Implementing Standards: The California Mathematics Textbook Debacle

The California mathematics textbook adoptions lead Mr. Jacob to predict that students there will be drilled on formal skills that are aligned with the test and that high expectations for thinking and reasoning will be gone. He hopes that other states will do better. STANDARDS and accountabil-ity are today's education buzz words. Al Gore and George W. Bush stressed both in their October 2000 articles in the Kappan.1 But Kappan readers know that what happens in the classroom is more critical and that, as noted repeatedly in these pages, textbooks are a key determinant of classroom practice. This is particularly true in mathematics, where elementary teachers rarely have specialized backgrounds in the subject and where, even at the secondary level, a shortage of certified math teachers is already apparent in some districts. Across the nation, schools are being advised to align instruction with standards. California's accountability system links school revenue to performance on standardized tests, and a high school exit exam will be required of all graduates in 2004. So the stakes are high, and the textbooks offered to teachers are critical. In this article, I examine California's recent "standards-aligned" mathematics textbook adoption process, which provides a lens to scrutinize the impact of high-stakes policies on classroom practice. And a disturbing picture emerges. Background on California In each content area, California has separate standards and framework documents. The standards describe the topics all students should study, and the frameworks articulate a vision of how to get there. Revised every seven years, the frameworks provide the criteria by which the state adopts instructional materials in grades K-8. (High school materials are not adopted statewide; the choice is left to local school systems.) In 1996-97, California's mathematics standards were drafted by a volunteer Standards Commission, which met for almost a year, with input from teachers, researchers, mathematicians, and educators. The commission produced several versions of standards that were each subject to public review and comment. In what became a dominant style of policy making, the state board of education not only rejected the commission's draft standards but also chose to substantially revise and swiftly approve a new document with minimal public review. Four mathematics professors from Stanford University were asked to help create a "mathematically correct" document and did most of that work. The state board's new document entirely revised the section for grades 8 through 12 to conform with the traditional algebra I, geometry, algebra II sequence and eliminated all examples and clarifications that the commission had created to help teachers understand what the standards might mean in their classrooms. Many leaders in the education community protested the changes. Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin publicly opposed the controversial document, whose elementary sections were finalized without significant input from teachers who know the reality of teaching students in these grades. The significance of the standards cannot be overemphasized. State law requires that adopted instructional materials align with the standards. In 1998 a mathematics framework that accompanied the standards was completed. Once again, essentially the same small group of advisors to the state board met in closed meetings and completely rewrote the work of an earlier committee. Teachers played a negligible role in a revision that was coordinated by university mathematicians and psychology professors expressly selected by the state board for their educational ideology. The two university mathematicians whom the board entrusted with the authority to revise the mathematics content discussions later appeared as featured speakers at a presentation, sponsored by the California Department of Education, for publishers who were interested in submitting textbooks for the 2001 state adoption. …