an
arbitrary collection of facts and rules in which doing math-
ematics means following set procedures step-by-step to arrive
at answers” (Ma 1999, quoting Ball 1991). So what kind of
knowledge do math teachers need?

Three Essential Bodies of Knowledge

For the last two decades, Ball and her colleagues at the Univer-
sity of Michigan, and others, have tried to work out in detail
the kind of knowledge math teachers need to be effective.
The NRC report Adding It Up (2001) offered this definition
of the categories of knowledge: “Although we have used the
term knowledge throughout, we do not mean it exclusively
in the sense of knowing about. Teachers must also know how
to use their knowledge in practice. Teachers’ knowledge is of
value only if they can apply it to their teaching: it cannot be

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 The American Dilemma

divorced from practice” (pp. 379–80). So there is knowing

about math, knowing how students learn math, and knowing
how to apply math in teaching, or how to teach math. Each of
these is worth specifying in some detail.

Knowing About Math

Knowledge of mathematics itself includes knowledge of
mathematical facts, concepts, procedures, and the relation-
ships among them; knowledge of the ways that mathematical
ideas can be represented; and knowledge of mathematics as
a discipline—in particular, how mathematical knowledge is
produced, the nature of discourse in mathematics, and the
norms and standards of evidence that guide argument and
proof. According to Ma (1999), profound understanding of
fundamental mathematics is defined as “an understanding of
the terrain of fundamental mathematics that is deep, broad,
and thorough . . . Teachers with this deep, vast and thorough
understanding do not invent connections between and among
mathematical ideas, but reveal and represent them in terms of
mathematics teaching and learning” (p. 120). Such teaching
and learning tends to have the following four properties: “1)
Connectedness—a teacher makes connections among mathe-
matical concepts and procedures . . . this intention will prevent
students’ learning from being fragmented. Instead of learning
isolated topics, students will learn a unified body of knowl-
edge. 2) Multiple perspectives—teachers appreciate and pro-
vide mathematical explanations for different facets of an idea
and various approaches to a solution. 3) Basic ideas—teachers
display mathematical attitudes and are aware of ‘simple but
powerful basic concepts and principles of mathematics,’ and
they revisit and reinforce these basic ideas. 4) Longitudinal
coherence—teachers are not limited to the knowledge that
should be taught in a certain grade; they have a fundamental
understanding of the whole elementary math curriculum” (p.

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 The American Dilemma

122). While some of these descriptions need to be enriched

with examples, Ma’s idea of a good math teacher seems to be
someone who knows the whole K–12 math curriculum and
its applications so well that she or he can readily help students
to see relevance, connections, and multiple ways to approach
every problem, so that every student, no matter her ability
or interest, can learn the fundamentals well. This leads to the
second form of knowledge.

Knowing How Students Learn Math

Teachers’ knowledge of their students and how children
learn mathematics must allow them to grasp how each child
understands math and then project that student’s trajectory of
learning math. Researchers have gained an extensive, though
still incomplete, knowledge about how students’ mathemat-
ical thinking develops over time. Many elementary and middle
school teachers pass on their own misconceptions. A method
called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) attempts to
address this problem by modeling teaching on what is known
about children’s thinking. “Our engagement with teachers is
driven by two principles,” Carpenter et al. (2000) write of
this method: “1) we focus interactions with teachers on the
fundamental ideas underlying the development of children’s
thinking about mathematics, and 2) we build on the teachers’
existing knowledge” (p. 2). This same group of researchers
found that while many teachers have a deep intuitive knowl-
edge of how students think about math, because the teachers’
knowledge is fragmented, they do not always use that body
of knowledge in their teaching. In CGI training, teachers
learn how to interpret their students’ actions and questions
so that students can be guided with questions that build stu-
dents’ skills. Many textbooks and teacher training programs
are grappling with the problem of math instruction at this
level, though much more needs to be known about how stu-

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 The American Dilemma

dents learn, and more teachers need to be introduced to this

knowledge. It is not yet clear that teachers can just learn the
methods without first having the deep mathematical knowl-
edge of which Ma speaks.

Knowing How to Teach Math

Math teachers must also understand good instructional prac-
tices—an expertise that demands both good knowledge of
math and a well-honed understanding of how students learn
this abstract subject. This practical knowledge includes the
mandated curriculum itself and classroom teaching practices. In
some cases, teachers do not understand what might be called
the overall shape of the new curricula and textbooks that
are chosen by textbook committees. Without a good under-
standing of the overall design of a curriculum, it is hard to teach
the parts, and this may explain why many teachers default to
the curriculum they learned as students, disregarding what is
in the texts. And that, in turn, explains why some districts use
math coaches simply to introduce and explain the curriculum
and the textbooks, rather than to grapple with deeper issues
of mathematics and math teaching. The NRC report Adding It
Up (p. 380) specifies the following interrelated components
that characterize proficient math teaching:

1. Conceptual understanding of the core knowledge

required in the practice of teaching,
2. Fluency in carrying out basic instructional routines,
3. Strategic competence in planning effective instruction
and solving problems that arise during instruction,
4. Adaptive reasoning in justifying and explaining one’s
instructional practices and in reflecting on those prac-
tices so as to improve them,
5. Productive disposition toward mathematics, teaching,
learning, and the improvement of practice.

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 The American Dilemma

In their similar research study, “Effects of Teachers’ Math-

ematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement”
(Hill et al. 2005), Hill and her colleagues looked at two ways
of assessing teaching knowledge. Their basic finding, as we
have stated earlier, is that teacher competence does not corre-
late well with basic teacher “resources” such as the number of
college courses in math they took, or the number of degrees
they earn, or their ability to ace math tests. Rather, it was “pro-
cess-product” knowledge that was more important, and this
seems to correlate with a different set of teachers’ intellectual
skills of the kind that are described, for example, in the NRC
report (2001) category that includes “adaptive reasoning,” or
the kind of creative problem solving that teachers use when
faced with students who don’t understand. In light of these
findings about the difficulties of teaching math well and the
three distinct kinds of knowledge teachers must have, how
is America to go about improving math instruction so that
all students can master math at least to some degree? How
does the nation meet the NCTM goal of educational equity in
mathematics education?

Improving Math Instruction

What needs to change to improve American math instruc-
tion? What the debate over international tests and competing
theories of education has taught us is just this: we need to
discount what the tests say, because they are based on faulty
comparisons, and we need to back away from the belief that
the solution lies in a particular pedagogical theory and its
associated textbooks. It appears that the quality of math edu-
cation needs to be measured first of all in terms of the three
kinds of knowledge that teachers must possess to be effective:
deep knowledge of mathematics itself (content knowledge),
good knowledge of learning math (pedagogical knowledge),

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 The American Dilemma

and finally a specialized knowledge of how to help students

understand the sometimes difficult abstractions of mathemat-
ical reasoning (pedagogical content knowledge). If we are to
overcome the prejudice that math is an inherently difficult
subject that many people will never understand, then we must
believe that there are gifted or experienced teachers who have
learned ways of engaging learners in numerical ideas so that
the majority of their students understand them. The research
to date indicates that we have not yet developed a sufficiently
comprehensive knowledge of these skills to be able to train
math teachers to be uniformly excellent, although enough
knowledge is available that good programs of teacher training
and in-service education can be offered.
Ma (1999) puts the issue this way, with a slightly different
emphasis: “Having considered teachers’ knowledge of school
mathematics in depth, I suggest that to improve mathematics
education for students, an important action that should be
taken is improving the quality of their teachers’ knowledge
of mathematics . . . Given that the parallel of the two gaps is
not mere coincidence, it follows that while we want to work
on improving students’ mathematics education, we also need
to improve their teachers’ knowledge of school mathematics”
(p. 144). Ma offers several additional recommendations: 1)
Enhance the interaction between teachers’ study of school
mathematics and how to teach it. This means, among other
tasks, helping teachers to overcome the belief that elemen-
tary mathematics is basic, superficial, and commonly [that is,
easily] understood. Ma argues that elementary mathematics
are far more complex and offer an opportunity both to intro-
duce a rigorous mathematical vocabulary and to lay down a
foundation of understanding on which later math can be built.
2) Refocus teacher preparation so that teachers are given both
comprehensive training in mathematics and also instruction
in how to teach math effectively. At this time, many education

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 The American Dilemma

students take a course in the teaching of mathematics that

offers pedagogical strategies but assumes that the students
have an adequate grasp of the underlying mathematics. 3)
Understand the role that curricular materials, including text-
books and manipulatives, might play in reform. When new
curricula are introduced, school districts have an opportunity,
as well as a duty, to assure that the new approaches are well
understood and that teachers have an adequate understanding
of the math itself. 4) Understand that the key to reform is a
focus on substantial mathematics, or what Ma has called a
profound understanding of mathematics.
The NRC takes a somewhat more forceful position, con-
tending that
“school mathematics education of yesterday, which had
a practical basis, is no longer viable. Rote learning of
arithmetic procedures no longer has the clear value it
once had. . . . Too few U.S. students leave elementary
and middle school with adequate mathematical knowl-
edge, skill and confidence…. Widespread failure to learn
mathematics limits individual possibilities and hampers
national growth” (National Research Council 2001, p.
407).
National growth is of course a practical matter, so it is not
clear in what sense practical math is no longer viable. How-
ever, NRC offers these recommendations to improve math
education (summarized from p. 410):

1. Instruction should not be based on extreme positions

that students learn, on the one hand, solely by inter-
nalizing what a teacher or book says or, on the other
hand, solely by inventing mathematics on their own.
2. Teachers’ professional development should be high
in quality, sustained, and systematically designed and

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 The American Dilemma

deployed to help all students develop mathematical

proficiency. Schools should support, as a central part
of teachers’ work, engagement in sustained efforts to
improve their mathematics instruction. This support
requires the provision of time and resources.
3. The coordination of curriculum, instructional materials,
assessment, instruction, professional development, and
school organization around the development of math-
ematical proficiency should drive school improvement
efforts.
4. Efforts to improve students’ learning should be informed
by continued research into the learning of mathematics.

The NRC concludes that

“No country—not even those performing highest on
international surveys of mathematics achievement—has
attained the goal of mathematical proficiency for all stu-
dents. It is an extremely ambitious goal, and the United
States will never reach it by continuing to tinker with the
controls of educational policy, pushing one button at a
time. . . . Coordinated, systemic, and sustained modifica-
tions will need to be made in how school mathematics
instruction has commonly proceeded, and support of
new and different kinds will be required. Leadership
and attention to the teaching of mathematics are needed
in the formulation and implementation of policies at all
levels of the educational system” (p. 432).
Stigler and Hiebert, in their book The Teaching Gap (1999),
say that “although most popular U.S. reform efforts have
avoided a direct focus on teaching, there are some notable
exceptions. One of these has been in the domain of mathe-
matics, where the NCTM has made a strong effort to improve
classroom mathematics teaching” (p. 104). They cite the

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 The American Dilemma

NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991), but

at the same time, they conclude that the TIMSS video studies
of math teaching show far more effective teaching in Jap-
anese than in American schools. Moreover, the TIMSS data
suggest that the Japanese have a more effective approach to
improving the performance of math teachers by focusing on
the improvement of each specific math lesson. “The premise
behind lesson study is simple,” they write. “If you want to
improve teaching, the most effective place to do so is in the
context of the classroom lesson” (Stigler and Hiebert 1999,
p. 111). Their conclusion, in other words, goes beyond what
Ball and Ma have suggested in this sense. The focus should
be on working to increase teachers’ comprehension of math
and ability to teach math, but the method for achieving the
improvement should begin with learning experiences that
help teachers improve their presentation of specific lessons.
Stigler and Hiebert write about a Lesson Study process
that includes the following steps: 1) defining the problem,
2) planning the lesson, 3) teaching the lesson, 4) evaluating
the lesson and reflecting on its effect, 5) revising the lesson,
6) teaching the revised lesson, 7) evaluating and reflecting
again, and 8) sharing the results. All of this must be done by
teachers working together in a collaborative manner, which
is the best practice of Chinese teachers, as Ma found. Such
a program of improvement might involve outside educators
and consultants, but much of the work must be done through
math teachers in schools and districts working together, in
a non-judgmental way, to hone each other’s skills. In China,
of course, teachers have the advantage that they teach only
math.
Stigler and Hiebert believe this kind of regimen will work
to reform mathematics teaching because lesson study is a long-
term, continuous improvement model, it maintains a constant
focus on direct improvement of teaching in context, and it

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is collaborative. Teachers who participate in lesson study see

themselves contributing to the development of knowledge
about teaching as well as to their own professional skill. “In
Japan,” they write, “educators can look back over the past fifty
years and believe that teaching has improved. In the United
States, we cannot do this. We can see fashions and trends, ups
and downs. But we cannot see the kind of gradual improve-
ment that marks true professions. . . . We must take the first
step toward building a system that will, over time, lead to
improvement of teaching and learning in the American class.
We need new ideas for teaching, ideas such as those provided
by videos from Japan and Germany. But instead of copying
these ideas, we must feed them into our own research and
development system for improvement of classroom teaching.
And we must empower teachers to be leaders in this process”
(Stigler and Hiebert 1999, p. 127).

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel

Final Report 2008
In response to the ongoing concern about mediocre student
performance and the apparently never-ending battle over the
“right” approach to learning and teaching math, President
George W. Bush created the National Mathematics Advisory
Panel (NMAP) in April 2006 and charged it to “advise the
President and the Secretary [of Education] on ways to ‘foster
greater knowledge of and improved performance in math-
ematics among American students . . . with respect to the con-
duct, evaluation, and effective use of the results of research
relating to proven-effective and evidence-based mathematics
instruction’” (National Math Advisory Panel 2008, p. 7). The
findings and recommendations of the NMAP concur with our
own review of the national and international literature on
mathematics education and lend credence to the four critical

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 The American Dilemma

insights we have presented, insights that may explain what

isn’t happening or what needs to change in order to realize
the hopes and expectations of math reformers.
The Panel agrees that “the delivery system in mathematics
education—the system that translates mathematical knowl-
edge into value and ability for the next generation—is broken
and it must be fixed” (p. 11). They contend that the essence
of their findings is to “put first things first” (p. 11) meaning
that: 1) the PreK–8 mathematics curriculum should be
streamlined and emphasize critical topics in the early grades;
2) math instruction should be based on “what is clearly
known from rigorous research about how children learn” (p.
11), including providing a strong start from the first years of
schooling; recognizing the mutually reinforcing benefits of
conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and automatic
recall of facts; and recognizing that effort, not just inherent
talent, counts in mathematical achievement; 3) mathemati-
cally knowledgeable classroom teachers have a central role
in math education and should be hired, trained, and evalu-
ated based on their demonstration of effective teaching; 4)
instruction should be designed and practiced based on high-
quality research and professional judgment of classroom
teachers, and should not be either entirely “student-centered
or teacher-directed” but an appropriate combination of both
under specific conditions; 5) national and state assessments
should be improved to reflect increased emphasis on “the most
critical knowledge and skills leading to Algebra” (p. 12); and
6) the nation must build its capacity for rigorous research
and application to inform policy and practice more effectively,
stating that the Panel found little or insufficient research
“relating to a great many matters of concern . . .” Finally, the
Panel stated that “This journey, like that of the post-Sputnik
era, will require a commitment to “learning as we go along’”
(p. 13).

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 The American Dilemma

The NMAP report begins by claiming that “without sub-

stantial and sustained changes to its educational system, the
United States will relinquish its leadership in the 21st century”
(p. xi) and that “there are large, persistent disparities in math-
ematics achievement related to race and income—disparities
that are not only devastating for individuals and families but
also project poorly for the nation’s future” (p. xii). It con-
cludes by saying that “No longer can we accept that a rigorous
mathematics education is reserved for the few who will go on
to be engineers or scientists. Mathematics may indeed be ‘the
new literacy’; at the least, it is essential for any citizen who
is to be prepared for the future.” The Panel addresses what it
sees as major obstacles to resolving the math wars in the U.S.
by saying that “this is not a conclusion about any single ele-
ment of the system. It is about how the many parts do not
now work together to achieve a result worthy of this country’s
values and ambitions” and that “Debates regarding the rela-
tive importance of . . . aspects of mathematical knowledge
are misguided . . . These capabilities are mutually supportive,
each facilitating the learning of the other” (p. xiii).
It is apparent that the Panel’s conclusions and recommenda-
tions are strongly aligned with what many see as the tradition-
alist viewpoint. A publisher of math textbooks and software
is quoted saying “This report is biased in favor of teaching
arithmetic and not [modern] mathematics . . . and it’s biased
in favor of procedures and not applied skill.” A spokesperson
from NCTM said that “the report brings ‘unprecedented focus’
to math instruction and addresses many of the actions needed
to improve math education” but that “while many panel rec-
ommendations ‘are supported by high-quality research, others
extend beyond the report’s reach’” (Cavanaugh 2008a). Edu-
cators, schools, and vendors are responding to the NMAP
report, and it is having a major influence on the development
and selection of instructional materials, with special emphasis

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 The American Dilemma

on getting more students capable and confident with alge-

braic concepts and skills at the elementary level and bridging
the gap to middle school and beyond (Cavanaugh 2008b).
Perhaps one of the most important findings of the NMAP
research is that the “essential qualities of math teaching remain
unknown,” a major conclusion of our own research and study
of math education. A real transformation of mathematics edu-
cation, of the scope being called for in this country, would
be dependent on pervasive, effective, differentiated instruc-
tion from the earliest years of schooling, designed, presented,
and managed by a highly qualified, mathematically proficient
workforce of educators at the pre-school through graduate
levels of college. Deborah Ball, an NMAP member who chaired
its working group on teacher issues, concurred that many of
the Panel’s conclusions about improving teaching are tentative
because enough high-quality research has not yet been done,
and she stated, “We should put a lot of careful effort over the
next decade into this issue so that we can be in a much dif-
ferent place 10 years from now” (Cavanaugh 2008c).

Who Is Responsible for Reform?

If better instruction by more knowledgeable and skillful
teachers will lead to better learning in America, who must take
responsibility for the needed changes? From a policy perspec-
tive, the responsibility is divided among all the stakeholders.
Schools of education must examine the criteria for selecting
future teachers with an eye to the importance of mathematical
aptitude. Math education classes must involve profound math-
ematics, lesson study, and learning about research concerning
how students learn math. State certification requirements
must mandate these kinds of changes in teacher education
programs. Districts that hire and continually educate profes-
sional teachers must think of creating dedicated math teaching

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 The American Dilemma

positions and providing the time necessary for collaborative

work groups of teachers to engage in the constant improve-
ment that is characteristic of Chinese and Japanese teachers.
Foundations and government agencies must fund additional
research into the kind of work that Ball, Ma, and many others
have been doing to understand the specialized knowledge of
excellent math teachers. The public can help by supporting
teachers as they endeavor to master more mathematics, to
learn how to help students who have difficulty learning math,
and to establish the formal and informal communication net-
works that will support lesson study and the development of
excellent, specialized math teaching skills.
As Stigler and Hiebert and others have argued, teaching is
a cultural activity. The culture of math education in America
needs to change, but cultural change must come gradually
to be meaningful and lasting. American thinking about math
education, we have found, has been sidetracked by atten-
tion to international test results and an internal debate over
traditionalism and constructivism. It may be a more fruitful
strategy to invest time and resources instead on measures that
will help teachers to master the three kinds of knowledge they
need: knowledge of math, knowledge of learning math, and
knowledge above all about the best way to engage all learners
in meaningful mathematics learning, especially those students
for whom math is hard. We turn next to what research tells us
about the state of mathematics education in Washington State.
Washington State is not extremely different from the rest of
the United States, although it presents its own unique mix of
issues.

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 3
Math Education in Washington State
An Overview of State Reform Issues

Now we turn our focus from global and national to Washington

State. Washington State began an important cycle of work on
math education with the 1993 Washington State Reform Law
(House Bill 1209), which set in place expectations that math
teaching (along with other subject areas) would move from a
“teacher-centered” process to a “student-centered” educa-
tional environment. The Superintendent of Public Instruction
served as the executive director of the Commission on Student
Learning, which set out to determine the essential knowledge
and skills that students would need to contribute to the eco-
nomic future of Washington State.
The Commission created the Washington Assessment of Stu-
dent Learning (WASL) to monitor progress with respect to the
Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs), also called
the Washington State Learning Standards, which provide an
overview of what students should know and be able to do in
grades K–12.These standards were further defined through the
Grade Level Expectations (GLEs), which provide detail about
what students should know and be able to do at each grade
level. Students demonstrate where they are along the learning
continuum toward meeting subject area standards by their
performance on the WASL.
By 1996, the state had begun to implement the WASL to

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measure these essential skills. Meanwhile, the legislature intro-

duced an accountability law that would have imposed sanctions
on schools that did not carry out reforms and demonstrate
appropriate student achievement. While such laws passed
at the federal level and in other states, the law failed in the
Washington State Legislature. Instead, the legislature funded
the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to
develop a process to support schools as they undertook neces-
sary reforms.1
Since the WASL was meant to be the “floor” for achieve-
ment rather than the aspiration, the state set out to accomplish
the following three tasks in order to reach this minimum goal:
1) students needed to have curricula aligned with the EALRs;
2) students needed to take higher levels of math, including
geometry and at least some trigonometry, by the end of the first
semester of the sophomore year; and 3) instruction needed
to be aligned with these goals. The Commission on Student
Learning was suspended in 1999 after it had written the
EALRs, developed the WASL, and designed a support system to
improve student achievement, focusing on higher standards
and reliable assessment of student performance (Commission
on Student Learning, 1994).
These were meaningful changes in the way Washington
schools operated. However, the reform efforts focused pri-
marily on curriculum and standards. Our research indicates that
these kinds of reform efforts by themselves may not produce
substantial changes in instructional methods, nor do they
develop the mathematical skills and knowledge in the teaching
force that are needed to foster the intra-individual as well
as institutional transformations required for “second-order”
changes.

1. Part of the Budget Proviso for the 2002 education legislation, Wash-
ington State.

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 Math Education in Washington State

Improvement Efforts in Washington

Washington is not without well-intentioned efforts to address
its problems in mathematics education. According to the Wash-
ington Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (WACTE),
“Most WACTE member schools are engaged in cutting-edge
research and field work.” “Improving Success in Mathematics:
Research and Projects Underway in the State of Washington”
(WACTE, November 2006) cites work being done at the
University of Washington (UW), Evergreen State College
(ESC), Eastern Washington University (EWU), and Wash-
ington State University (WSU). Several themes emerge from
this document:

1) Revamping math programs. A National Science Foundation

grant to the UW Department of Mathematics, in con-
junction with UW College of Education professors Ilana
Horn and Jim King, provides funding to help high
school teachers revamp their math programs, adopt new
interactive curricula focused on problem-solving, and
change their methods of teaching. Researchers found
that “working collaboratively, instead of isolated within
their own classrooms, helped [teachers] more effec-
tively hone curriculum and teaching methods to stu-
dents’ needs” (WACTE 2006, p. 3). They reported that
“by year’s end, changes in the first-year math classrooms
were dramatic. Students were engaged, and they were
engaged in higher-level math thinking” (p. 4), and one
veteran classroom teacher stated “This is by far the most
growth I’ve ever made as a professional” (p. 4).
2) Developing teacher knowledge. Faculty members in the Master
In Teaching (MIT) program at Evergreen State College
are partnering with a middle school to “support the

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enriched math curriculum through consultation as well

as placing practicum students and student teachers in
this program” (p. 4); and Anita Lenges at ESC, through a
UW grant, is working collaboratively “with mathematics
and math education faculty across the state to learn what
is the mathematics knowledge needed for teachers to
teach mathematics” (p. 4). There are several projects at
EWU with both pre-service and in-service math teachers,
including professional development opportunities such
as a project with Partners in Learning (PiL), the grant-
funded collaboration between EWU and Cheney School
District. At WSU, Amy Roth McDuffie has been con-
ducting research “on the professional development of
pre-service and practicing teachers in mathematics edu-
cation . . . [focusing] on professional growth toward
more student-centered approaches.” McDuffie describes
her research in journal articles such as “Mathematics
Teaching as a Deliberate Practice: An Investigation of Ele-
mentary Pre-service Teachers; Reflective Thinking during
Student Teaching” (McDuffie 2004) and “The Teacher as
Researcher” (McDuffie 2005).
3) University-school partnerships. A large intervention called the
Mathematics Case Study Project is a partnership among
three universities—EWU, WSU, and UW—and “seven
high-needs districts throughout the state” that work
together to “improve teacher understanding of math-
ematics content, standards, teaching practice; foster a
culture of teacher leadership; and provide teachers and
school with materials specially designed to link instruc-
tion to GLEs” (Mathematics Case Study Project). Another
project—Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science
and Mathematics (PRiSSM—is funded by the Washington
Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)

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 Math Education in Washington State

through the federal Mathematics/Science Partnership Pro-

gram, working out of the Educational Service District and
WSU in Vancouver, WA. In this three-year project, PLCs
(professional learning communities) are established in
schools for grades 6–12 math and science teachers, with
the goal of providing long-term professional develop-
ment that leads to “conceptual and applicable student
learning” that targets “increasing leadership capacity in
individual buildings and strengthening the understanding
and implementation of high quality teaching. . . . The
bulk of the professional development occurs during on-
going PLC meetings as teachers, supported by a Facili-
tator, engage in collaborative inquiry on a self-selected
focus of high quality learning and teaching” along with
week-long summer institutes and follow-up work ses-
sions (Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science and
Mathematics, n.d.).
4) Community partnership. The PRiSSM project is one of
several Math-Science Partnerships (MSPs) in Washington
State. Another state-wide MSP project, currently in the
proposal stage, is to be hosted by the University of
Washington as the lead institution and will implement
a unique model developed by the Mathematics Educa-
tion Collaborative (MEC 2008). “The MEC Community
Engagement Model actively involves the whole com-
munity, by uniting educators, families and community
members in support of quality mathematics in schools.
A well-informed community recognizes the value of
providing appropriate learning experiences for all stu-
dents and teachers; ensures that districts maintain a con-
tinuing focus on improving mathematics teaching and
learning; supports and advocates for appropriate inno-

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 Math Education in Washington State

vation in mathematics education.” This MSP intends to

bring together mathematics and education professors
from institutions of higher education, math coordina-
tors from Educational Service Districts, administrators
and support staff in school districts, school principals,
teachers, parents, and community leaders—all engaged
in learning more mathematics as individuals and working
together. The long-range goals are to better understand
how mathematics is most effectively and appropri-
ately taught K–20, including teacher educators, math-
ematicians, engineers, and other professionals; and to
demonstrate how school and community leaders can
support high-quality mathematics instruction. The com-
prehensive and coordinated MEC model may serve as a
prototype for large-scale, state-wide intervention and
improvement in mathematics learning and teaching.

These efforts have been well publicized. However, it is not

clear that they have been fully coordinated or that the various
project directors have been brought together to consider how
all of this work might advance reform efforts.

Washington Learns
Ten years after reform legislation passed in Washington, there
were some improvements in mathematics performance but not
nearly enough to meet the high expectations envisioned by
the reformers, who were troubled by the mediocre improve-
ment in scores, particularly among challenging student pop-
ulations. In response, after an 18-month study, the governor’s
office released its November 2006 report, Washington Learns:
World-Class, Learner-Focused, Seamless Education, which concluded
that “Education is the single most important investment we

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can make for our children, our state, our economy and our
future.” The report stated further that “We propose a bold plan
to redesign and re-invest in education during the next decade.
We offer a new way of thinking about the purpose and func-
tion of public education, and we believe that math and science
education must be addressed first.” Among other methods to
accomplish the bold goal of developing a world-class edu-
cation system, “We will hold our students to math and sci-
ence standards that match or exceed the standard of other
states and nations, and we will make sure that students, from
kindergarten through graduate schools, are prepared for their
next level of classes” (Washington Learns 2006, p. 6).
Describing “Five Initiatives for a World-Class Education
System” (p. 18), one of which is “Math and Science: A Com-
petitive Edge” (p. 24), the report declares “If Washington is
going to compete in the global economy . . . we all have a
responsibility to get past the perception that math and science
are too hard and show students that math and science are fun,
interesting and that they are good at it.” To realize these worthy
objectives, seven strategies were proposed (pp. 24–28):

1. Develop math and science materials to train child care

and early education teachers.
2. Bring world-class math and science into our classrooms.
3. Build expertise in math and science teaching.
4. Attract more math and science teachers.
5. Get students excited about math and science, using
public-private partnerships.
6. Expand incentives and opportunities for students
seeking high demand math- and science-related
certificates and degrees.
7. Partner with after-school programs to support math
learning.

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 Math Education in Washington State

In contrast to the reform goals, these strategies are focused

more on developing competent math instruction and helping
teachers develop the math knowledge they need for instruc-
tion. The goals are laudable as correctives to a system that has,
in large part, left teachers out of the reform effort. It remains to
be seen how the new strategies will create and sustain improved
math instruction through institutional supports as well as
encouragement of individual teachers.
Following the proposals and plans in the Washington Learns
report, a news release from the Office of the Governor, dated
May 21, 2007, stated: “Governor Christine Gregoire today
signed an executive order that creates a council to hold state
government accountable and measure progress . . . toward
long-term goals for a world-class education system, estab-
lished by the Washington Learns committee . . . The P-20 Council
will be responsible for driving progress toward the ten-year
goals proposed by Washington Learns in November 2006. The
council must also improve student success and transitions
within and among the early learning, K–12 and higher edu-
cation sectors and, beginning in 2008, issue an annual report
to Washingtonians, Governor Gregoire and the Legislature”
(News release, http://www.governor.wa.gov/, accessed April
1, 2008).
It is apparent that the Washington Learns report, recommenda-
tions, and “assignments” have provided significant guidance
for OSPI activities regarding the improvement of mathematics
education in Washington. The revision of the Washington
State Mathematics Standards is in its final stages, and processes
are underway to select curriculum materials for districts to
adopt and to plan large-scale professional development for
teachers.

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 Math Education in Washington State

Math Standards in Washington State

To put in motion the recommendations in the Washington Learns
report, it was deemed necessary to update and upgrade the stu-
dent learning standards. In a draft document (Plattner 2007)
titled “Washington State Mathematics Standards: Review and
Recommendations,” Plattner wrote that “The bottom line is
that Washington’s math standards need to be strengthened. If
mathematics is the gateway to student success in higher edu-
cation and the workplace, Washington is getting too few of
its students to and through the door.” She adds, however, that
“Washington is moving in the right direction. The number of
students passing the state’s tests in math has increased. About
61 percent of the students who took the Washington Assess-
ment of Student Learning (WASL) in June 2007 have now
passed” (pp. 2–3). Comparing Washington standards with
those in California, Massachusetts, and Indiana, as well as with
the Singapore Curriculum, Finland Standards, NCTM Curric-
ulum Focal Points, NAEP, the American Diploma Project, and
the Washington College Readiness Mathematics Test, a panel
of experts offered the following recommendations (Plattner
2007), which are representative of the kinds of recommenda-
tions now being proposed in other U.S. jurisdictions as well:

1. Set higher expectations for Washington’s students by

fortifying content and increasing rigor.
2. Prioritize topics to identify those that should be taught
for extended periods at each grade level.
3. Place more emphasis on mathematical content and
standard algorithms.
4. Write Essential Academic Learning Requirements
(EALRs) that clarify grade level priorities and
reflect both the conceptual and procedural sides of
mathematics.

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 Math Education in Washington State

5. Increase the clarity, specificity and measurability of the

Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).
6. Create a standards document that is easily used by most
people.
7. Include a mathematician, a curriculum specialist and
an effective teacher on the Office of Superintendent of
Public Instruction (OSPI) Standards Revision Team.

These statements make concessions to both traditionalists

and constructivists. To fortify content could imply teaching
good problem-solving skills; putting more emphasis on con-
tent could imply either more drill or more wrestling with
problems; using standard algorithms is the mantra of tradi-
tionalism. However, the effective teacher who helps guide this
process of writing standards is only one voice among many
in a large team of administrators and specialists in testing,
advanced math, and curriculum design. The teacher’s role here
is a small one, and any attention paid to the special knowledge
of good math teachers is minimal.2
In February 2007, Washington’s governor and the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction proposed maintaining
the current math standard for graduation for the Class of 2008,
rather than requiring students to pass the 10th grade WASL. A
news report quotes the Superintendent of Public Instruction
as saying that “Students that do not meet the [WASL] stan-
dard by the end of their junior year will qualify for a diploma
by continuing to take rigorous coursework in mathematics
until they graduate or pass the test.” Reformers were quick to
respond, saying that the WASL standard is considered a min-
imum threshold that all students need to meet. “The reality

2. The revision of the new standards for math in Washington was to be

completed by Summer 2008. Information about this project can be found
at http://www.sbe.wa.gov/mathstandards.htm. The web site for the Office
of the Superintendent for Public Instruction is http://www.k12.wa.us/.

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 Math Education in Washington State

is that students need even higher levels of preparation in key

‘gatekeeper’ classes such as Algebra II to be ready for college
and the world of work. . . . At the same time we must upgrade
our course credit requirements for graduation. . . . Currently,
Washington only requires that students take two years of
unspecified math” (Partnership for Learning 2007).
Continuing the departure from using the WASL as the gradu-
ation standard, in May 2007 the Governor signed into law a
measure that extends to 2013 the date by which students must
meet the state math and science standards for high school
graduation. Students must meet requirements through the
WASL or “an alternative assessment,” and students who do
not meet the standard are required to take more math credits.
The governor explained, “We must improve math and science
teaching and learning, but we cannot penalize students when
the system has failed them.” (Office of the Governor 2008).
This examination of Washington State mathematics educa-
tion reveals the shifting nature of the overall goals that will
affect math testing, curriculum and textbook choices, con-
tinuing professional education for teachers, and classroom
practice. Washington State’s current mathematics program is
decentralized. Individual schools and districts choose texts
and materials, and a student who moves from one school or
district to another may encounter a completely different cur-
riculum and method of teaching. In the summer of 2008,
OSPI was to introduce a new set of standards. This may help
to unify the curriculum, but will it assist teachers in devel-
oping the specific knowledge they need for improving math
instruction? Plans for teacher in-service education are in flux,
without any program in place that would offer comprehensive
education for teachers in profound mathematics, the design of
the curriculum, or the best ways to communicate mathemat-
ical ideas to students.

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 Math Education in Washington State

The Washington School Research Center Findings

The Washington School Research Center (WSRC) at Seattle
Pacific University has been evaluating educational progress in
Washington State for many years. WSRC staff members have
also carried out evaluation projects across the country to sup-
port their understanding of the current state of math edu-
cation. When the WSRC turned its attention to mathematics
education in particular, researchers examined both the reform-
based/constructivist and traditionalist positions on the math
wars. The preceding chapters of this book have highlighted a
“middle ground” of sorts that WSRC researchers feel charac-
terizes the approach to math education taught at the Freud-
enthal Institute at the University of Utrecht. In particular, this
approach represents a way of teaching math that combines
elements of the traditionalist and constructivist positions,
which in fact is also what the U.S. National Research Council
advocates.
WSRC technical studies have reached several conclu-
sions relevant to the discussion of math education. First, low
income explains a much larger percentage of variance in aca-
demic achievement than ethnicity or other factors for which
data are available. Second, academic achievement is positively
correlated with the amount of time spent on homework and
the number of student activities a student participates in, and
achievement is negatively correlated with time spent watching
television. Abbott et al. (2002) found that constructivist
teaching had a meaningful impact on student achievement,
particularly in mathematics, where constructivism was defined
as teaching that actively engages students in the curriculum.
A second study of teaching methods (Abbott and Fouts 2003)
also indicated that constructivist teaching methods led to higher
student achievement.

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 Math Education in Washington State

These observational studies of constructivist teaching, while

based on a well-tested instrument, do not necessarily show
that the classrooms studied were characterized by the kind of
teaching that Ma has in mind, i.e., teaching that is character-
ized by profound understanding of fundamental mathematics,
the curriculum, and the needs of students. Overall, the obser-
vational protocols used in these studies demonstrated differ-
ences between highly traditionalist teaching methods and
teaching that works to engage students in problem solving
and discovery.
Perhaps the most important finding has been that if stu-
dents do not understand math by the fourth grade, they are less
likely to improve later, given the existing system of teaching
and learning. The WSRC report (Fouts, April 2002) titled “The
Power of Early Success: A Longitudinal Study of Student Per-
formance on the WASL, 1998–2001,” found that scores on
the state test in 4th grade were strongly determinative for 10th
grade scores. There was a lower probability that if student
started out with poor scores he or she would improve enough
to pass the test in high school. The study showed no differ-
ence between genders or among students of different ethnic
backgrounds. The study also concluded that students who did
well in the 7th grade were “more likely to have a computer at
home, to feel safer at school, to spend substantially more time
doing homework, to spend substantially less time watching
TV and to have more ambitious plans for further education”
(p. 15).
This study was replicated in 2005 (Peterson and Abbott,
“The Power of Early Success 1998–2004”). The second study
identified some additional factors that affect achievement,
though the general findings were the same. Students who did
poorly on 4th grade tests were unlikely to pass 10th grade tests.
Factors that predicted academic success in math included a

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 Math Education in Washington State

measure of socioeconomic status (the mother’s education) and

the amount of time spent each week doing homework. Both
studies stressed that there would need to be interventions in
the current educational system to capitalize on the power of
early academic success.
Several of the WSRC research projects used data from
classroom observation studies, such as the Teaching Attributes
Observation Protocol (TAOP), to make determinations about
the kinds of teaching utilized in a school in the aggregate. The
TAOP and the STAR Classroom Observation Protocol, developed
by The BERC Group, both assess the extent to which teachers
are using “powerful teaching and learning” or reform-like
teaching and learning strategies. Abbott and Fouts (2003),
in a study that included more than 669 classroom observa-
tions, found that such learning strategies were employed only
17% of the time. However, this kind of teaching did correlate
with higher WASL scores. In a later study of 1,400 classrooms,
Brown and Fouts (2003) found that only 12% used construc-
tivist teaching techniques. Several subsequent BERC studies
have made similar conclusions about powerful teaching and
learning using both the TAOP and STAR protocols (see, for
example, Baker, Gratama, and Bachtler 2003).

Washington State Mathematics Achievement

Current Washington State math achievement scores are similar
to those of most other states. A few states show better per-
formance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP), and a few states and the District of Columbia fall sig-
nificantly below Washington State. Washington State has come
later to the math wars between traditionalists and construc-
tivists than other states, and Washington is distinctive in its
decision to postpone implementation of graduation require-

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 Math Education in Washington State
70

60
WASL (%) (%)

50
Eligilbility

40
Lunchon

Math
Performance

FR
Free/Reduced

30
Math

20

10

0
4th 4th 4th 4th 7th 7th 7th 7th 10th 10th 10th 10th
2004 2005 2006 2007 2004 2005 2006 2007 2004 2005 2006 2007
Math Performance on WASL (%)
Figure 1. Math performance and family income 2004–2007

ments from 2008 to 2013 so that more time can be given to

improving math instruction.
Math achievement scores of Washington schools remained
fairly stable over the years 2004–2007, as shown in Figure 1.3
While 4th grade scores on the WASL declined a bit in 2006
and 2007, 7th and 10th grade scores improved slightly or were
stable from 2004 to 2007.4 Notable in this figure is that math
scores generally declined from the 4th to the 10th grades,
taking all years into account.

3. The graph is based on data from all schools in the state of Washington
in terms of % of students passing the WASL math test, and the % of students
at the schools eligible for free/reduced lunch, an indicator of family income
(Source: OSPI website, http://www.k12.wa.us/).
4. Changes are not statistically meaningful.

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 Math Education in Washington State

Comparing Washington and Other States

Washington’s curriculum and graduation requirements can be
examined from another perspective, namely, how Washington
math requirements compare to those of other states. While
these data are perhaps less important for understanding test
results and basic student competency in math, the data do
indicate a lower overall commitment to math in Washington
schools that is consistent with Washington’s ranking in higher
education achievement.
Washington is one of 42 states that have high school grad-
uation requirements. Washington is not one of the 20 states
that require Algebra 1, or one of the 13 states that require
geometry, or one of the four states that require Algebra 2 for
graduation from high school. Some officials believe that it is
important for students to take algebra by the end of 8th grade.
Thirty-three percent of Washington students were taking
algebra in 8th grade in 2005, compared to 41% across the
nation. However, the push to take algebra by a particular grade
is associated with the goal of taking calculus either by the end
of high school or in the first year of college. As many Euro-
pean and American experts argue, this is not a goal that has
much value when many students would be better served by
learning statistics or more applied math and when colleges
are well-suited to teaching calculus. As far as college admis-
sion is concerned, a further study of Washington State student
transcripts indicated that students who have not completed
all the required college-prep classes are most likely to have
missed classes either in math or in foreign language (Stroh,
et al. 2007).

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 Math Education in Washington State

The Critical Elements of Reform Efforts

In 1993, Washington reformers set out to fundamentally
change the three legs of the mathematics “stool”: curriculum
(what was taught), instruction (the way it was taught), and
assessment (the way to measure achievement). Unlike else-
where around the country, reformers in Washington were in
relative agreement on the standards, and school districts spent
a decade purchasing textbooks and aligning curriculum to
the new math standards. Curriculum and instruction are the
“inputs” to the system, and the WASL measures the “output.”
Although state leadership has clearly implemented new cur-
riculum and assessments over the last 15 years, there is little
evidence of support for changes in the way the curriculum is
taught or in methods to help students learn (as indicated in
Figure 2 by the lack of an arrow connecting instructional input
to assessment output). Fundamentally, the thing that was sup-
posed to change after the passage of HB 1209 was classroom
practice, teaching and learning. We described this dynamic
earlier as second-order change. It is precisely the teaching and
learning that have not changed substantially.

Curriculum
Input

䉴 Assessment
Instructional Output
Input

Figure 2. The three elements of the mathematics reform strategy

It is critical to recognize that mathematics reform requires

a change in standards (curriculum), testing (assessments), and
pedagogy (teaching and learning). Many are concerned about
the outputs of the system. But what did leaders expect from

118
 Math Education in Washington State

over a decade of curriculum reform and testing? It could be

argued that much more has been gained from the system than
should have been expected, given that one of the two critical
systems inputs was largely ignored. What leaders have gotten
out of the last fifteen years is new curriculum aligned with
new standards, tested with a new performance-based assess-
ment, taught in the same way math has always been taught. In
other words, the primary emphasis of the effort has been to
change what we teach, not how we teach it.
For example, utilizing data from The BERC Group and Fouts
& Associates, it appears that there was little change in instruc-
tion over the years of data collection, 2001–2007. This can
be demonstrated by the consistency of the 2001–2007 results
along with a simple comparison between the first Fouts study
and the results from the 2007 BERC data collection. In 2003,
Fouts collected the first state-wide data from 669 classrooms
using TAOP. Since then, The BERC Group has conducted more
than 10,000 classroom observations using the STAR protocol.
In 2007, The BERC Group collected 1,180 classroom observa-
tions. Both Fouts and BERC use the same overall score metric.
Figure 3 shows two things: 1) the majority of responses indi-
cate that lessons were, at best, only “somewhat” aligned with
reform goals, and 2) there was very little discrepancy between
the two studies over several years.
How could one of the two system inputs have been over-
looked? It may be due to an assumption that teachers are
adaptable enough to simply conform to whatever mandate is
required without attention to the necessary support. But this
is shortsighted. World-class investments into how teachers
approach teaching and learning are required as much as
world-class investments in purchasing and aligning new
curricula and standards. This is in no way to place the blame
upon teachers. Changing instructional practice is a very dif-
ficult and complicated task. In order to be fully successful, it

119
 Math Education in Washington State

How well was this lesson aligned with Washington State

reform efforts/goals?
TAOP State Averages (n = 669) STAR State Averages (n = 1180)

40%
34%
32% 31%
30%
25% 24%

19%
20% 17% 18%

10%

0%
Not at All Very Little Somewhat Very

Figure 3. Classroom observation results from 2003 (TAOP) and 2007 (STAR)

has to be a system-wide effort, as we have discussed repeat-

edly in this book.
All three reform elements (curriculum, instruction, and
assessment) need to be implemented for student achievement
to match public expectations. Some Washington schools and
districts have moved on without systemic (state-wide) sup-
port to try to address issues of aligning instruction; however,
widespread improvement without state policy and practice
that support instruction from a systemic perspective may not
be likely. In general, it may be that bringing peace in the math
wars is less about what curriculum teachers need to teach,
or what test they need to teach to, and more about simply
agreeing to see a reform effort all the way through before
starting over.
It is important to recognize how the “earth shifted” with a
change to standards in 1993. The standards movement changed

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 Math Education in Washington State

everything about public education. This reform is intended

to be about all students meeting standard. That means having
clear standards, adequate curriculum, and reasonable assess-
ments. But, it also means aligning the teaching and learning
process so that all students can learn and achieve.
Instruction designed to sort students (as was done over a
century from the 1880s to the 1980s) and instruction designed
to help all students learn are two very different things. Pre-
reform instruction was teacher-centered, norm-referenced,
relied on compliance, and was guided by an adopted curric-
ulum. Post-reform instruction is student-centered, criterion-
referenced, relies on active inquiry, and requires the teacher
to adapt the curriculum. As Schmoker (2006, p. 8) said so
eloquently: “It’s the Instruction, Stupid.”

Why Math Reform Hasn’t Worked

Over the last few years, state leaders have taken predictable
steps of drafting new standards and reviewing new assess-
ments. This continued fight over which standards and which
curriculum will yield the desired outcomes may, ironically, be
at the core of the problem with mathematics reform. If there
is an assumption that there is something wrong only with the
standards, the curriculum, or the tests, a supportive and effec-
tive system of teaching mathematics is less likely to garner the
attention it deserves in the overall reform effort.
In order to move forward, state policy-makers and educa-
tion practitioners need to know more about what is actually
happening in classrooms statewide. This knowledge would
better equip them to develop an approach to teacher educa-
tion and teacher in-service education that would help create
a workforce of professional math teachers with the kind of
knowledge and skills imagined by Stigler, Hiebert, Ball, Ma,
and others. Until that important system of continuous learning

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 Math Education in Washington State

is created, perhaps with the help of the teachers themselves,

state math achievement levels may continue to be simply ade-
quate and/or similar to those of other states. Students might
continue to experience a system without fundamental edu-
cational equity of opportunity and achievement, in which
only some have the chance to get into highly technical careers
while others are at a disadvantage from early on.

Math Teachers Left Behind

If all the reform elements are not included, state leaders will
proceed with the present revisions of the math standards and
assessments, perhaps adopt new standards, agree that they are
good, and put in place a new assessment. In this event, what
is likely is that the reform effort will not surpass the efforts of
the last fifteen years.
The challenge to the state in the next round of math reform
will be to prove “fidelity of the reform treatment” prior to
starting over again in the next fifteen years. In typical research
projects, it is crucial to determine whether a specified treat-
ment was fully implemented before determining that the
treatment did or did not work.
It may have been more productive to have spent the reform
years supporting change in how to teach as much as what to
teach. The current reforms seem to be headed partly in that
direction, but the past does suggest the need for a contin-
uous check on treatment fidelity. That is, a check to make sure
both the curriculum and instructional inputs are supported
systemically and effectively. It could be argued that the math
reform of 1993 did not fail in Washington, it was just never
completed. As they move forward, reformers might heed the
admonition, “this time, try not to leave instruction out of the
equation.”

122
 4
Conclusions and Implications

At the beginning of this volume, we identified four “critical

insights” that appear to affect math education and achievement.
In general terms, these stated that:

1. Reform efforts have not succeeded because teachers

have not been given the support needed to teach math
more effectively and to align their teaching with new
standards.
2. Effective reform requires coordination among standards,
assessment, and instruction. Recent reforms have focused
on articulating new standards, and designing and
implementing new tests, but have left instruction out.
3. High-quality curricula are necessary, but curricula
alone are not sufficient to create a good math program.
Teachers’ knowledge of math and pedagogy is also
essential.
4. Systematic and meaningful reform can occur and
persist only as teachers change the view of their
own work, and as educational institutions provide
the resources necessary for teachers to engage in the
continuous study of mathematics and the teaching
of mathematics.

It is important to point out that these four fundamental

insights rest on the assumption that programs to create mean-

123
 Conclusions and Implications

ingful change in math education are viewed as both “means”

and “ends” to institutional change. It is often the case that
school districts or department leaders identify a certain strategy
purported to lead to a desired outcome, and then adopt that
strategy across the board without the ownership or under-
standing of the individual practitioners who must “live it out.”
In this case, the new strategy may simply become another in
a long line of “solutions” that do not result in the desired
outcomes. This may partially be due to the practitioner not
fully understanding or converting the strategy from a policy
to a practice. Most everyone in education has experienced this
dynamic.
In the WSRC publication “A Decade of Reform” (Fouts
2003), Fouts discussed the concept of first- and second-order
changes in the context of educational reform efforts. He noted
that change strategies
“in and of themselves, may accomplish little because
they do not necessarily result in a qualitatively different
experience on the part of the student. What seems to
happen in many schools is that so much attention and
focus is placed on the outward structural, physical, or
administrative changes being implemented that the
underlying reasons why the changes are being made are
ignored.” (p. 12)
We might say that first-order changes are the possible
means by which change can occur, not ends in themselves.
Adopting a new curriculum (first-order change) may result
in improved learning, but not necessarily, unless teachers
and other school leaders capitalize on the specific features of
the new curriculum that enable the teachers to teach better
(second-order change).

124
 Conclusions and Implications

Conclusions
Our findings go beyond the four insights and lead to several
implications needing further consideration. We undertook this
survey of the international debate in a spirit of open inquiry and
without a vested interest in any of the camps that take part in
the “math wars.” School systems would be fortunate to avoid
a repetition of those conflicts, because they polarize issues
that need not be polarized, and they take time away from the
work of creating a more effective system that begins with
teachers—teachers who are engaged in the continuous study
of math and the continuous and well-supported enhancement
of their ability to reach all students.
We have noted that the international, U.S., and Washington
State discussions about math are similar. Much of the concern
about the failure of math education is based on comparisons
among schools that are not similar, comparing elite math and
science academies, for example, to average urban high schools.
From the standpoint of statistically meaningful data, such as
that gathered by the National Assessment of Educational Prog-
ress, Washington State is no worse off than any other state.
From the perspective of the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics, the highest priority at this time is to assure edu-
cational equity. However, there does not seem to be agreement
as to what students ought to learn. For example, there does not
appear to be international dialogue about the specific kinds of
mathematics that are most important for the emerging high-
tech economy, and there is disagreement among American and
European curriculum designers over the relative importance
of calculus compared to statistics and applied mathematics.
Within the United States, the great debate has been between
reform-based math, sometimes called constructivism, and
traditionalism. It is not necessary to choose between these
models, because there are curricula, such as Dutch Realistic

125
 Conclusions and Implications

Mathematics Education, that combine aspects of both models.

In fact, many practitioners of both constructivist and tradi-
tionalist teaching draw on the strengths of the other model:
constructivists also teach basic skills and algorithms, and tra-
ditionalists also may call upon students to explore mathemat-
ical ideas.
We have found that the key issue in improving math educa-
tion does not lie with the curriculum or with standards alone.
Many teachers in the primary grades may not teach math well
because they might not know much math themselves.The more
creative and exploratory the curriculum, the more impor-
tant it becomes for teachers to know math very well indeed.
The most effective math programs in the world, such as the
Japanese curriculum, combine traditional and constructivist
elements and are taught by teachers who spend a great deal of
time working together on lessons and talking about ways to
improve teaching. Good math teaching, in fact, appears to call
for a combination of abilities: an ideal math teacher knows
math, studies math and math teaching continually, and is also
a very good communicator. Improving math education, then,
will require teachers to work collaboratively to develop these
abilities.
What conclusions follow from these findings? We propose
four, though the first of these is highly theoretical in nature
and is less pressing.

1. Math is a dynamic discipline, and the applications of

math in emerging technologies are also dynamic. The
mathematics used in contemporary computer science,
medical imaging, and other fields is not the same
math that was critical for the industries of the 1950s.
It would be interesting for a group of technological
leaders to examine the domain of mathematics and

126
 Conclusions and Implications

recommend a list of topics that ought to be part of

a 21st century math curriculum, K–20. Even if those
recommendations were not hugely different from a
traditional math curriculum, it would be helpful for
teachers, parents, and students to have a picture of how
math applies to the full range of new careers and tech-
nological fields.
2. There is a genuine need for additional research into
how students learn math, so that the best practices of
master teachers can be documented and then turned
into some form of training. Here in Washington State,
for example, we have data on schools where students
come from very poor families. And yet the students
in those schools perform extraordinarily well on the
state achievement test. What is it about the teachers
in those schools, among other factors, that makes a
difference? Is it their formal education? Is it the way
they talk about and explain particular mathematical
ideas? Is it the way teachers study lessons together
and work to improve their presentation?
3. At the level of policy, there is a need for the state to
support the educational needs of teachers. It is not
enough to mandate standards and tests. Real and
sustained change in math education requires that
appropriate and sensitive steps be taken to help
teachers become more effective in the instruction of
math, with the understanding that the state’s teachers
have worked hard at reform and that what is proposed
are measures to make time and to provide resources
to improve upon work that is already being done with
care and integrity.

127
 Conclusions and Implications

One critical element in all of the above is support for

teachers to learn the math they need in order to teach effec-
tively. Beyond the state level, however, is the critical support
available at the district level. It is here that decisions are made
across schools about what curricula should be used, what
the particular focus in math should be for all teachers, and
what financial and time supports are available to help teachers
negotiate their craft. Professional development agenda can
be focused on fostering the learning of good approaches to
teaching math; time can be made available for collaboration
among math teachers to strengthen their understanding of
specific lessons and their overall approach to teaching the
material; peer observation and mentoring can be provided,
especially for inexperienced teachers but also for those
attempting to change their long-held approaches to teaching.
These and other supports are ensured by a district administra-
tion devoted to changing the way math is taught, along with
careful attention to how students best learn mathematics.

4. Interventions to help teachers more effectively and

appropriately instruct all students require funding. Math
teachers themselves could help choose or design the
systems that would be used to carry out a continuous
program by which they learn more math, learn more
about teaching math, examine lessons, and engage in
regular school-level conversations about enhancing
math education. Many models for improving math
education are available, but quick fixes performed by
outside experts may be less effective than the ongoing
work done by people who are engaged in continuous
study and their own improvement. As several scholars
have argued, these conversations among math teachers
may be enhanced further by including teachers from

128
 Conclusions and Implications

other systems or states with similar cultures, as well as

teachers and professors from K–20.

To reduce it to a phrase: if we want all our children to

learn math, we need our teachers to learn math more deeply
themselves, and we need forward-thinking school systems to
support them in the endeavor.

Large-Scale Reform
Addressing improvement of math education on a large scale
may look daunting, but we are not without research to give
guidance. Michael Fullan, long-time dean and now Professor
Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at
the University of Toronto, is probably the leading researcher
in the field of educational reform worldwide. Two decades ago,
Fullan’s studies of change efforts in schools led to his first
book on the subject, entitled Change Forces: Probing the Depths of
Educational Reform (Fullan 1993). He identified two major fac-
tors that are particularly relevant to our conclusions, which he
sums up as “Reculture, not Restructure” and what he terms
“Moral Purpose.” From our standpoint, attempts to restruc-
ture schools and schooling are first-order changes that do
not insure greater student engagement and achievement. We
must, in addition, “reculture” and attend to the necessary
second-order changes in individuals, in order to bring about
system-wide, sustainable improvements that lead to greater
student learning in mathematics. The issues related to moral
purpose are playing out in classrooms and schools due to the
ineffective emphasis on only two legs of the educational stool,
higher standards and accountability assessments. As Fullan
(2003) put it, “With all the emphasis on uninformed and
informed prescription over the past twenty years, one of the
casualties has been teachers’ intrinsic motivation or sense of

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 Conclusions and Implications

moral purpose” (p. 11). With continual, high-stakes pressure

to raise test scores without support for professional learning
that leads to more effective instruction, many educators
struggle to keep up with all the mandates and have trouble
maintaining satisfaction that they are doing a good job.
In Fullan’s The New Meaning of Educational Change: Third Edition
(Fullan 2001), he speaks to “the objective reality of edu-
cational change” describing what is involved in changing
teachers’ practices. Implementation of innovations in schools
is “multidimensional . . . [with] at least three components or
dimensions at stake: (1) the possible use of new or revised
materials (instructional resources such as curriculum mate-
rials or technologies), (2) the possible use of new teaching
approaches (i.e., new teaching strategies or activities), and
(3) the possible alternation of beliefs (e.g., pedagogical
assumptions and theories underlying particular new policies
or programs)” (p. 39). According to Fullan, most educa-
tional reforms are ephemeral or shallow because they have
grossly overlooked the importance of the third dimension,
the alteration of beliefs. He distinguishes between change and
the process of change with a 25/75 rule: educational change
is 25% structural (ideas) and 75% reculturing (processes).
Fullan (2008) calls for the scaling up of whole-school reform
and professional learning communities, with an emphasis
on shared meaning and more stakeholder transparency into
each other’s roles, collaboration among all groups, and school
leadership, saying that “The principal is crucial to school suc-
cess, and professional learning communities are more effec-
tive than individual professionals working in isolation” (p.
164).
Two examples of large-scale reform demonstrate the com-
plexities and lessons to be learned. As described in Education
Week (Olson 2007), leaders in Ontario, Canada, followed the
results of England’s national literacy and numeracy strategy,

130
 Conclusions and Implications

which “relied on a system of pressure and supports to

improve schools.” The strategy produced significant test-score
gains between 1997 and 2000 but was followed by a period
of leveling off. Ontario officials thought this “informed
prescription” strategy dictated too much from the center
and failed to adequately motivate teachers and principals.
Ontario’s adaptation was to staff its reform efforts by “out-
standing practitioners on loan from districts” and provide
adequate resources and opportunities for school improve-
ment and teacher learning at the local level during release time
and through professional development. “Staff members are
expected to share their knowledge and practices through net-
working with other schools across the province.” The result
has been significant improvement by low-achieving schools,
and graduation rates are up. Education officials in Ontario are
quoted as saying “We’ve been in the boat rowing together like
we’ve never rowed before” and “There’s truly an alignment of
focus and buy-in at all levels, and that’s really a driving force”
(Olson 2007).
A powerful study of mathematics reform in California was
based on contentions by “educational reformers and policy-
makers that improved student learning requires stronger aca-
demic standards, stiff state tests, and school accountability”
(Reische n.d.). In 2001, University of Michigan researchers
Cohen and Hill published the results of their extensive study
of California’s decade-long campaign to improve mathematics
teaching in the state’s public schools (Cohen and Hill 2001).
They found that “effective state reform depends on condi-
tions that most policymakers ignore: coherent guidance for
teaching and learning, and extensive opportunities for profes-
sional learning” as reported by the School of Education at the
University of Michigan (Reische n.d.). Cohen and Hill exam-
ined professional education materials and surveyed nearly
600 of the state’s elementary school teachers and found that

131
 Conclusions and Implications

the state’s policy facilitated better teaching and learning only

when there was consistency among tests, curricula, and class-
room practice, along with ongoing opportunities for teachers
to learn the practices set forth in the state’s policy. When
these elements were in place, teaching was congruent with
the aims envisioned by the policymakers, and students’ scores
were higher on the state math tests. Cohen and Hill concluded
that key to successful reform is the integration of policy and
practice, and they suggest that American education cannot
be reformed just by imposing new requirements and con-
ducting high-stakes assessment. Teachers must have the time
and opportunity to gain new knowledge and must have sup-
port for their day-to-day instruction efforts.
Scholars and policy makers referenced throughout this
book have made additional recommendations and observa-
tions about large-scale change efforts, some of which we have
discussed in earlier chapters. Many programs are available
that can serve as models for how teachers can enhance their
performance; we note in particular the recommendations of
Stigler and Hiebert on “lesson study,” and the intensive re-
learning of mathematics of the kind offered by Parker and
others through the Mathematics Education Collaborative in
Washington State.

Implications
Policy solutions continue to focus on curriculum and assess-
ment development rather than on teacher development. We
conclude from our research that more effective reform poli-
cies would move beyond re-establishment of standards, re-
alignment of curriculum, and re-development of assessment
systems, to helping teachers know more math and know
more about how to teach math effectively. Although Wash-
ington State clearly implemented new curriculum and assess-

132
 Conclusions and Implications

ments over the last 15 years, there is little evidence of support

for changes in the way the curriculum is taught or of methods
to help students learn.
New trends in math education may exacerbate the need to
elevate the support for teachers in reform efforts. Among these
trends are the following:

1. States need to be prepared for more students taking

more math classes.
2. States need to be prepared for more students taking
higher levels of math.
3. States will need to recruit, retain, and develop more
math teachers.
4. Teachers will need support to develop a deeper
knowledge of math K–12.
5. Teachers will need support to develop methods for
teaching math effectively.
6. States will need to support both pre-service, alternative
certification and in-service professional development
in systemic ways.

Many in Washington State are currently proposing new

graduation requirements that would require more math. The
existing requirement is two years of math. As obvious as it may
seem, it is important to point out that if graduation require-
ments are raised to three or even four years of math, then
more students will be taking more math as a result. This means
there will be a need for more math teachers and perhaps a
need for fewer teachers of other subject areas. This personnel
repercussion may lead many high schools to adopt different
schedule configurations or to accommodate in other ways the
new demand, which could distract from the necessary focus
on improvement of teaching and learning.
Along with requiring more math, new policy could also

133
 Conclusions and Implications

lead to higher levels of math required for graduation. If this is

the case, there will be a need not only for more math teachers
in general, but more higher-level math teachers capable of
teaching Algebra II and trigonometry, at least; and then the
need to support teacher content knowledge will be even more
critical than it is already. Increasing graduation requirements
to four years of math, as many are advocating, is likely to
require most high schools to increase their math teaching
staff by 33–50%.
Given the current shortage of math teachers, reformers
must consider how to recruit, retain, and support additional
math teachers. Where are the new teachers to be found? Most
assume they will come from the “world of work” through
alternative certification programs, rather than primarily from
undergraduate schools of education. This means reformers
will have to support not only in-service development of
teachers already in math classrooms, but also schools of edu-
cation and, particularly, alternative certification programs. If
there is no more support than is currently provided, one can
easily anticipate how alternative certification teachers would
teach math—the same way they themselves were taught some
10, 15, or 25 years ago. In such a case, teaching effectiveness
would likely not change over the next decade.
It is also important to note that support is needed for math
teachers from kindergarten through high school, not just at
high school levels. If reform goals are to get more students
learning more mathematics, then elementary teachers will
need to prepare students to take, and be successful in, higher
levels of math. This could easily lead to recommendations that
elementary math teachers be math-certificated in the future.
Finally, one of the most important implications for success-
fully improving math achievement is to provide instructional
support for teachers. Research indicates that math reform
efforts must include helping teachers change their practice.

134
 Conclusions and Implications

Because of the difficulty of changing human practice, support

for teachers would have to be clear, aggressive, and sustained
over a long period of time. Teachers across the K–12 system
would need help developing deeper knowledge of math, both
in pre-service training and on-going during their careers.
Support for teachers, schools, and districts needs to be sys-
temic. Putting standards and tests in place and assuming good
intentions among all those in charge of implementation is
not effective. Nor does leaving the focus of reform strategies
to individual schools or districts likely lead to lasting change.
Comprehensive reform strategies require that states create
momentum and develop synergy among all educators by cre-
ating a state-wide focus on teaching and learning.
In the final analysis, the solution to the math problem in
Washington State and elsewhere may rest on the very diffi-
cult work of supporting teachers one-on-one and in small
groups. A model for this kind of change might be the Wash-
ington State MSP projects, where teachers join together in
professional learning communities to support their change
in practice.
Many teachers see this kind of collaboration to improve
instruction as one of the most fundamental solutions if they
are to help all students achieve in the future. In a recent study
conducted by the WSRC (Baker, et al. 2008), more than 75%
of the teachers surveyed indicated that their greatest need was
to collaborate with their colleagues to improve instruction
and align it with state reform efforts. If the very practitioners
we are relying on to carry out reform in mathematics have
this great an expressed need, reformers might consider longer
range, more comprehensive and systemic responses than have
been evident in past programs.

135
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154
 Index

academic achievement, 4, 57–58, goals, educational, 19; interna-

113–14 tional, 28; U. S., 52–53, 97–
Advisory Committee on Math- 100; Washington state, 103–9,
ematics Education, 15 112
applied math, 19, 126–27 graduation requirements, 65–66,
assessment, 5–6, 62–66, 118–21, 111–12, 115–16, 133–34
127
Hiebert, J., 6, 26, 42, 55–57, 80,
Ball, D. L., 6, 68, 81, 84–85, 88, 95–97, 101
100 Howson, G., 36

coaching, math, 85 instruction, 5–7, 52–54, 118–22,

collaboration, 128, 131, 135; 123; Chinese, 26; improvement
international, 36; state, 104–6 of, 92–97, 100; sequence of,
constructivist math, 18, 30, 40–45, 28, 67, 74
50, 71–73; curriculum, 20, 24;
social, 23 Keitel and Kilpatrick, 37–38
content knowledge, 89–90, 92 Klein, D., 13
cultural values, 21, 55–57, 101 knowledge, mathematical, 6–7, 17,
curriculum, 18–19, 22–24, 118– 25, 47–48, 82–90, 129; peda-
21; debate over, 26–33, 67–75 gogical, 25–26, 41–44, 47–48,
92, 123–24. See also content
economics, 15, 20, 77, 102 knowledge, teacher knowledge
equity, 30, 33, 46–48; as a goal,
52, 54–57, 76, 122 literacy, 51–52, 99
ethnomathematics, 9, 24, 31–32,
38–40 Ma, L., 6, 26, 46–47, 68, 87–90,
evaluation, 33–38, 113–15, 117 93
Macnab, D., 20, 35–36
fidelity, 5, 7, 122 manipulatives, 30, 71, 74, 80
Fullan, M., 54, 129–30 Mass Insight and Education
funding, 64–66, 128–29 Research Institute, 51, 64–65

155
 Index

math. See applied math; coaching, Schoenfeld, A., 73, 76–78

math; constructivist math; socioeconomic status, 113
ethnomathematics; knowledge, spiral approach, 74
mathematical; math wars; math- standardized testing, 62–66
ematicians and math educators; standards, 58–62, 102–3; content,
performance, math; tradition- 59; process, 60; Washington
alist math state math, 110–12
math wars, 33, 75–81, 99 Stigler, J., 6, 26, 42, 55–57, 80,
mathematicians and math educators, 95–97, 101
32–33
memorization, use of, 70 teacher centered math. See tradition-
alist math
National Assessment of Educational teacher improvement, 93–97
Progress, 63–64, 115, 125 teacher knowledge, 82–97, 104–5,
National Center for Educational 123–24
Statistics, 82 teacher preparation, 93–94. See also
National Council of Teachers of training
Mathematics, 16, 18, 52–53, teacher support, 4, 5, 8, 123, 127–
58–61, 99, 125 8, 134–5
National Math Advisory Panel, teaching methods, 12, 18, 25
97–100 technology, 18–19, 40, 75, 126–7
No Child Left Behind, 50, 54–55 television, effect of, 113–14
testing. See assessment
pedagogical content, 93. See also textbooks, 22, 26–29, 33, 47, 73–
knowledge, pedagogical 75, 77–78
performance, math, 20–21, 107–9 time, 21–22
problem-solving, 23, 71–72 traditionalist math, 17, 21–24,
professional development, 8, 26, 45–47, 53; curriculum, 28–29,
83–86, 105–6, 128, 131 67–70
public opinion, 49, 51–54, 62 training, 25, 39, 83–86
transformational change, 7–10
Raimi, R., 23 Triesman, P., 30
reform, educational, 4–7, 100–101,
118–22; Washington state, Washington Assessment of Student
104–7, 129–32. See also transfor- Learning, 101–2, 118
mational change

reform-based math. See construc-

tivist math
Reys, R., 78

156
 About the Authors

Martin Abbott, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Washington

School Research Center, an independent research and data anal-
ysis center funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and
is professor of sociology at Seattle Pacific University.
Duane Baker, Ed.D., is director of research at the WSRC and presi-
dent of The BERC Group, Inc. He and his associates have done
evaluation studies across the United States and have completed
more than 10,000 classroom observations using the BERC-
developed STAR Classroom Observation Protocol.
Karen Smith, Ed.D., is a WSRC researcher and Presidential awardee
in mathematics education with broad experience as a teacher,
school administrator, and math education consultant in Oregon
and Washington.
Thomas Trzyna, Ph.D., is an educational consultant and co-author
of Towards a Global Ph.D.?, a study completed by the Center for
Innovation and Research in Graduate Education at the Univer-
sity of Washington.
All four authors are affiliated with Seattle Pacific University.