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The article reports on mathematical literacy as defined by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA is an international assessment program focusing on fifteen-year-olds which was established in the late 1990s by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). PISA focuses on mathematical literacy instead of the student's curricular knowledge or level of achievement and is designed to measure the extent to which students can make use of their mathematical knowledge.

The article examines some techniques in assessments, change, and exploratory data analysis of tabular displays in various school-related data. The school publications method deals mostly with the results of assessments of students' achievement, an enrollment in particular courses, or a comparison of school expenditures by budget categories over a given time. An alternative path to analyze set of data is the analysis of variance that removes medians from the rows and columns of a tabular data set. Another method used by statisticians is the median polish that operates an iterative method on a table of data values.

The author reflects on the article of F. Joe Crosswhite about the health of school mathematics education in the mid-1980s. The article states that any change in mathematics education would involve the adoption of the next new thing over the horizon. It suggests that there must be parallel and coordinated changes in curriculum, professional development of teachers, assessment of student learning, and articulation of the affected communities to achieve lasting and significant reform in mathematics education. The article also emphasizes the need for a systematic approach in redirecting school mathematics for the future.

Review the book `Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of Twentieth-Century Mathematics--and Why They Matter,' by John L. Casti.