Addressing the Needs of the Marginalized Students in School Mathematics: A Review of Policies and Reforms
Author: Berry, Robert Q., III
Date: 2015-11-00
Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Subjects: Student Needs,Disadvantaged,Power Structure,Mathematics,Educational Policy,Educational Change,History,Desegregation Litigation,School Desegregation,Federal Legislation,Educational Legislation,Civil Rights Legislation,Common Core State Standards,Academic Achievement,Educational Opportunities,Equal Education,Mathematics Education

An examination of past research, policies, and reforms in mathematics education suggests that there have always been, and remain, tensions in conceptualizing the aims and goals of mathematics teaching and learning. While the disproportionality and conditions of marginalized learners is a cause for concern, it is important to understand that addressing the needs of these learners may not have been the primary goal of prior policies and reforms in mathematics education. Derrick Bell, a former attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the Civil Rights Era, employed his interest-convergence principle to explain how the United States Supreme Court issued the landmark ruling in &quot;Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas&quot; (&quot;Brown I&quot;) in 1954. The Supreme Court's ruling in the &quot;Brown&quot; case revoked the &quot;separate but equal&quot; doctrine, which legally sanctioned segregation in public education and all aspects of daily life. Bell (2004) argued that the &quot;Brown&quot; decision was not the result of America coming to terms with its democratic ideals or moral sensibilities. Rather, the Supreme Court was more interested in providing &quot;immediate credibility to America's struggle with communist countries to win the hearts and minds of emerging third world people&quot; than in doing what was morally right (p. 233). &quot;Brown&quot; provided the impetus for legislation, such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 and it reauthorizations Improving America's School Act of 1994 and No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 (Zion &amp; Blanchett, 2011). These along with other legislations and mandates established requirements that address the need to ensure that all students in the United States are provided equal educational opportunities. Although not fully realized, the requirements of these legislative acts and mandates created pressure to address the historical inequity in educational opportunity, achievement, and outcomes. Zion and Blanchett (2011) argued that the reason why large scale improvement in outcomes for all students have yet to be realized is that the problem has not yet been framed appropriately. The problem must be framed as part of the history and legacy of racism, and as an issue of civil rights and social justice, viewed through a critical lens. This article use a critical lens to apply the interest-convergence principle informed largely by the work of legal scholar, Derrick Bell (1980 &amp; 2004), to examine motivating factors of policies and reform efforts in mathematics education. Specifically, this article makes the case that policies and reforms in mathematics education were not designed to address the needs of marginalized learners; rather these policies and reforms are often designed and enacted to protect the economic, technological, and social interests of the dominant culture. [For the complete proceedings, see ED583989.]