A Renaissance in Mathematics Education Reform.

Can we really carry out large-scale, high-quality professional development that will empower teachers to transform their teaching so that all students become mathematical thinkers? authors' experience with the Middle Grades Mathematics Renaissance in California provides some clues regarding the answer to this question. message rings loud and clear, resonating from the professional ranks and echoing from the pages of state and national professional documents. Mathematical power for all students! Scientific and technological literacy, communication and higher problem-solving skills are the notes that make up that rallying cry. Teachers must respond. If all students are to become mathematically powerful, all teachers of mathematics must be prepared to teach in ways that turn the vision into reality. Pockets of teachers, working project by project and inservice workshop by inservice workshop, have taken up the standard, but we're still a far cry from preparing all teachers to support all students in their quest for mathematical power. What will it take to reach these large numbers of teachers? Can we really carry out large-scale, high-quality professional development that will empower teachers to transform their teaching so that all students become mathematical thinkers? Our experience in the Middle Grades Mathematics Renaissance, a component of the California Alliance for Mathematics and Science (a State Systemic Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation), may provide some insights into these questions. Using professional development as its central strategy, the Mathematics Renaissance was designed to help middle schools respond to the rallying cries. Renaissance goal of the Renaissance is to help schools transform their mathematics programs so that all students - especially those from groups whose mathematics achievement has historically lagged - become empowered mathematically. Currently, 1,650 teachers from 420 schools participate year-round in work that focuses on professional development: discussing mathematics reform, experiencing hands-on mathematics, learning how to teach new state-of-the-art curriculum replacement units, and exploring the conditions that create opportunities for learning. Renaissance was developed in California, a state with a rich and complex environment for mathematics reform. There are more than 5,000,000 students, 230,000 teachers (140,000 of whom teach mathematics), 7,000 schools, and 1,000 districts. Average class size in middle schools is approximately 30, and per-pupil spending is $4,874, placing California 38th among the states ($1,007 below the national average). About half of California's students are from Latino, African American, or Asian American backgrounds. There are more than 100 languages spoken, and 22% of the student population has limited proficiency in English. Approximately 2.2 million children in the state live in poverty. Several critical decisions were made early on. First, a professional development strategy was chosen as the vehicle to achieve our goals, for, as the authors of the Holmes Group report suggest, The entire formal and informal curriculum of the school is filtered through the minds and hearts of classroom teachers, making the quality of school learning dependent on the quality of teachers.(1) Yet reaching all of California's teachers and students would require resources beyond the limited means of the project (approximately $1.1 million annually). And so a second decision was made. We would narrow our focus to middle school mathematics because it acts as a gateway to higher-level mathematics courses. Moreover, curriculum at this level has traditionally been a wasteland and seemed ripe for development and exploration. Third, we decided that our focus would be at the level of the school rather than at the level of the individual teacher. Working collaboratively with other faculty members can provide a support system that encourages teachers to address the school structures that promote or inhibit reform. …