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Comprehensive School Mathematics Program

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The Comprehensive School Mathematics Program, also known as CSMP, was part of the McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) Institute's Comprehensive School Reform program. An elementary math program in the United States of America. It ran from 1966 to 1984 and was implemented in 150 school districts in 42 states. About 55,000 students were using the program in 1984. It was designed to make math learning "fun" through the use of real life and fantasy elements. One example is that of Eli the Elephant, a pachyderm with a bag of magic peanuts — some representing positive integers, some negative.

The program had been intended to do right what New Math got wrong; in this regard, it is usually lauded as successful. On the other hand, it could be argued that the inclusion of fantasy characters and "Math Mountains" obscures the same basic mathematical principles it is trying to teach. The program was highly structured using the spiral scheme of program development. It introduced many basic concepts such as fractions earlier than normal but was criticised for lack of emphasis given to calculation. New content in probability and geometry was introduced.

The program received extensive evaluation, with over 50 studies. These studies showed broadly similar results for non CSMP students in computation, concepts and applications. However there was a marked improvement when assessed according to the The Mathematics Applied to Novel Situations (MANS) tests which were introduced to measure students ability for problem solving in novel situations.

One device used throughout the program was a mini-computer. This was a 2 by 2 grid of squares, the squares represented the numbers 1, 2, 4, and 8. Checkers could be placed on the grid to represent different numbers in a similar fashion to the way the binary numeral system is used to represent numbers in a computer.

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