The National Math Standards Movement

In Brief

The CCSSO’s July 16, 2009 draft of College and Career Readiness Standards for Mathematics is fewer, clearer, and more concise that most existing sets of state content standards or the NCTM’s Principles and Standards. Writing a set of standards with these goals in mind has not addressed issues relevant to improving schools and American society; although these standards will receive high marks in terms of statistical measurability and meeting current economic demand, they score low against the criteria of prizing diversity, professional innovation, and 21^st century needs.

This isn’t a question of “who developed them” but of focus. The CCSSO chose to focus on content standards instead of “process standards”, which combined with their ostensible desire to develop standards that are easily measurable, has resulted in a set of “explanatory problems” that are procedurally focused and lacking connections within and outside of mathematics.

If the primary evaluative criteria are educational and developmental then this set of standards should be completely scrapped. The NCTM has already written a set of process standards that will prepare our students to responsibly lead American society through the 21^st century.

The Mockery of Revised Standards

Anyone who thinks developing a set of fewer, clearer, and more concise national math standards (in comparison to existing state standards or the NCTM’s Principles and Standards??) would be troublesome, fear not; the CCSSO has done just that with their July 16, 2009 draft of College and Career Readiness Standards for Mathematics.

Making a set relatively fewer is probably the easiest task because a small group (like the one that wrote these standards, composed of Achieve, the College Board, and ACT…notice the exclusion of the NCTM or NEA) focused on statistic validity and reliability and current market forces simply has to identify which standards hold little economic utility or are difficult to measure quantitatively and then toss those out of the existing set.

Clearer and concise standards aren’t difficult to write either, simply get rid of any profession-specific language in existing sets and restrict any latitude of interpretation, which will likely reduce innovation in the educational experiences of our diverse student population.

Fewer, clearer, and concise is easy. Achieving that goal while writing standards that encourage innovation in teaching, celebrate the diversity of the American experience, and maintain the creativity of the education profession is another story (and one that has already been captured within the NCTM’s process standards and principles).

Areas of Concern

If you believe as I do that diversity and innovation are two of the driving forces in our search for responsible solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s problems then a set of national content standards effectively hinders progress. This isn’t a matter of finding consensus among stakeholders or including (or excluding) certain parties. Anointing a set of content standards as national, no matter the process, should result in a more uniform knowledge base across America. This uniform knowledge base will help those primarily concerned with testing, measurement, and comparison among states; however, it should also reduce variations in individual and local perspectives to the detriment of improving society.

The shining star of NCTM’s Standards and Principles are its Process Standards (problem-solving, communication, reasoning and proof, connections, and representations), which the CCSSO calls Mathematical Practices (precision, reasoning, perseverance and sense-making, structure, finding patterns, technology use). Unlike the CCSSO’s document, which gives a paltry two pages to these “practices”, the NCTM devotes a substantial portion of its document to explaining what the “process” standards are and how to develop these capacities in our students. As economic and political winds change the knowledge and skills a citizenry needs should change as well, and in today’s world the forecast is anything but calm. Instead of focusing on content standards, students need to develop process standards, which in essence describe mathematical habits of mind.

Process standards are not as easy to measure on mass scales as content standards, which may be why the CCSSO didn’t stress them; however, teachers focused on the development of processes are much more likely to choose complex and engaging tasks for students in order to hone these mathematical habits of mind. Expecting all American students to have the same knowledge base is extremely short sighted and counterproductive; expecting our students to possess mathematical habits of mind that will allow them to adapt to changing winds is laudable. Obviously, content and skills provide a basis from which these processes will spring, but an educational lens (not a statistical or economic one though) would have a balanced focus on content, richness and complexity of the task, and its authenticity with respect to similar problems in real life.

To their credit, the CCSSO has included “explanatory problems” in their standards; however, these problems elucidate the kinds of thinking ostensibly valued by this group: typical 20^th century content standards. In staying true to their focus on statistics and measurability these problems are procedurally focused, lack connections to other strands of mathematical knowledge, and are typically written in a contrived context lacking the complexity and richness of authentic real life challenges.