2022/2023

Theme: Mirrors and Windows: Stories of Bold Math Leadership

The Year of Leadership:

For this report, I am going to update you on a few key projects rather than present a laundry list of meetings, presentations, and other things that I do for NCSM. In summary, here are some meetings I regularly attend, in addition to specially called meetings within NCSM or with our professional organization partners.

• NCSM Conference Committee meetings
• NCSM Finance Committee meetings (as needed)
• NCSM Executive leadership meetings (monthly with Kim Gill, monthly with Katey Arrington)
• Presidential meetings (monthly with NCTM, ASSM, and AMTE presidents)
• High School Mathematics Project Steering Committee (as needed)

NCSM Projects
The NCSM president participates in all NCSM activities, including professional learning, resource development, and governance. Below are highlights of some NCSM projects I’ve worked on.

55th Annual Meeting
As your president, I serve on the Conference Committee and support our Conference team leadership, including Conference Director Mary Fitzgerald, Conference Coordinator Karen Spalding, and Program Chair/1st Vice President Georgina Rivera. Let me thank each member of the Conference Committee for their hard work and sense of vision as we get creative with our conference being in a different rhythm than usual.

External Partnerships
The NCSM president serves as a liaison with other organizations to (1) make sure NCSM is well-represented and (2) bring ideas and important areas for collaboration back to NCSM.

This section describes some of the external networks in which I’ve participated.

Conference Presentations and Workshops
The winter season is not a popular conference time, as you know. For the TODOS presentation, I participated in a panel with presidents of a few other national organizations and we were asked questions about both our organizations and current issues in the field. For CAMT, I presented our Culturally Relevant Leadership in Mathematics Education book.

• TODOS: Mathematics for ALL – June 22, 2023, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching (CAMT) – June 26, 2023, Fort Worth, Texas
• Indiana University Seminar Presentation (virtual) discussing math leadership with a graduate class in leadership – July 27, 2023
• Iowa NCSM- August 4, 2023, Huxley, Iowa
• Nevada Mathematics Education Leadership Council (NMELC), virtual – September 9, 2023
• Texas Instruments Virtual Conference (T3IC), keynote – September 30, 2023
• Association of Teachers of Mathematics of New England (ATMNE), featured – October 12, Portland, Maine
• Rice University School Mathematics Project (RUSMP) Fall Networking Conference – October 14, 2023, Houston, Texas
• Texas Association of Supervisors of Mathematics (TASM) Board Development Workshop – October 15, 2023, Austin, Texas

Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (CBMS)
CBMS, an umbrella organization consisting of the presidents and executive directors of 19 professional organizations that focus on mathematics, will meet next on December 1, 2023. The members of CBMS include K-12 mathematics organizations like NCSM and NCTM, higher education mathematics organizations like AMTE, MAA, and AMS, and professional organizations for people who do mathematics for a living, like Society of Actuaries (SOA) and National Association of Mathematicians (NAM). Many, like NAM, Benjamin Banneker Association, and TODOS, have a specific organizational focus on mathematicians, students, and educators of color. At the December 2023 meeting, Katey Arrington will be the official NCSM member on the Board.

Interviews with Journalists
From time to time, I receive requests to speak with journalists about different issues related to mathematics education.

• July 2023 – email interview with Sania Choudhary of The Daily Californian, the student-run newspaper for the Univ. of California at Berkeley. We spoke about pathways and university admissions requirements. Article.
• July 2023 – interview request from Talia Richman, education reporter for the Dallas Morning News to discuss auto-enrollment policies for advanced mathematics courses. Robert Berry referred her to me and Trena Wilkerson. I didn’t interview with her, but view her article.
• October 2023 – phone interview with Maura Turcotte of the Post and Courier in upstate South Carolina. She was interested in our Detracking position paper and asked for context about the paper itself and our position for a story she is working on about a high school near Columbia, SC, that detracked Algebra 1 and saw remarkable results in closing the achievement gap.

Community Wealth Partners – Knowledge Mobilization Grant
President-Elect Katey Arrington and I continue to meet often (I’m not kidding…really often) with Community Wealth Partners and our affiliated organizational representatives for grant planning. We are working closely in a learning pod with the following organizations:

• Benjamin Banneker Association – focuses on success and equity for all students in K-12 mathematics, particularly those of African descent
• Black Principals’ Network – focuses on creating a collaborative network of Black school principals to foster community and mentorship
• Beyond 100K – focuses on STEM teacher recruitment (originally 100Kin10 but they met their 100,000 new STEM teacher goal and rebranded)
• National Association of Elementary School Principals
• NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education – We met with all organizations in person in Chicago on August 30-31 where we learned more about building professional networks for the 21st century and beyond.

High School Mathematics Project
The working team, which includes NCSM board members Jenny Novak and Kris Cunningham, is in the writing stages! There is a chapter outline and feedback cycle. Invited feedback will be solicited this summer from experts in the field. The goal remains to have a published book that will launch during Math Week in Chicago (September 2024).

1. Stories of Advocacy:
   Proposals in this strand will focus on the development of mathematics leaders as change agents (at the classroom, building/site, district or state/provincial level) focused on defining and developing a shared vision for high-quality mathematics teaching and learning. This strand focuses on curriculum and instructional design, assessment, and organizational structures as well as managing change across stakeholder groups.
   What stories of advocacy in mathematics do you have to share?
   How do you remove barriers and provide all students with access to a rigorous, meaningful curriculum taught by highly effective teachers?
   How do you help each and every student to build mathematical understanding that will improve their lives and improve the world?
2. Stories of Empowerment:
   Proposals in this strand will focus on the empowerment of students, teacher leaders, coaches and families to support equitable student outcomes for each and every learner. Stories of empowerment are focused on equitable mathematics practices and building student identity, agency and efficacy.
   How do you empower students in the mathematics classroom?
   How do you empower teacher leaders and coaches through developing a deep understanding of mathematics standards, processes and assessment practices to ensure equitable student outcomes for each and every learner?
   How do you empower coaches to look at classrooms through an equity lens and empower them to engage in coaching conversations around equitable outcomes for students?
   How do you partner with families and leverage their voices when making instructional decisions?
3. Stories of Redesigning Mathematics Instruction:
   Proposals in this strand will focus on the ways BOLD math leaders have reimagined mathematics classrooms to design mathematics instruction focused on students and their culture. This could include instructional practices, task selection, classroom community or systemic changes that have emerged that have resulted in greater student outcomes for students and their families.
   How are you reimagining mathematics instruction and/or assessment across a school or district?
   How are you leveraging the mathematics teaching practices or redesigning instruction?
   How do you support new and emerging mathematics teachers and teacher leaders in redesigning classroom instruction which supports all learners?
   How do you redesign classrooms and/or schools to include a focus on student identity, agency, belonging?
4. Stories Yet to be Told:
   Proposals in this strand are focused on innovative new ideas from students, teachers, families or research that you have implemented in your work. This strand is focused on bold mathematics leaders who have utilized research from other areas and applied it to mathematics to create equitable student outcomes.
   What innovative practices have led to greater student outcomes?
   What innovative practices have supported teachers or coaches to learn and grow?
   What stories can you share from your classroom or district about impacts on students and next steps for mathematics education?
   What are leaders outside of the mathematics education field doing that can be applied to mathematics for all of us to learn and grow?