The purpose of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework is to provide a guide to individual New Jersey districts and individual New Jersey teachers that will help them translate a vision of exemplary mathematics education into reality. It is anticipated also that the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework will serve as a model for other states.
The New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework intends to help educators base their district's mathematics curriculum on the recommendations of the proposed New Jersey Mathematics Standards. It provides information and guidance on the major issues that need to be addressed, on the process of systemic change, and on the inter-related areas of content, instruction, and assessment.
This is the Preliminary Version of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework. It is being circulated throughout New Jersey in the early months of 1995 for review and discussion. We are eager to hear your reactions, both to the entire document and to its individual sections. Please remember that, despite its size and appearance, this is still a draft -- and is bound to have some errors, inconsistencies, omissions, oddities, and anomalies; please let us know about them. Based on your comments, a revised version will be prepared later in the year. Please share your comments with us, using the enclosed form.
We may think of a framework as an instrument to help us determine which route to use, how to structure our efforts, in order to achieve our goal. A useful metaphor is that of a skeletal structure. The framework is not a completed building. It is, however, the scaffolding that provides initial support, definition, and direction to our efforts to achieve our goal.
The New Jersey Mathematics Standards is intended to describe our goals; the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework is intended to help us achieve those goals. It is intended to provide policy-makers, instructional leaders, teachers, and community members with the support, definition, and direction necessary to re-envision and reconstruct mathematics education here in New Jersey and across the United States. The New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework is not a finished product -- it is not a curriculum; it does however provide the support necessary for educators who wish to generate and implement a new vision for how mathematics can be taught and learned in their schools.
At the same time, our attention to "all students" must not diminish our dedication to providing full encouragement and opportunity to explore mathematics in greater breadth and depth to those students who have interest or talent in pursuing careers which require additional mathematical achievement.
The 1993 report to the National Education Goals Panel entitled Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for American Students recommended and announced the development of national standards documents in seven other content areas; standards documents in social studies, arts, geography, and history have been completed, and draft versions of standards documents in other content areas, including science, are currently being circulated and reviewed.
A basic theme of both the Goals 2000 legislation (March 1994) and the Improving America's Schools Act (October 1994) is the importance of developing high standards of learning for all students, with state standards building on national standards; incentives are provided for states and local school districts to engage in comprehensive, systemic change based on these standards.
The draft version of the New Jersey Mathematics Standards has already been reviewed extensively(1). Over 7000 copies were distributed in the fall of 1993, comments and suggestions have been received from 294 individuals, and the process of revising the standards and elaborating them into a curriculum framework has been continuing for eighteen months.
The response to the draft version of the New Jersey Mathematics Standards has been very positive; indeed, many districts are already using the vision and the standards described in the draft version of the New Jersey Mathematics Standards to revise their mathematics curricula. In writing the Preliminary Version of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework, consideration was given to all the comments and suggestions that were received, and appropriate changes were incorporated into the version of the standards that appears here.
After receiving comments and suggestions about the Preliminary Version of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework from the New Jersey education community and from nationally recognized experts on mathematics and mathematics education, we will develop a new "final" version of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework later in the year. This version will be distributed with a disk so that districts may easily develop and distribute portions of the document which are suitable for various groups.
Viewing the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework as a database ensures that even the "final" version of the document will be organic. As teachers and districts strive to implement the standards, their activities and experiences can be recorded in future versions of the document, so that all may benefit from them.
| Section A: | The New Jersey Mathematics Standards -- Chapter 1 |
| Section B: | Planning for Change -- Chapter 2 |
| Section C: | Implementing the Learning Environment Standards -- Chapters 3 to 6 |
| Section D: | Implementing the Process and Content Standards -- Chapters 7 to 18 |
Section B: Preparing for Change focuses on the process of bringing about change. All of the recommendations in the proposed New Jersey Mathematics Standards involve significant changes in how mathematics will be taught and learned. System-wide changes involve decisions and actions at all levels: at the district level, at the school level, at the department level, and in the classroom. This chapter discusses how change takes place, both in general and in the specific contexts of professional development for school personnel and aligning school and district policies with mathematics education reform. Chapter 2 will help you understand the change process and function as a "change agent."
Section C: Implementing the Learning Environment Standards addresses in four individual chapters the first four standards, referred to as "learning environment standards" which discuss concerns about equity and excellence, keys to student success (including instructional issues), the effective integration of technology, and the linking of assessment to learning and instruction. These chapters raise the important questions in each of these areas, discuss current research, and provide specific descriptions of exemplary practices, information about available resources, general guidance, and specific recommendations.
Section D: Implementing the Process and Content Standards addresses first the next four standards, referred to as "process standards", and then, in individual chapters, each of the final ten standards, referred to as "content standards". Chapter 7 discusses the processes of problem-solving, reasoning, communication, and connections that should be pervasive in the mathematics classroom; among the "connections" discussed are the connections between mathematics and science. Chapter 8 serves as an introduction to the succeeding chapters and includes overviews of each of the ten content standards and how they may be implemented in K-12 classrooms. Each of Chapters 9 to 18 begins with a K-12 overview of the corresponding standard, and continues with grade-level discussions for each of the K-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-12 grade levels; these grade-level discussions include grade-level overviews of the content standard followed by sample activities -- about 1500 altogether -- for achieving the expectations enumerated in the New Jersey Mathematics Standards at those grade levels.
Each chapter of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework can serve as a basis for extended discussions involving teachers and administrators, and readers are encouraged to form groups in their schools and districts for this purpose.
The New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework addresses two audiences. First, it speaks to school and district personnel who intend to implement the standards comprehensively and systemically, by bringing about change in all of their classrooms. Second, it addresses teachers who are interested in implementing the standards in their own classrooms. How each of these groups might use this document is discussed in the next two sections.
But what changes should be made? From the outset it must be acknowledged that "implementing the standards" cannot happen overnight, that there is no "magic bullet," that there is no one action which will transform all of our classrooms, all of our teachers, all of administrators, and all of our students, so that they all manifest the vision. Bringing about change involves a long process, with many inter-related components. Each district must choose specific areas with which to begin its efforts.
We suggest that, in addition to Section B, Planning for Change, you also peruse the various chapters in Section C, Implementing the Learning Environment Standards and in Section D, Implementing the Process and Content Standards; the collection of K-12 overviews in Chapter 8 will provide a valuable guide to curriculum reform. Try to reach a tentative agreement on which specific areas in these sections should be the focus of your attention. Those chapters can then be the subject of intensive review and discussion, and subsequently the focus of efforts to improve the mathematics curriculum.
However, it should be noted that the success of such efforts will depend on whether sufficient attention was devoted to the issues raised in Section B, Planning for Change. Thus, for example, decisions about where to focus a school's attention should involve all those within the school who will be involved with implementing those decisions.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1991). Professional Standards for Teachers of Mathematics. Reston, VA.
National Education Goals Panel. (1993). Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for American Students. Washington, DC.
New Jersey Mathematics Standards, draft, 1993.