With the release of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics in 1989, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) moved to the forefront of efforts to improve mathematics education in the United States and Canada. The document marked a historically important first step by a professional organization to articulate extensive goals for teachers and policymakers in a school discipline. Since its release, the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards has provided focus, coherence, and new ideas to mathematics education.
In 1991 the NCTM, which is an international organization of teachers and others committed to excellence in mathematics teaching and learning for all students, published Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, which described the elements of effective mathematics teaching. Assessment Standards for School Mathematics, which appeared in 1995, established objectives against which assessment practices can be measured. Together, these three documents have given focus, coherence, and new ideas to efforts to improve mathematics education.
NCTM recognized that its Standards would need to be periodically examined, evaluated, and revised to remain relevant. In 1995 its Board of Directors appointed the Commission on the Future of the Standards to recommend how NCTM might proceed in updating its existing Standards documents. As a result, the Standards 2000 project was begun in 1997, with the appointment of a Writing Group to produce an updated Standards document and an Electronic Format Group to produce an electronically enhanced version of that document.
The Commission obtained input from many different sources to revise the Standards. The Writing Group consulted extensive collections of curriculum materials, state and provincial curriculum documents, research publications, policy documents, and international frameworks and curriculum materials. Association Review Groups, a set of "white papers" commissioned by NCTM's Research Advisory Committee, and conferences sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse furnished additional input.
The Writing Group finished a draft version of the new document in October 1998, and many groups and individuals reviewed the printed draft and its electronic edition on NCTM's Web site. The Writing Group substantially revised the document on the basis of the many hundreds of reactions received in response to the draft.
The resulting book, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, is a single resource that can be used to improve mathematics curricula, teaching, and assessment. Principles and Standards is also available in an electronic edition on CD-ROM and on the World Wide Web at standards.nctm.org. The electronic edition of Principles and Standards has a rich array of examples to illuminate and extend the ideas presented in the printed text. Icons in the margins of the printed text indicate relevant electronic examples.
