Conclusions
Since the establishment of Modern Turkish Republic in 1923, many curricular reforms have been implemented in schools. Similar to the current one, almost all of them have been initiated as a top-down reform process. After developed by a group of selected teachers, academicians, and curriculum experts, the new curriculum has been piloted to a number of schools. The curriculum has been revised according to a very limited feedback from pilot schools and other stakeholders. Curriculum reform in Turkey is not considered a long term improvement process but a relatively short term change process in which a static curriculum is produced. In short, it is a short term improvement, long term implementation type of reform. There are considerable differences in terms of approach taken towards the content and the delivery of mathematics education at the elementary level. These curricular changes require two important changes which we think overlooked by the reformers, teacher training and teaching and learning materials especially math manipulatives. There is a strong need for teacher training and manipulative materials in the classroom however very little action has been taken towards overcoming these difficulties. Although we started to call the changes as reform, it is too early to treat them as such for we do not know if the curricular changes will produce the intended results.