Journal of Urban Mathematics Education December 2008, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1–4 ©JUME. http://education.gsu.edu/JUME LOU EDWARD MATTHEWS is an assistant professor of mathematics education in the College of Educa- tion at Georgia State University, 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA, 30303; e-mail: lmatthews@gsu.edu. His re- search focuses on how teachers incorporate visions of culturally relevant teaching into practice, as well as with the critical examination of mathematics reform ideology, Black masculinity and schooling, and teacher experiences in the context of reform. Dr. Matthews is currently serving as the 2007–2009 President of the Benjamin Banneker Association, a national non-profit organization advocating excellence in mathematics for Black students. Dr. Matthews is also co-founder and currently inaugural editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education. EDITORIAL Illuminating Urban Excellence: A Movement of Change within Mathematics Education Lou Edward Matthews Georgia State University Over a year ago my colleagues and I embarked on an unchartered quest to ―open up‖ within the mathematics education community a scholarly space that could honor—not marginalize—the professional work in the domain we characte- rized as urban. We sought to open up a space in mathematics education that would honor and enrich the work in this domain which had become central to our endeavors as reformers. Admittedly, with only one tenured professor in our group of six, the catalyst for this risky endeavor laid in our own frustrations within the academy to gain access to, and collectively synthesize, the complexities of ma- thematics reform taking place in urban schools. Our initial ―conversational‖ sur- veys of the landscape of mathematics education discourse in the fall of 2007 (e.g., ―top-tier‖ mathematics education journals and research conference offerings) re- vealed a suspicious absence of urban scholarship. In addition, access to existing voices outside of the community has been significantly restricted with limited access to the ERIC database, the proliferation of pay-to-read scholarship, and nar- rowly defined notions of what counts as ―scientific‖ research. After months of painstaking deliberation, our efforts culminated in the launching of this journal, the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education (JUME), on January 15, 2008 with a national call for manuscripts and our home webpage: http://education.gsu.edu/JUME. The following mission statement heralds this initiative: To foster a transformative global academic space in mathematics that embraces critical research, emancipatory pedagogy, and scholarship of engagement in urban communities. As we met to frame the components of this statement, several tensions surfaced, centering around three crucial questions that I wish to discuss: (1) How should we define ―urban‖ in mathematics education? (2) How should we orient ourselves http://education.gsu.edu/JUME Matthews Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol.1, No.1 2 toward work in the urban domain? and (3) How should we give ―voice‖ to the complex dynamics of change within the urban domain? When We Say Urban While engaging in our discussion around what happens in the urban domain, we found ourselves often at odds as to how to define the domain. In one sense, it was obvious that urban is used to define a particular geographical space, for ex- ample ―Metro Atlanta.‖ Yet, geography alone was not enough to draw attention to the various complexities regarding the racial and ethnic makeup of schools and communities, degree of economic hardships, and neighborhood and community traditions. By default, many educators forgo delineating these complexities, fo- cusing only on specific groups within urban schools and communities. In this neg- ligent manner, the term urban is often relegated to an umbrella term used indi- scriminately to denote African American, Hispanic, immigrant, or low-income students. Furthermore, given that mathematics ―achievement gaps‖ are popularly depicted in terms of race, ethnicity, and/or income, the term urban is often utilized as an all encompassing deficit term. Not wanting to continue the status quo exer- cised in practice, we settled on the following definition of the urban domain, which will no doubt undergo extensive, ongoing reflection and refinement: Here, the view of the urban domain extends beyond the geographical context, into the lives of people within the multitude of cultural, social, and political spaces in which mathematics teaching and learning takes place. With this definition, we set a standard that all scholarship, which has the urban domain as its primary focus, should give a thorough accounting of the complexi- ties of cultural, social, and political elements through which mathematics teaching and learning and mathematics education reform is experienced. Excellence as a Frame of Reference The focus of JUME is aligned with a counter-trend of equity-focused organ- izations (e.g., Benjamin Banneker Association’s National Leadership Summit on the Mathematics Education Excellence of Black Children) to replace the standard practice of ―gap-gazing‖ as a catalyst for action with what we call ―illuminating excellence.‖ Why do this? Certainly, this is not to ignore the strained efforts of educators working to meet yearly NCLB progress goals, counter budgets cut- backs, and develop and implement new mathematics standards for teaching and content quality. These concerns are not to be ignored. We are aware that within Matthews Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol.1, No.1 3 Georgia there is growing concern that the implementation of new standards in ma- thematics has contributed to an alarming numbers of students who have not passed recent standardized tests in mathematics at the upper elementary and mid- dle grades (Georgia Department of Education, 2008; Strepp, 2008a, 2008b). We were equally concerned about the invisibility of exemplary teachers and administrative practice facilitating mathematics success like the kind we encoun- ter in our everyday duties. An example of this kind of scholarship that positions excellence as a starting point from which to examine urban mathematics reform is Gutiérrez’s (2000) ―Urban Youth in Mathematics: Unpacking the Success of One Math Department.‖ We have all borne witness to the underutilized, hidden wis- dom found in some of our partner schools and classrooms. While this wisdom of teaching, curriculum management, culturally relevant pedagogy, collaboration, and local action has provided powerful counter narratives to the diatribe on urban achievement in mathematics, exclusion of such narratives in mainstream mathe- matics education journals relegates them to largely ―asystemic‖ to the community of mathematics education reformers. The reporting of excellence within the urban domain has been suspiciously underreported in top-tier mathematics education journals. The existence of this work outside of the espoused canons of mathematics education literature is cause for significant concern (see, e.g., Gutiérrez, 2000). For one, it calls into question whether mathematics educators consider the urban domain as relevant engage- ment (i.e., beyond a sample size comparison), or, even more ominous, whether our ―major‖ scholarship is relevant for truly reforming urban practice. The latter question of relevance for practice, interestingly enough, was the primary agenda topic at a Research Agenda conference hosted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Hyacinth, Maryland. The conference ga- thered 60 to70 national representatives from the research community for the pri- mary purpose of developing an agenda for research that could be used to inform practice to a greater extent than is currently seen. In lay terms, researchers pon- dered the relevance of current research to practice as we asked: Do practitioners not use our work? The notion of relevance is an important standard for the profes- sional lives of mathematics educators. Without such a notion, there is little real community to speak of beyond the ivory towers of academia. Urban Change as a Movement of People We choose solidarity as an important focus for the work of mathematics education reformers. In that, another decision was made to honor the way in which urban groups move amidst the aforementioned complexities of urban ma- thematics reform. A commitment to excellence meant broadening a definition of mathematics reform to include the social movement of people. The prevailing Matthews Editorial Journal of Urban Mathematics Education Vol.1, No.1 4 view of reform in mathematics posits that true change vis-a-vis improvement in learning experiences is accomplished by increasing the content and pedagogical- content knowledge of practicing teachers. Less attention is given to the racialized, cultural, and political experiences within the urban domain that influence people to move urban practice. The prevailing view essentially sidesteps any critical analysis of race, culture, and/or policy constraints that have been documented by a substantial number of equity researchers in mathematics education (albeit, seldom in mainstream mathematics education journals). Social aspects of human development have been largely ignored in mathe- matics education research. Although we are taught that the discipline lies at the nexus of social change (along with changes in psychology and mathematics), this change is most often articulated in terms of shifts in government ideologies (e.g., Sputnik) and economic trends (e.g., ―mathematically literate workers‖). Mathe- matics reform has scarcely been defined in terms of ―ground up‖ movements of people. Little is documented about the local actions of school and community families to ―right‖ the inequities espoused in mathematics reform. Social move- ments of equity such as the civil rights movements for gender and racial equality have been scarcely emphasized as critical to mathematics reform success. Captur- ing the excellence of local groups as they author change has the potential to con- nect mathematics education scholarship to the very communities it intends to serve. What this look likes as a base of scholarship remains to be seen, but in JUME we open this space. The articles in this inaugural issue range in nature in the ways in which the scholars tackle the questions we, ourselves, have struggled through; in that, they extend the very definition and context of urban, challenge racist conventions of urban schooling, and offer insights for finding excellent practice. We trust that you will be challenged as you join us on this journey in which old questions are explored (differently) and new questions formulated. This space is open and free- ly accessible to all who have as their primary interest the illumination of urban excellence. References Georgia Department of Education. (2008). Scores rise, gap closes on new CRCT. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/pea_communications.aspx?ViewMode=1&obj=1635 Gutiérrez, R. (2000). Advancing African-American, urban youth in mathematics: Unpacking the success of one math department. American Journal of Education, 109(1), 63–111. Strepp, D. (2008a). Failed math tests = swollen summer classrooms [Electronic Version]. The Atlanta Jour- nal-Constitution. Retrieved December 10, from http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/05/23/summerskl_0525.html Strepp, D. (2008b). Unhappy students: Classes start right away for those failing CRCT [Electronic Ver- sion]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved December 10, from http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2008/06/01/summer_school_crct.html http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/pea_communications.aspx?ViewMode=1&obj=1635 http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/05/23/summerskl_0525.html http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2008/06/01/summer_school_crct.html