From the New Math and “Alphabet” Science of the1960s to the Standards-based Math and Science for All ofthe current day reforms, controversy and public opinionhave raged about school math and science in America.The pledge to make 21st century U. S. students first in theworld in mathematics by the first President Bush is stillfar from being accomplished by the current PresidentBush’s No Child Left Behind initiative. More money,higher standards, and constant high-stakes testing havehad some effect, but American students’ math and sci-ence achievement remains far below that of most coun-tries. The gap in achievement between white students andstudents of color, while narrowing slightly over the pasttwo decades, remains an unsolved problem. The reasonsfor America’s slow progress in improving school math-ematics and science are complex. Ours is a unique systemin which more than 15,000 independent school districtshave direct responsibility for day-to-day instruction. Pol-icy decisions on math and science curriculum, teaching,and testing at the national, state, and local level are oftendriven by a mix of myths and opinions. Research findingson teaching and learning mathematics and science areoften criticized and seldom implemented. In looking for-ward to the coming year and beyond, what can we drawfrom nearly 50 years of experience in teaching, research,and policy-making in mathematics and science educationthat can point directions for the future?

One of the long-term outcomes of the initiatives of the1960s was to build human capacity. Although it may nothave been the direct intent of those programs, many ofthe current senior leaders in mathematics and science ed-ucation received their early training through them. Therecruitment and development of human capital continuesto be critical today. Programs funded by NSF and otheragencies have begun to have this primary objective.Some important current issues in this arena include at-tention to diversity both in the people involved and in theresearch paradigms in which they are trained. A balanceis needed in qualitative, theory development methods andquantitative, hypothesis testing designs.

The government-funded curriculum development ef-forts over the years have provided test beds for determin-ing what is possible for students to learn in mathematicsand science. Without them and at the mercy of the mar-ketplace of commercial publishers, the curriculum andtextbooks have devolved at various times during the past

into Back to Basics math and vocabulary-laden sciencematerials. Thanks to these projects, today’s mathematicscurriculum includes topics such as data analysis, graphicrepresentation, coordinate geometry, and functions. Inscience, students learn inquiry strategies, atomic struc-tures, and environmental science. The importance ofstandards and aligning curriculum, instruction, and as-sessment is a notable accomplishment of the last twodecades. On the other hand, the mathematics and sciencecurriculum has become overburdened with too many top-ics being addressed without appropriate depth. Carefulstudy and analysis is needed to decide the right balanceof depth and coverage across the grades.

Perhaps the most notable advance in our knowledgeduring the past 50 years has been how students learnmathematics and science. While still in its infancy, thisarea of research has expanded exponentially. Many ofthe early curriculum projects attempted to compress themathematics curriculum so that student studied advancedtopics in early grades, with the intent of completing cal-culus and beyond by the end of high school. Our currentknowledge of cognitive development helps to make morerational decisions about curriculum scope and sequence.On the other hand, current public expectations aboutwhat students can learn in math and science sometimesseem to be based on perceptions of ability and social-economic circumstance, rather than on research evi-dence.

Finally, the emergence of testing is a landmark of re-cent math and science education. Both inside and outsidethe classroom, Americans have come to rely on testing asthe primary tool for making instructional and policy de-cisions. Formative evaluation for “mastery learning” hasevolved to nearly daily test-taking practice in classroomsthroughout the country. Early forays into “minimal com-petency” testing by one or two states have developed intoa situation in which high-stakes tests are used in nearlyevery state to make schools and teachers accountable tomandated standards. Math testing has been the first andmost abused subject area but science testing is being im-plemented in several states. The amount of available in-structional time devoted to testing continues to increase.While it may be too early to appraise the overall impactof this obsession with accountability testing, mathematicsand science educators should take responsibility to pro-vide objective study and research on its effects.

SSM JOURNALeditorial Gerald Kulm, Texas A&M University

368 Volume 107 (1)

Learning from the History of Mathematics and Science Education