Comprehensive School Mathematics Program

Comprehensive School Mathematics Program (CSMP) stands for both the name of a curriculum and the name of the project that was responsible for developing curriculum materials.

Two major curricula were developed under CSMP project, Comprehensive School Mathematics Program(CSMP), a K-6 mathematics program for regular classroom instruction, and the Elements of Mathematics (EM) program, a grades 7-12 mathematics program for gifted students. EM treats traditional topics rigorously and in depth and was the only curriculum that strictly adhere to the Goals for School Mathematics: The Report of the Cambridge Conference on School Mathematics (1963). As a result, it includes much of the content generally required for an undergraduate mathematics major. These two curricula are unrelated to one another but certain members of the CSMP staff contributed to the development of both projects. (There was also some interaction with the Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum Improvement Study program being developed around the same time.) The Elements of Mathematics is widely used at the IMACS institute listed below. What follows is a description of the K-6 program that was designed for a general heterogeneous audience.