NCTM and National Standards

NCTM on Standards: Don't Forget About Us!

As state leaders and school chiefs from 46 states press ahead with plans for common standards, an organization that has held major sway on how math is taught in this country is asking for a seat at the table.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which has 100,000 members, this week released “Guiding Principles for Mathematics Curriculum and Assessments.” It's basically a statement describing the organization’s extensive work on standards, and more importantly, its beliefs about the core content and ideas that should guide math teaching. NCTM released voluntary national standards in 1989 and a revised version of them in 2000. For two decades, those documents have shaped how math is taught in classrooms from coast to coast, from elementary through high school.