Does the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Ever Endorse Commercial Textbooks or other Curricular Materials?
In answering questions
following a talk given on January 29, 2004, Johnny Lott, who was President of
NCTM at the time, stated:
One thing that some do not
realize is that the organization does not and has not supported commercial
products. NCTM does not give a Seal of Approval to curricular materials.
The entire transcript was
then posted on the NCTM web site at
http://www.nctm.org/news/chat_012904.htm,
where it remained until at least February of 2006, but some time in the next few months was removed. (As of
October 1, 2008 it can be found at
http://web.archive.org/web/20060116012035/http://www.nctm.org/news/chat_012904.htm.
Mr. Lott’s statement
concerning the approval of commercial products was incomplete or
incorrect. Probably he meant that NCTM
has only a principled objection to such endorsement of curricular
materials, but had forgotten that there was an occasion when NCTM found it
convenient to bend that principle
In 1999 the NCTM had in fact
endorsed and given its figurative seal of approval to ten books or programs for
school mathematics which were controversial at that time. The U.S. Department of Education had just
published a list of five school math textbooks they called “exemplary” and five
more they called “promising”, all of them commercial textbooks or programs
being sold on the public market though some of them had been composed with the
assistance of federal funds from National Science Foundation grants.
The "exemplary"
programs were:
College Preparatory Mathematics (CPM);
Connected Mathematics Program (CMP);
Core‑Plus Mathematics Project;
Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP).
The "promising"
programs were:
Everyday Mathematics;
MathLand;
Middle‑school Mathematics through Applications
Project (MMAP);
Number Power;
The
University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP).
This list was announced in
October of 1999 by the United States Department of Education, mailed out to
all15,000 school districts in the United States, and
placed on a Department of Education web site, http://www.enc.org/ed/exemplary. This site, along with the entire “Eisenhower
network”, is no longer in existence, and indeed the U.S. endorsement of the ten
programs was removed from the DOE website by the Secretary of Education who
succeeded Richard Riley, by the end of 2001, but the endorsement page can still
be found archived at
http://web.archive.org/web/20030219100624/www.enc.org/professional/federalresources/exemplary.
The Department of Education
never revoked it, and most of the programs are still in existence and making
use of their forever favored status in their sales efforts.
The
endorsement did not go unanswered. On
November 18, 1999, just a few weeks after its publication, an open letter to
Mr. Riley was published as an advertisement in The Washington Post, protesting
the publication of government endorsement of these commercial textbooks and
programs. That letter, giving reasons for doubting that the
programs in question deserved special commendation, or commendation at all,
requested that Secretary Riley withdraw the entire list for further
consideration and announce that withdrawal to the public. The letter was
signed by a number of prominent mathematicians and scientists, leading a list
of about 140 signatories in all.
At this, the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) entered the controversy as a
figurative friend of the court, with a public letter from its Executive
Director, John Thorpe, to Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Thorpe’s letter
is quoted below in its entirety, with italicization and emphasis supplied by me
to indicate the parts I take to be a seal of approval of the ten programs by
the NCTM:
==================================================================
November
30, 1999
Secretary
Richard W. Riley
United
States Secretary of Education
400
Maryland Avenue Washington, DC 20202
Dear
Mr. Secretary:
In
light of the recent paid advertisement in the Washington Post requesting that
you withdraw the list of exemplary and promising mathematics programs, the
Board of Directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics wishes to
inform you of their unconditional support for the work of the Expert Panel, the
criteria used by the Panel, the process employed by the Panel, and the quality
and appropriateness of their final recommendations.
We are
deeply disappointed that so many eminent and well-intentioned mathematicians
and scientists have chosen to attack the work of the Panel. We note, however,
that the advertisement represents the opinion of a small, but vocal, minority
of mathematicians and scientists, many of whom have little direct knowledge of the elementary and secondary school mathematics
curriculum nor how to make it responsive to the needs of all students.
Unfortunately,
while NCTM is working diligently and successfully to engage mathematicians and
mathematics teachers at all levels in the process of setting high standards for
school mathematics, the authors of the Post advertisement seem determined
unilaterally to undermine the programs that the Expert Panel has found to be
exemplary and promising. We believe
that the Panel took a hard look at quality, alignment with sound standards, and
most importantly, how the various programs affect student learning. The ten programs recommended by the Expert
Panel have already had a positive influence on thousands of young people. Thanks to work of the Panel, these programs
can be expected to have an equally positive impact on millions of young people
in the coming years. For
reasons that we do not understand, this fact appears to seriously bother many
of the individuals who allowed their names to be associated with the Post ad.
Mr.
Secretary, NCTM's Board of Directors believes that the Department has performed
a great service by providing this list of programs. We thank you and your colleagues for
supporting the work of the Expert Panel and look forward to continuing to work
with you on behalf of the mathematics education of our nation's youth.
Sincerely,
John A.
Thorpe,
Executive
Director
==================================================================
Well, then, let me repeat the words of Johnny Lott. In answering questions following a talk given on January 29, 2004, Johnny Lott, President of NCTM, stated:
One thing that some do not realize is that the organization does not and has not supported commercial products. NCTM does not give a Seal of Approval to curricular materials.
24 February 2006
(Revised 1 October 2008)