Leading reform in mathematics education: solving a complex equation

In recent times considerable attention has been devoted to the performance of schools and in particular, of students in literacy and numeracy. As part of a national agenda addressing what is portrayed as a crisis in numeracy, and hence mathematics education, governments have introduced a wide range of reform initiatives to improve performance. Examples include, national testing, a national curriculum and the ‘Education Revolution’ just to name a few. Comparative international tests such as TIMSS and PISA contribute to the performative nature of this policy environment which has significantly impacted on the leadership and management of mathematics education reform. The most significant influence has been the reduction of teaching and learning to what can be measured and the numerous, often uncritical, uses of comparative data on school and student performance. In this paper we examine the complexity of mathematics education reform by bringing together the discourses of mathematics education and educational leadership. In doing so, we develop and argue against a prescriptive ‘how to’ lead mathematics education reform, in favour of a more sophisticated framework of leadership for mathematics education which embraces both global and local developments in the field.