Position Papers

NCSM Position Papers are designed to provide NCSM members with support regarding critical actions that lead to improved student achievement in mathematics. The papers are a product of the collaborative efforts of many individuals who offered their writing, editing and critiquing skills. These papers provide our members with answers to two questions:

• What does NCSM believe about important issues in mathematics education leadership?
• How is NCSM helping mathematics education leaders provide research-informed answers to the issues we face in our local district?

NCSM Position Papers: Improving Student Achievement Series

Leading with Technology: Enhancing Mathematics for All Students

NCSM, Leadership in Mathematics Education believes that in order to develop all students’ mathematics proficiency, mathematics leaders must purposefully integrate appropriate technologies in the classroom to strengthen teaching practices, enhance the curriculum, attend to students’ diverse learning needs and better assess student learning. Despite the advancements in educational technology, there exists a gap in integrating and leveraging technologies to develop and assess high quality learning experiences. Likewise, the ways in which mathematics teacher leaders can support and improve the work of teachers has drastically changed with the continued advancement of technology like educational Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, adaptive online games for learning and virtual manipulatives. Research indicates that purposeful technology integration can enhance engagement when appropriately balanced with sound pedagogy and intentional planning (Clark & Mayer, 2016; Hwang et al., 2020). Likewise, when the technology helps accentuate key mathematical concepts, skills and ways of thinking, it can also enable personalized learning (Barab et al., 2019), cultivate essential skills like higher-order thinking and problem solving (Puentedura, 2014) and promote inclusivity by providing access to learning that may not otherwise be available to learners with unique needs (Santamaría et al., 2022). As mathematics teacher leaders, it is incumbent upon us to champion the purposeful integration of technology, recognizing its potential to reimagine mathematics education and help teachers empower students to thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

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Supporting All Students Through Flexible Grouping Practices

NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education believes that mathematically inclusive classrooms create equitable and flexible grouping structures to appropriately develop students’ mathematical talents. Given the diversity of learners and their needs, students benefit from differentiated support from their teachers as well as from working within flexible peer groups aligned to these needs. For many students, strengths-based flexible grouping practices can be accomplished within the typical classroom setting, and in some situations, students ready for more advanced mathematics should have opportunities to be with mathematically appropriate peer groups. By using responsive, flexible grouping practices, students will have opportunities to develop and advance their individual mathematical talents and contribute to different mathematical learning communities within the classroom. NCSM calls for creating equitable and flexible grouping practices to support all students across grade levels.

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Closing the Opportunity Gap: A Call for Detracking Mathematics

NCSM: Leadership in Mathematics Education, believes that all students should have access to high quality instruction and post-secondary educational opportunities. While we acknowledge that many
factors hinder such student access, in this position statement we call for the cessation of one clear,
addressable factor: the practice of tracking. As a practice, tracking too often leads to segregation, dead end pathways, and low quality experiences, and disproportionately has a negative impact on minority and low-socioeconomic students. In light of this, NCSM calls instead for detracked, heterogeneous mathematics instruction through early high school, after which students may be well-served by separate curricular pathways that all lead to viable, post-secondary options.

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Improving Student Achievement by Infusing Highly Effective Instructional Strategies into Multi-Tiered Support Systems (MTSS)-Response to Intervention (RtI) Tier 2 Instruction

It is the position of NCSM that a Multi-Tiered Support System (MTSS)-Response to Intervention (RtI) is a vital process for improving instruction and providing academic and social-behavioral support to all students. It should be implemented to ensure success for every student in every classroom. The MTSS is a systematic method of identifying, defining, and resolving students’ academic and social-behavior difficulties using collaborative, school-wide, problem solving approaches. The MTSS occurs within a strong comprehensive system of school improvement where learning environment, mathematics curriculum, and delivery of instruction are analyzed for the purpose of student response to differentiation.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics Through Formative Assessment in Instruction

We affirm the centrality of research-based, mathematically focused, formative assessment – a key element in the national effort to improve mathematical proficiency. Formative assessment needs to be intentionally and systematically integrated into classroom instruction at every grade level. This requires adequate attention in the preparation of new teachers of mathematics and in the continuing education and professional development of current teachers. A growing body of research emphasizes the use of formative assessment in classroom instruction as a means to improve student achievement. As leaders, we must work to ensure that teachers, administrators and other stakeholders in districts and states have knowledge of the research-based practices in formative assessment.

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Improving Student Achievement by Implementing Highly Effective Teacher Evaluation Practices

Teacher evaluation should be a multifaceted-collaborative process between teacher and administrator informed by a variety of data sources. The suggestions from this position paper are intended to offer specific mathematics requirements for inclusion into an already existing evaluation system. Our position views evaluation as a formative, teacher-centered process where teachers are continually receiving feedback and given opportunities for targeted and specific professional learning opportunities.

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Improving Student Achievement by Infusing Highly Effective Instructional Strategies into RtI Tier I Instruction

Intervention is an essential component to any K-12 mathematics program. Tier 1 of the RtI framework places emphasis on a high-quality general curriculum in which specific interventions are implemented. The focus of Tier 1 is to ensure instruction of the core curriculum using evidence-based practices taught with fidelity so that all students are mastering the curriculum. As leaders we need to connect with colleagues and place emphasis and focus on interventions and instructional decision making to support the learning of ALL students.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Using Manipulatives with Classroom Instruction

In order to develop every student’s mathematical proficiency, leaders and teachers must systematically integrate the use of concrete and virtual manipulatives into classroom instruction at all grade levels. As leaders we must act to create and sustain the conditions and structures that will enable every mathematics teacher to use manipulatives successfully and to move away from incidental to systematic approaches to manipulative-based instruction.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Expanding Learning Opportunities for the Young

This paper highlights the need to provide young children with extensive, high-quality mathematics instruction. There is extensive research that supports the idea that a coordinated national early childhood mathematics initiative should be put in place to improve mathematics teaching and learning for all children ages 3 to 6. As leaders we need to work to ensure that all children obtain the mathematical foundation they need for success.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Expanding Opportunities for Our Most Promising Students of Mathematics

This paper highlights the idea that significant improvement in mathematics achievement over a sustained period requires addressing equity and expanding opportunities for the most mathematically promising students. A strong diverse society has the right to demand that we all look for mathematical promise in our students and seek to overcome the lenses of bias or low expectation that can cloud our vision. All of our students deserve a learning environment that lifts the ceiling, fuels their creativity and passion, and pushes them to make continuous progress throughout their academic careers.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Systematically Integrating Effective Technology

Today’s world makes a burgeoning array of technologies available to classrooms, ranging from graphing calculators to computers and electronic whiteboards. This paper provides the latest information from research and experience to guide teachers and leaders in the strategic use of technology in the classroom.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Promoting Positive Self-Beliefs

This paper highlights the critical importance of developing and nurturing positive self-beliefs. Educators who establish a classroom climate that promotes positive self-beliefs about intelligence and academic ability increase students’ motivation and engagement. The process of promoting positive self-beliefs begins with teachers believing that all students can learn meaningful mathematics.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Addressing the Needs of English Language Learners

This paper offers clear insights and action steps necessary to support the needs of ELL students. This paper is the sixth in a series that provides information, research and action steps to support our membership and education leaders in mathematics as they work to improve student achievement.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics by Leading Highly Effective Assessment Practices

This paper emphasizes the need to balance assessment-for-learning with assessment-of-learning. Adult collaboration that clarifies what students should learn, how their learning will be assessed and what the evidence of learning reveals, occurs frequently and regularly in order to promote equity and reduce bias.

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Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics for Students with Special Needs

This paper provides direction for meeting the needs of students with special needs through strategic customization of instruction and assessment and through collaboration among those with content expertise and special education expertise.

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Improving Student Achievement by Leading the Pursuit of a Vision for Equity

This paper provides direction for systematically addressing equity in student achievement by reframing the inequity perspective of “achievement gap” to an “opportunity gap” (Flores, 2007) and by promoting the effective use of professional learning communities to impact adult and student development in mathematics.

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Improving Student Achievement by Leading Sustained Professional Learning* for Mathematics Content and Pedagogical Knowledge Development

This paper provides direction for creating ongoing context-based adult learning (or professional development) for the express purpose of impacting student learning.

* In the words of Michael Fullan (2007): “Professional development as a term and as a strategy has run its course. The future of improvement, indeed of the profession itself, depends on a radical shift in how we conceive [teacher] learning”.

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Improving Student Achievement by Leading Effective Collaborative Teams of Mathematics Teachers

This paper provides direction for the elimination of inequities often caused by the privatization of teacher practice. The paper establishes the necessity for the use of high-performing grade level and course-level teacher teams.

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