Expansion (1945 - 1965)
Commission on Mathematics
The concern in the mid-1950s about the lack of academic rigor in the secondary schools led many mathematics educators and mathematicians to see a crisis in mathematics education. To further compound this crisis, the modern mathematics explored in the twentieth century had not yet made its way into the secondary curriculum, as many mathematics educators and mathematicians noted.
Two educational committees instigated the revision of the mathematics curriculum. The School and College Study of Admission with Advanced Standing of 1952 made recommendations and devised course descriptions that stirred interest in revision of the mathematics curriculum. In 1954 the College Board's Committee of Examiners of Mathematics suggested that the Board investigate the mathematics curriculum, especially given the development of mathematics in the twentieth century.
The College Board appointed the Commission on Mathematics in 1955. The Commission included representatives from secondary and higher education and mathematicians and mathematics educators.
The Commission on Mathematics worked independently of the College Board once it was formed. The Commission was to function without regard for the College Board's Achievement tests in mathematics. In this way, the Commission and the College Board recognized that mathematics testing could not be revised until the mathematics curriculum was modernized.
The Commission on Mathematics offered suggestions for improving the secondary school mathematics curriculum. The Commission agreed on four guiding principles to its work.
- The revision in mathematics education involved the elimination of some topics and the addition of other topics.
- The important consideration in deleting or adding a topic was its relevance to modern mathematics, social and natural science, and engineering.
- Cooperation with all groups interested in secondary mathematics education was essential to the work of the Commission.
- The Commission would aim to formulate a broad list of topics for secondary mathematics education and to suggest where and how they might be introduced, rather than developing a single syllabus.
The major work of the Commission on Mathematics was its numerous publications that detailed the modernization of the secondary school mathematics curriculum. Some publications were specifically mathematical in orientation, such as mathematical aids for teachers; others engaged administrators and teachers on the need for the revision of the mathematics curriculum. The College Board printed and distributed the Commission's numerous publications with the assistance of grants totaling $175,000, solicited primarily from the Carnegie Corporation.
In 1957, three pamphlets detailed the modern mathematics and its place in the secondary school curriculum, the education of secondary school mathematics teachers, and the mathematics taught in 7th and 8th grade.
Four pamphlets were published in 1958. The Commission on Mathematics and its Work detailed the origins, character, objectives, and procedures of the Commission on Mathematics. Modernizing the Mathematics Curriculum discussed how a school system may effect revision of the mathematics curriculum. A mathematics treatment of sets, relations, and functions and a pamphlet on algebra were the topics of the two other pamphlets that year.
The Commission on Mathematics issued two major publications.
- Introductory Probability and Statistical Inference (1959) was a combined student text and teacher's guide on statistical theory and the use of statistics by social scientists.
- Program for College Preparatory Mathematics (1959) was the Commission's final report. The final report argued that the nation needed more mathematically literate people. According to the report, educating a mathematically literate people required a substantial revision in the secondary mathematics curriculum and in the teaching methods used. The Commission recommended that a nine-point program for college-bound students be adopted. This nine-point program outlined the mathematical concepts and skills that college-bound students should learn in secondary schools.
