:: Conference Context

October 4, 2007 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Sputnik launch that led immediately to deep concern about the quality of U. S. mathematics education and recommendations for reform. Not surprisingly, reactions to Sputnik focused on the importance of mathematics education to national defense and on the need to prepare our most capable high school students for careers in mathematics, science, and engineering. By the time of the 1983 Nation at Risk and Educating Americans for the 21st Century reports, the rationale for reform of mathematics education had changed to focus on its importance for international economic competitiveness—a concern that has persisted to the present day.

At each critical juncture, mathematics education researchers and curriculum developers have responded to concerns by exploring new approaches to teaching and by preparing curriculum and assessment materials that reflect changing content objectives and priorities. Leaders of school mathematics programs have then faced the challenge of choosing among competing proposals for change and of implementing new curriculum frameworks, teaching strategies, and tests.

For example, in response to publication of the 1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, the 1991 Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, and the 1995 Assessment Standards for School Mathematics, five major NSF-funded curriculum projects and several other projects funded by private foundation grants developed and field-tested materials to support high school mathematics instruction that reflects the recommendations of those advisory documents. At the same time, innovative curriculum projects focused on middle school mathematics developed materials that provide students with enhanced preparation for success in high school mathematics. Activities at the collegiate level—like the MAA Curriculum Foundations project, the MAA CUPM Curriculum Guide, the various calculus reform curriculum materials projects, and the AMATYC Crossroads recommendations—encouraged reconsideration of the mathematics curriculum content and teaching that students experience when they leave high school.

In the past eight years, concern about the condition of high school mathematics has been expressed with renewed urgency in reports from the Glenn Commission (Before It’s Too Late), the National Commission on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century (Rising Above the Gathering Storm), the American Diploma Project, the College Board Mathematics and Statistics Advisory Committee, the American Statistical Association GAISE project, the President’s National Mathematics Panel, the NCTM High School Mathematics Curriculum Project, and the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education. Concurrent with those spirited national discussions about the future of school and collegiate mathematics, the most widely used innovative curricula at the high school level have completed major revisions of their programs, to reflect learning from use of first edition student and teacher materials. Those revised curriculum materials are complemented by emergence of other new approaches to high school mathematics whose development is also funded by NSF.

Once again, teachers and leaders of school mathematics programs face the challenge of choosing among competing proposals for curriculum content, teaching approach, and assessment strategies and the challenge of effectively implementing change.