SPECIAL SECTION MATH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION Spheres of Influence: Supporting Mathematics Education Reform

As instructional leaders of their schools, principals can contribute to efforts to improve mathematics education in three important ways: by becoming knowledgeable about the goals and strategies of mathematics education reform, by guiding and supporting school improvement efforts, and by involving parents and community members. The message for mathematics education has been strong and clear for more than a decade now: U.S. students are not the mathematical thinkers and problem solvers they should be. National and international assessments of students ’ mathematics achievement yield the same distressing results: U.S. students fail to demonstrate the depth of knowledge, ability to reason and problem solve, and skill mastery that are expected of mathe-matically proficient students (Dossey, Mullis, and Jones 1993; Schmidt, McKnight, and Raizen 1997; Silver 1998). Examination of educational practices in the United States and other countries suggests that the source of this failure resides primarily in chroni-cally low expectations for students and in approaches to curriculum and instruction that fail to yield active and independent mathematical thinkers (Learning First Alliance, LFA, 1998; Stevenson and Stigler 1993; Stigler and Hiebert 1999). The typical mathematics curriculum is described as “a mile wide and an inch deep. ” Teachers spend significant instructional time each year reviewing and reteaching topics from previous years. By eighth grade, students are studying topics that students in other countries study as sevent