A Review of Mathematics Education Reform in the United States: Ideal, Practice, and Implication

The current reform recommendations in the United States have been widely recognized but the outcomes with regard to the teaching practice in the classroom were evaluated as ineffective to faster students' mathematical learning. Given this, this paper reviews the current mathematics education reform in terms of the typical and the recommended teaching practices. An analysis of influences of theoretical perspectives is then provided as an attempt to explore the underpinnings that implicitly motivate the current reform movement. This paper then identifies the difficulties in implementing reform ideals. Building on the review and the analysis, this paper finally provides implications of re-conceptualizing mathematics instruction in the current reform era.