Daniel J. Brahier
Department of Educational Curriculum & Instruction
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403

DECEMBER 1998

Over the past couple of months, I have been working with an urban school district in my area that is attempting to overhaul their K-12 Mathematics program.  Specifically, they began by soliciting 28 volunteers to serve as pilot teachers, implementing the National Science Foundation-funded TERC Investigations in Number, Data, and Space at grades K-5.  The teachers went through considerable inservice training at the beginning of the year, working with consultants on how to implement the TERC curricular materials in their classrooms.  As they attempt new things, I am meeting with them on a monthly basis to process their thinking, to share successes and
challenges, and to reflect on the impact of their efforts.

As is the case in most districts, there are many teachers, administrators, and parents who are skeptical of these new NSF-funded materials and fear that the pilot teachers will experience a decline in "the basics" at the expense of building problem solving skills.  In fact, other teachers have
challenged their pilot peers to show them, specifically, how their students are doing better than anyone else.  The pilot teachers are not threatened, however, as they have many journaled anecdotal episodes to share with their colleagues.  But anecdotal records don't appear to be enough, and
particularly the administrators are looking for more "hard data."  We considered tracking state proficiency test scores over time, but students only take them twice in the elementary grades, and we're not convinced that anything will "show up" in that data.  We also discussed using more standardized scores, such as an Iowa Test battery, but again, the emphasis on those tests is on skills, not problem solving, and we're not likely to
see significant effects there either.  We have almost come to the conclusion that a series of open-ended questions and a set of student interviews may be the only places where we will actually be able to detect differences in student understanding of mathematical concepts.  And, of course, to many people, if the differences don't show up on standard tests, why implement the change at all?

When the Standards were released in 1989, the public cried out for a curriculum that was consistent with NCTM's vision of school mathematics and claimed that they couldn't go out and implement the vision without specific lessons and materials.  Nearly 10 years later, the materials have been developed and made available, and those same people are saying, "Okay, the materials are out there, but prove to me that they really work!"  And if they insist that the proof lies in standardized test scores, they may never get their wish.  Perhaps they never intended to make any significant changes anyway, so many educators are simply looking for reasons to maintain the status quo.  Or, it may be that they recognize the system needs improvement but are skeptical to join an apparent bandwagon without evidence that they and their students will experience a pay-off for the time and money invested.

In the last "Musings" column, I discussed how reform movements have come and gone over the past three decades, yet the problems that students experience in school mathematics have remained essentially the same.  We certainly don't want to implement innovative curriculum and continue to produce the same results, but the question of how to measure success still appears to be elusive.

Do you believe that some type of test scores alone will be able to convince the skeptics that new curricular materials are worthwhile?  If not, what other kinds of research data need to be collected and described to persuade the public that the curriculum was successful?  More specifically, how can the pilot teachers go about convincing even their peers in the same buildings that they, too, should move forward and join the team next year?

We would like to hear from you!  Take a moment to drop an email to Daniel
Brahier at brahier@bgnet.bgsu.edu, and we will continue the discussion with your thoughts included in the next newsletter issue.