Finding Common Ground in K-12 Mathematics Education

The MAA hopes to help encourage and facilitate constructive discourse between mathematicians and mathematics educators in order to seek common ground in their mutual efforts to improve K-12 mathematics teaching and learning. The success of two pilot meetings (one at NSF in December 2004 and a second at the MAA offices in June 2005) with two mathematicians (R. James Milgram and Wilfried Schmid), three mathematics educators (Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Joan Ferrini-Mundy and Jeremy Kilpatrick) and a moderator from the business community (Richard Schaar) demonstrated that such common ground does exist among individuals who are thought to be strongly aligned with different sides in what has come to be known as the ‘Math Wars.’ 

Other groups have met with similar intentions of focusing serious effort on what is essential in the K-12 mathematics curriculum and how best to achieve some level of consensus between various constituencies. We expect further articles and reports will become available that help the mathematical community participate more effectively in guiding our schools towards providing students with the skills they need to succeed, both in higher education and the workplace.

This site will serve as a repository for documents resulting from these efforts.

Common Ground Report, June 2005

Reaching for Common Ground  Report (HTML)

Reaching for Common Ground Report  (PDF)

A response to the Common Ground report appeared in the January 2005 issue of FOCUS. Here is the article, with a response from Richard Schaar.

K-12 Mathematics Education: How Much Common Ground Is There?

Mathematics Standards Study Group, September 2005 (based on meetings in Park City in 2004 and 2005)

What is Important in School Mathematics

On March 2-5, a meeting of approximately 50 people was held at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis to participate in focused discussions on flash point issues in K-12 mathematics education. The discussions were meant to give participants a chance to share their own perspectives, and explore other perspectives, in an environment that encouraged reflection and analysis. Five groups were formed to address particular topics. The reports resulting from these discussions are not polished, formal documents, but rather are thought experiments; a point of departure for future discussions, based on roughly two days of concentrated dialog. We present them here in the hopes that they will lead others to think carefully and more broadly about their own views on these issues.

Reports from IUPUI Common Ground Conference

An article by Hyman Bass, past president of the American Mathematical Society, appeared in the October 2005 issue of the Bulletin of the AMS

Mathematics, mathematicians, and mathematics education