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Our country’s racial and ethnic diversity is greater now than at any previous period in history. It seems to be on course to become progressively more diverse for some time to come.

In 1990, white children made up less than 70% of the total school-age population, down from about 75% in 1980. During the 1980s the number of poor school-age children increased by 6% from about 7.2 million to 7.6 million. Poor children became more racially and ethnically diverse. While the number of poor Hispanic and Asian children grew by almost 600,000, the number of poor white children declined and the African American school-age poverty population remained relatively the same.

What does this mean for educators? It means continuing gaps in student achievement if reform measures are not taken. Between 1980 and 1995 differences in students’ mathematics achievement were greater along racial-ethnic, socioeconomic status (SES), and language proficiency lines than across gender lines. Although the differences among the scores of students from various races and ethnic groups have slowly narrowed, African American and Hispanic students still perform at significantly lower levels than white and Asian American students.

In his role as researcher for the National Institute for Science Education, UW-Madison Education Professor William Tate recently documented changes within and across demographic groups in students’ mathematics achievement during the 1980s and 1990s. Tate reviewed national trend studies and the results from college admissions examinations and Advanced Placement tests. He tracked the achievement of various student groups defined along lines of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and language proficiency.

Across various assessments (the SAT, ACT, and the National Education Longitudinal Study [NELS]) Tate found a strong relationship between students’ SES and their mathematics achievement. Because poverty is more severely concentrated among African American and Hispanic students than it is among white students, Tate advocates raising the mathematics achievement of all low-SES students and, especially, of low-SES minority students. "These findings suggest the need for an intervention in the two geographic regions with the highest poverty levels," Tate says, "the urban and rural communities."

At the same time, Tate found that students of every racial-ethnic group and SES group benefit from additional mathematics coursework in high school. Despite differences in gender and in racial-ethnic heritage, students completing the same number of mathematics courses did not have significant differences in achievement.

Tate advocates using this finding as a policy tool to mandate specific course requirements at the secondary level. To enhance such a policy intervention, elementary level instruction should receive additional support, Tate says, because elementary school mathematics achievement is positively related to secondary school achievement. Mandating more secondary courses should therefore involve systemic efforts to change elementary school mathematics experiences and achievement levels as well.

Tate agrees with Odden and Busch (see story page xx) that equity strategies require fiscal support for adopting and implementing high-level achievement standards for all. "Many school districts simply can’t afford to implement new mathematics standards," Tate says. "Severe fiscal constraints plague most urban and rural communities." He found that more than 80 percent of teachers in schools with middle- to upper-SES students received all or most of the materials or resources they requested for instructional purposes. In stark contrast, only 41 percent of teachers in schools with the largest concentrations of low-SES students received all or most of the instructional materials they requested. In addition, the students whose teachers reported limited materials or resources had lower mathematics achievement than those whose teachers indicated their materials or resources were sufficient.

Classroom cultures affect student learning

School mathematics instruction traditionally emphasize whole-class lectures. Teachers offer one method for solving a problem and students listen to the explanation. Following the lecture, students work alone on a large set of problems from a textbook or worksheet. This practice is so regular, Tate says, that it’s a cultural artifact--a default cultural policy. The intent of this cultural policy is to prepare students to produce correct answers to narrowly defined problems. This policy often includes a tracking system, with many students of color and of low SES being selected to participate in compensatory mathematics programs. Very often these programs offer mathematics that is disconnected from the learner and void of real social context.

Many equity models in mathematics education today borrow from opportunity-to-learn constructs from national and international testing programs. These models frame equity as the overlap of content taught and content tested. But these models ignore the influence of cultural factors on student learning, Tate says.

Future equity-related policies in mathematics education should begin with recommendations found in the NCTM Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991), which calls for mathematics pedagogy to build on

a. how students’ linguistic, ethnic, racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds influence their learning

b. the role of mathematics in society and culture

c. the contribution of various cultures to the advancement of mathematics

d. the relationship of school mathematics to other subjects

e. the realistic application of mathematics to authentic contexts.

"The importance of the mathematics standards movement for traditionally underserved students is obvious," Tate says. "Previous reform efforts have not met their needs. These efforts have failed to garner the support required for change--specifically the development and implementation of a comprehensive fiscal and cultural policy.

"The challenge is before us."