State Control of the Curriculum and Classroom Instruction.

This article examines the relationship between the level of the state (national or local) that has control over curricular issues and the content of classroom instruction of mathematics in over 2,200 classrooms in 15 educational systems. In educational systems with national control, classroom teachers are more likely to teach the same mathematics curriculum than are teachers in educational systems with provincial or local control. Furthermore, when the control of curricular issues is at the national level, the amount of the mathematics curriculum that teachers teach is generally not related to the characteristics of the teachers or of the students, whereas in educational systems with provincial or local control, it is related to teachers' and students' characteristics.