Florida's New Math Standards Based on Finland's and Singapore's

October 4, 2007

Florida officials are counting on new benchmarks to boost students' mathematics performance. They even hope the overhaul, which takes effect next year, will make mathematics accessible, perhaps even interesting, to all students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The new standards are designed to improve the state's poor math performance and prepare graduates for high-tech workplaces. At present, more than half of Florida's high-school graduates who enroll in Florida community colleges must take remedial math courses.

The State Board of Education did away with old math standards that critics had labeled a "hodgepodge" of vague topics, and replaced them with standards that encourage hands-on exploration and discovery. The new standards are based on highly-regarded curricula from other U.S. states and particularly from Finland and Singapore — two countries widely considered to be leaders in mathematics education.

In a news report in the Orlando Sentinel, Mary Jane Tappen, executive director of the Office for Mathematics and Science at the Education Department, called the change "a great step forward." Tappen stressed that, as part of the change, teachers would undergo retraining, textbooks would be rewritten, and the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test's math sections would be revised and ready to go in 2010-11.

Florida worked with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and others on standards that would help students understand a few "big ideas." To that end, the number of benchmarks, which guide what teachers teach, has been slashed for elementary and middle school. The second-grade benchmarks, for example, were made more specific and reduced from 84 to 21. One benchmark calls for students to "use geometric models to demonstrate the relationships between wholes and their parts as a foundation for fractions." Fractions are introduced in third grade. Overall, the new standards focus on specific areas in algebra, geometry, and calculus.

Source: Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 19, 2007.