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The 1950s and 1960s were a lively time for mathematics education in the United States, but that era has now become sufficiently remote that many teachers have only vague or secondhand knowledge of the issues and personalities involved. The phrase "new math," which is often used to designate the reforms of that period, has never been very informative in itself, and it continues to generate misinformed commentary. Some of this commentary has been promulgated by critics of programs and textbooks associated with the NCTM's Standards, which these critics have dubbed the "new, new math" (Gardner 1998). More confusingly still, the newer reforms themselves are sometimes called the new math; the term is used in this manner in a 1997 Newsweek article (Kantrowitz and Murr 1997) and in a 2000 opinion piece by former Secretary of Education William Bennett (Bennett 2000). The phrase may eventually detach itself entirely from the 1950s and 1960s. This article aims to help teachers better understand the original new math by examining several stories that have been told and that continue to be told about it. These stories contain outright fallacies, half-truths, and not-quite-the-whole truths, as well as indisputable facts. Understanding the nuances among these cases should help us as we continue the never-ending process of providing a better mathematics education to students.
Our discussion may raise questions about the relationship between the reforms of the new math era and the reforms of the Standards era leading up to Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 2000). Because of the magnitude of that topic, we cannot do justice to it in this article. We will let readers make comparisons for themselves. Interested readers may wish to consult Bosse (1995) or Walmsley (2003) for more details.
STORY OR HISTORY?
It all began with Sputnik
Despite statements to the contrary by knowledgeable commentators, many in the general public believe that the history of the new math began with the Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, on October 4, 1957 (Barlage 1982; Walmsley 2003). The Sputnik date has been so convenient that it overshadows earlier developments, as indicated in the following summary of the new math by education historian Diane Ravitch:
The new math of the 1960s was the fruit...