When Politics Took the Place of Inquiry: A Response to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel’s Review of Instructional Practices

Abstract

The National Mathematics Advisory Panel was given the task of reviewing research on the instructional practices that enable students to learn mathematics successfully. The authors argue that in conducting its review, which appears in Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008), the Panel imposed dangerous dichotomies, opposing extreme forms of teaching against one another. Such dichotomies bear little relation to the realities of mathematics classrooms in the United States and belie the research that has been conducted in mathematics education in the past 20 years. In addition, the methodological restrictions imposed by the Panel rendered the field of mathematics education virtually invisible.