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Math Education for America? analyzes math education policy through the social network of individuals and private and public organizations that influence it in the United States. The effort to standardize a national mathematics curriculum for public schools in the U.S. culminated in 2010 when over 40 states adopted the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Rather than looking at the text of specific policy documents, this book complements existing critical reviews of the national math education curriculum by employing a unique social network analysis. Breaking new ground in detailing and theorizing the politics of math education, Wolfmeyer argues that the private interests of this network are closely tied to a web of interrelated developments: human capital education policy, debates over traditional and reform pedagogy, the assumed content knowledge deficit of math teachers, and the proliferation of profit-driven educational businesses. By establishing the interconnectedness of these interests with the national math education curriculum, he shows how the purported goals of math education reform are aligned with the prevailing political agendas of this social network rather than the national interest.
List of contents
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introducing Math Education for America and its Historical Context
2. Social Network Analysis and National Math Education
3. Human Capital: Math Education for America’s Purpose
4. Pedagogy Wars and Human Capital
5. The Content Knowledge Deficits of Math Teachers
6. Achieving Efficiency? The Testing Industry in Math Policy
7. The Failure of Math Education for America
Index
About the author
Mark Wolfmeyer, Assistant Professor, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, USA
Summary
Breaking new ground in detailing and theorizing the politics of math education, Wolfmeyer analyzes math education policy through the social network of individuals and private and public organizations that influence it in the United States.
