Integrated mathematics

Integrated mathematics is a style of mathematics education which integrates many topics or strands of mathematics in a real-life context. Instead of presenting a series of classes in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and statistics in tracks for advanced, average, and remedial students, they are all combined into one curriculum.

This was widely adopted in the 1990s as an early form of standards-based mathematics. McDougall Littell was one of the most popular texts. Targeted to high school students, they were also offered at the middle school level in districts such as the Lake Washington School District in Redmond, Washington. In New York, this has even been formalized in graduation requirements, although many schools which are wary of this approach kept the traditional mathematics sequence instead, and this requirement is being phased out in favor of the old sequence.

At forums such as Where's The Math in Seattle, critics have blasted such curricula for covering too many topics too quickly in no logical order, and have led to the charge that US curricula are 'a mile wide and an inch deep'. [http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/interp.htm] In many districts, they have been replaced by the National Science Foundation funded curricula such as the Core-Plus Mathematics Project which have been subject to even more controversy and criticism.