Background
A regular component of every meeting of the Board of Directors of the New Brunswick Teachers’ Association (NBTA) is a timed item titled “Concerns from Directors”. Over the past few years concerns have often been voiced during this session with regard to mathematics education in New Brunswick. After much conversation and debate, the Directors realized that something had to be done to a) clarify the issues, b) bring the issues to the attention of the Department of Education, and c) improve the academic lives of students and the working lives of teachers. In April 2002, the Board of Directors directed the NBTA Curriculum Committee to focus its efforts during the 2002-2003 school year on a provincial survey of mathematics educators.
In October 2002, the NBTA Curriculum Committee met to begin work on its mandate. Committee members Mary Pond Whittleton (Branch 0214), Anne Kierstead (Branch 1826), Francis MacPhee, (Branch 1640), Ruth Matthews (Branch 1536), and Michael McTiernan (Branch 1724) met with Melinda Cook (NBTA staff) in Moncton to begin designing the survey. Although much was accomplished during the initial meeting, committee members felt that input from the Department of Education (DoE) would be an essential part of a successful survey; therefore, representatives from the Department were invited to attend the November meeting of the Committee.
At the November meeting Darlene Whitehouse-Sheehan and John Hildebrand, Curriculum Consultants from the Department, met with the Committee to examine the initial draft of the survey, and to offer suggestions for its further development. Given the success of the meeting and subsequent communications, the DoE was invited to partner with the NBTA on the project. When the Department agreed to the proposal, the joint Provincial Survey on Mathematics 2003 was initiated.
Between November and January, committee members and NBTA staff worked on the development of the survey. The final draft was approved during the February 2003 NBTA Board of Directors meeting. The Provincial Survey was printed, distributed, and returned during the same month. In March and April, NBTA support staff, along with university students and other casual employees, entered the responses in a database. Data analysis began in April 2003 and continued through November. In May 2003, two external evaluators were hired to provide analysis of the responses in the Comments section.
Committee meetings were held in April and May 2003 to prepare an interim report for the NBTA Annual General Meeting. The Committee agreed, however, that detailed results would be released only after a thorough analysis had been performed and the final report had been completed. In January 2004, the Committee - including new members Dixie Coughlin (Branch 0820), Richard Cuming and Paul Michaud (Branch 1450) - met to approve the initial draft of the final report, and to develop a series of recommendations. During February and March 2004 the Department of Education developed a section on developments in mathematics education to include within the report. The final report was presented to the Board of Directors in April 2004.
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