The National Research Council, the principal operating agent of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, has established a 36-member Board on Mathematical Sciences Education (MSEB). Its primary purpose is to provide a continuing national assessment capability for mathematical sciences education at all levels. The Board will provide leadership, service, and coordination through a variety of activities and work products focussed on issues affecting the quality of instruction in the mathematical sciences. The purpose of two previous National Science Foundation grants was to provide initial and supplemented support for activities in two targetted problem areas, "Framework and Alternative Models for School Mathematics Curricula" and "Study of the Impact of Testing on Mathematics Education K-14." Considerable progress has occurred during the past five months in each of these areas of activity, and it is now appropriate for the MSEB to undertake other initiatives in its original plan. This grant will provide support for the MSEB to begin activities in another important domain of national issues and problems resulting from international comparisons of mathematical sciences education. In recent years several such studies have been conducted. These have been reported without ample opportunity for deliberation of implications for federal, state, and local policies. Through the conduct of this special national symposium the MSEB will stimulate and coordinate a major effort to: --interpret significant results from various international investigations; --develop policy implications and specific recommendations for improving mathematics education in American schools; and --foster effective dissemination of these ideas through special materials produced for, and subsequent to, the symposium. The National Academy of Sciences, acting through the MSEB, provides the context and prestige necessary to attract significant researchers, educators, governmental officials, and concerned citizens to this important activity and to assure a nationwide attention by educational policy makers.
