Backgrounds and Goals of ‘Innovations’: The Examples of New Math in the 1960s and the Change from Input to Output 1995

Abstract

Every innovation should be questioned critically in the sense of humanization of education, in particular with regard to the context and overarching objectives for which an innovation is effective. That innovations are not always improvements will be shown on two international examples from the last six decades.  In the 1960s, triggered by the so-called Sputnik shock, an innovation was initiated by the OEEC (OECD). In the interests of the economy, the number of educated people in mathematics and science should be increased. In connection with this, the innovation known under “New Math” for teaching mathematics was born.  A further international innovation started in the mid-1990s stimulated by the results of the comparative OECD studies TIMMS (1997) and PISA (since 2000) which also focused on mathematics and science. This meant a change from input to output (final tests) and the change of the school system according to organizational forms of business management.