Links to the standards

NCTM standards: http://standards.nctm.org/document/index.htm

Wisconsin Standards: http://dpi.wi.gov/standards/matintro.html

Milwaukee standards correllation, which tells how the Milwaukee school distric is implementing the Wisconsin standards across grades K-8: http://www4.uwm.edu/Org/mmp/_resources/cabs.htm (The document is K-8 Mathematics Targets)

Key things to know about math standards:

The NCTM standards are:

• Well thought out and well written--if you sign up for a student NCTM membership, and can look at the full text of the standards on line, or if you check it out from the library, you'll see that there is a lot of detail and explanation out there to explain what the standards mean.
• Divided into content standards (what to know--Number and Operations, Algebra, etc.) and process standards (what to do with the stuff you know--Problem Solving, Communicating, making Connections)
• Divided into 4 grade bands: K-2; 3-5; 6-8; 9-12
• Written by interested educators (college faculty) and teachers (K-12)
• Trying to influence the way that math is taught to include more flexible strategies and deep understandings
• Influential for states writing their own standards

The NCTM standards are not:

• A document written or authorized by the federal government
• Mandatory for "you" to teach.
• Perfect--there have been changes made between the 1989 and the 2000 standards: in particular, the role of being fluent with computations (memorizing addition and multiplication facts, computing with confidence) was hotly debated, and if you compare the documents, you will see that the need to be fluent with computations is more emphasized in the later standards than the earlier ones. More changes will happen. Look for the good ideas in the standards, and try to implement those, but don't expect it to stay the same and tell the "one true way" to teach.

The Wisconsin standards are:

• Written and authorized by the state of Wisconsin DPI
• Mandatory for Wisconsin teachers to teach
• Influenced by the NCTM standards (more heavily by the 1989 than the 2000 standards)
• Include the same 5 content standards as the NCTM standards, and include one standard: Processes to address process standards issues
• Less prescriptive than the NCTM standards about how to teach, and address primarily what to teach.
• Divided into 3 grade bands: K-4, 5-8, 9-12

The Wisconsin standards are not:

• Detailed. What's on the web site is all there is. School districts write their own alignment documents (how they will meet those standards) and those have a little more detail. I provided you to the one that Milwaukee school district, working with people at UW-Milwaukee, has put together, since it is on line and quite detailed.
• The only useful documents Wisconsin teachers have about teaching math. As a teacher, you will also want to look at information about how standardized tests are written and graded, since these tell you how the state is assessing your teaching of the standards