The path I should have taken is now clear:

• get a Ph.D. in education from a prestigious department;
• become a professor and get a HUGE grant to develop a new math curriculum in whatever flavor the government currently prefers;
• develop it, then sit back and let the government do your marketing for you;
• then, develop a lucrative side business as a consultant and speaker on the math curriculum you developed, while still enjoying tenure, a light workload, and the envy of your colleagues.

What the heck was I thinking all those years ago? These aren't the only academic rackets I've heard of, by a long shot -- I know of a number of others too (almost any of which beat pure math, in which you work your fanny off for 50K or so in summer research salary, and are glad to be getting it). But I took the road less traveled by!...

I think this math curriculum thing may actually be the sweetest racket of them all.

It also suggests that the push toward constructivist curricula didn't necessarily come from the ed schools themselves. Any school seeking grant money is obviously going to be responsive to the prevailing political winds, which in this case seem to have been emanating from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Foundation.


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