How do we get there from here? An investigation of NCTM standards-based reform and its implementation issues in an urban systemic initiative

This urban school case study was designed to document the experiences of teachers, Instructional Support Teachers (ISTs), and their administrators from an elementary school engaged in the Baltimore Urban Systemic Initiative (BUSI). Subjects of analysis within the representative urban school consisted of three teachers, the IST, and principal. The representative school was nominated by an Advisory Council, which consisted of the Mathematics: Application and Reasoning Skills (MARS) Project external evaluator, Project Director, the Mathematics Coordinator of Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), and the researcher. The representative elementary school was nominated by the Advisory Council from among 52 BCPS participating in the MARS Project based on the following criterion: (1) the school is attempting to implement NCTM Standards -based curriculum and instruction; (2) there exists at least one teacher in the school who believes the MARS Project has benefited the school, the students and their own teaching; and (3) there exists at least one teacher in the school who believes that the MARS Project has not benefited the school, the students and their own teaching. Inductive analysis and methods triangulation were used to converge and compare: the researcher's analysis and evaluation of the BUSI retrospective and mass-descriptive surveys, the BUSI Annual Reports from 1996--1998, observations of the teacher enhancement summer workshop, focus groups with the administrative unit, semi-structured interviews with the individual members of the administrative unit, classroom observations using the Horizon Research observation protocol and the researcher's field notes. Findings from this research revealed that the greatest concerns among participating teachers about implementing the Standards-based curriculum and instruction in the MARS Project were: being confident in their ability to teach the math content in a way consistent with the NCTM Standards and MARS Project framework, having enough planning time to prepare, being able to cover the entire (BCPS) curriculum, differentiating instruction for the students who need extra time, struggling with the tendency to return to old teaching habits, having enough time with the IST, keeping the students actively stimulated and engaged in their learning, and managing the classroom, using a new approach to teaching and learning.