July 2001, Vol. 32, Issue 4
Where's the Evidence?
Jeremy Kilpatrick
During the last
half century, school mathematics in North America has undergone two major
waves of attempted reform: the new math movement of the 1950s through the early 1970s and the
standards-based movement of the past two decades or so. Although differing
sharply in their approach to curriculum content, these reform efforts have
shared the aim of making mathematics learning more substantial and engaging
for students. The rhetoric surrounding the more recent movement, however, has
been much more shrill, the policy differences more sharply drawn, the participants more diverse. The
so-called math wars of the 1960s (DeMott, 1962, ch. 9) were largely civil
wars. They pitted advocates of rigor and axiomatics against those promoting applied, genetic
approaches and were conducted primarily in journal articles and at
professional meetings. Today's warfare ranges outside the profession
and has a more strident tone; it is much less civil in both senses of the
word.