For more than three decades, Harry Tunis was the steady hand on the tiller steering the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) publications department unswervingly toward excellence.
In 1975 Tunis joined NCTM as managing editor of
Mathematics Teacher
, the Council's journal for high school teachers. He later added the duties of director of research services and managing editor of the elementary school journal,
Arithmetic Teacher.
For 18 years, from 1989 until his retirement in 2007, Tunis served as the Council's director of publications. Teaching first in private school and then public school and university, Tunis went on to teach mathematics to thousands of students through NCTM's publications.
During his 32 years with the Council, Tunis consistently elevated NCTM's reputation as a source of high-quality mathematics education publications. Under his stewardship, many changes took place in the publications program. Tunis was one of the founders of
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School,
NCTM's journal dedicated to mathematics education in the middle grades, and when
Arithmetic Teacher
was retired, he smoothed the transition to
Teaching Children Mathematics,
devoted to mathematics in the elementary grades. He established the Council's Web presence in the mid 1990s, and later steered NCTM into the realm of electronic publication with ON-Math and companion CDs for books, giving readers access to multi-format teaching resources. Tunis oversaw the publication of NCTM's cornerstone documents,
Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics
and
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics,
and their spinoffs, the Addenda Series and the Navigations Series. At the end of his career, Tunis shepherded
Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence
through the publication process.