From the Written to the Enacted Curricula: The Intermediary Role of Middle School Mathematics Teachers in Shaping Students' Opportunity to Learn

In this paper is reported the extent of textbook use by 39 middle school mathematics teachers in six states, 17 utilizing a textbook series developed with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF‐funded) and 22 using textbooks developed by commercial publishers (publisher‐generated). Results indicate that both sets of teachers placed significantly higher emphasis on Number and Operation, often at the expense of other content strands. Location of topics within a textbook represented an oversimplified explanation of what mathematics gets taught or omitted. Most teachers using an NSF‐funded curriculum taught content intended for students in a different (lower) grade, and both sets of teachers supplemented with skill‐building and “practice” worksheets. Implications for documenting teachers' “fidelity of implementation” ( National Research Council, 2004 ) are offered.