Fewer, Clearer, and Higher Standards? - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Fewer, Clearer, and Higher Standards?

by NCTM President Henry (Hank) Kepner
NCTM Summing Up, January 2010
Over the past year, a major standards initiative led by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has attracted nationwide attention, even beyond the education community. NCTM has worked aggressively to provide ongoing review and input into this standards development process based on our two decades of leadership in mathematics standards. While early drafts were not up to NCTM’s expectations, particularly in regard to mathematical processes and principles, NCTM is now engaged in constructive interactions to expand these new standards. As this process moves forward, NCTM and states adopting new standards will have to address issues related to assessment, professional development, and communication with our public communities.
Serving teachers is NCTM’s core mission and work, and the Council implements its mission in a variety of ways that go beyond providing professional development, producing publications, and organizing regional and annual conferences. Advocating for teachers of mathematics and mathematics education is key to our mission. It is important that NCTM take a stand on issues that affect mathematics education. It’s what we do!
As we have reported in Summing Up and other Council communications over the past year, a primary focus of the Council’s advocacy efforts recently has been to provide input to the Common Core Standards Initiative. Just as the impetus for NCTM’s 2006 publication ofCurriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8: A Quest for Coherence was to bring focus to a mathematics curriculum that lacked focus, coherence, and consistency, the goal of the current CCSSO-NGA initiative is to produce fewer, clearer, and higher standards.
Last year, I met with the leadership of the Common Core initiative. Subsequently, two groups of NCTM members had extended face-to-face meetings with the leaders and writers, offering them general direction and constructive suggestions, followed up by detailed written comments and recommendations.
The past four weeks have been exceptionally busy as the CCSSO and NGA have pressed forward to meet their goal of producing a set of standards to send to states for adoption this spring. At this writing, changes are still being made to the K–8 standards, which are scheduled to be sent to state leaders in mid-January and released for public comment this spring. I can state with certainty that our NCTM voice has been heard and that we have influenced the development of these standards for the better. NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, Curriculum Focal Points, and Focus in High School Mathematics are likely to be foundational to the Common Core Standards, and they will continue to be core resources in any implementation.
Unfortunately for the quality and potential validity of this product, the application deadlines for the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top funds hastened production of the common standards, limiting opportunities for a full, in-depth review and adequate reflection on a document that could have national impact on students and their teachers of mathematics. The department has allocated $350 million in economic stimulus money to aid consortia of states to develop common assessments in English/language arts and mathematics.
The CCSSO-NGA initiative’s writing team is also producing core standards for grades 9–12. At this writing, these have not been offered for review or comment. Although the 9–12 standards are scheduled for release at the same time as the K–8 standards, little is known about the document’s form or its detailed statements regarding the core mathematics for all students at grades 9–12. At this time, I can only anticipate that it will be closely aligned with the College- and Career-Readiness Standards released in September 2009. However, I am anxious that there be a clear delineation of core mathematics expectations intended for all students as distinguished from substantive mathematics recommended for students who may be pursuing various sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college programs. This distinction is particularly important for teachers of mathematics responsible for the mathematics teaching and learning of all of their students.
NCTM is a leader in mathematics education and a voice for teachers of mathematics, and we will continue to actively identify issues and areas of concern with the Common Core Standards and related materials for our members and state leadership teams. As each state considers the Common Core Standards and works to include them in its own standards, there will be key issues to examine. In addition, there will be a need to clarify and interpret the Common Core Standards as each state begins work on assessment, curriculum development, and instructional support.
NCTM is prepared to provide a forum for debate, discussion, and clarification of the Common Core documents and implications for students and teachers. At this time, issues that the Council expects to address as a result of the Common Core Standards include the following:

The “Mathematical Practice” component from the College- and Career-Readiness document must be included and strongly represented in the grade-level concept and skill descriptions in the K–12 Common Core Standards. These Practices which includes problem solving through experiences in sense making and reasoning are critical to students’ mathematical expectations and competencies.

Mathematical connections and multiple representations of mathematical concepts must be clearly and explicitly linked so that they are not isolated but are integral to student learning and subsequent assessment.

Consistency and alignment of identified concepts and skills must be established across the grades. Otherwise, there may be serious misinterpretations and a lack of coherence in implementations across states and districts. Professional conversations around interpretations, implementation, and coherence must continue after the release of any document.

Learning progressions and prerequisite learning experiences should be explicitly identified. These progressions need to be made public concurrently with the standards, calling for conceptual and procedural competence of a major topic at a specific grade level.
The ultimate effectiveness of the Common Core Standards will depend in part on how these issues are addressed. Beyond that, there is the question of what the states will do when the Standards are completed and formally released to the 48 states that signed on. (Only Alaska and Texas have not signed on.) When this project began, the states agreed in concept to implement the standards when they were developed. Whether the original plan is affirmed remains an open question and will depend on the final quality of the document and the input of state leaders in mathematics education.
If the Common Core Standards are adopted in specific locations and adapted in others, we must be prepared for the mathematical, curricular, instructional, and assessment debates and clarifications that will necessarily occur as the standards are interpreted and implemented with variations. If we do not prepare for this continuing dialogue, the result might be confusion that could sabotage the goals and intent of this initiative.
Finally, regardless of what is finally produced, there will be implications for the NCTM membership. Adoption of these new standards could influence future professional development for teachers, publications, and conferences—all essential components of the NCTM mission. In addition, for states implementing these standards, the most significant next steps will include the development of related assessments. Discussions are underway to determine what role NCTM can play to influence the development of such related assessments.