NACOME: Implications for Curriculum Design

The authors of the Nacome report are to be thanked for undertaking a massive task and congratulated for having done a comprehensive, conscientious, and fair survey of the recent educational movements in school mathematics. Though it does seem inclined toward defending the new math, the report has tried to do so with arguments that, if not acceptable to all, have some force and that perhaps, in a field such as education ahout which we all know so little, may be faultless. Moreover, it does not balk at leveling criticisms where it feels justified in doing so. The report not only describes what has happened but indicates the problems ahead now that we realize the promised millenium has not arrived. Its objectivity is in marked contrast to many of the one-sided reports that appeared in the 1960s.