ABSTRACT
This chapter presents five high school curricula having goals that differ from those of a traditional high school curriculum consisting of 2 years of Algebra and 1 year of Geometry; but they also share many of the same goals of a traditional curriculum. Although they may differ with respect to the emphasis given to common content, both reform and traditional curricula expect reasonable levels of skills and understanding on this common content. The research on the five high school curricula offers considerable evidence that reform mathematics has a positive impact on student achievement. Students in the reform classes generally perform as well as students in traditional classes on traditional measures, although in one case weakness on procedural tasks was evidenced. More important, students in the reform classes generally demonstrated strengths on measures of conceptual understanding, problem solving in realistic contexts, and other measures designed to test a broader view of mathematics.
