The students’ influence and responsibilities on content and learning processes are important objectives emphasised in all steering documents for Swedish education. However, results from a large-scale survey exploring what students find important for learning mathematics show that students may not value such openness in mathematics teaching and learning. We found that aligning teaching to students’ valuing would rather conserve a tradition of teacher authority. In this discussion essay, these results will be related to the obstacles teachers may experience when fulfilling educational objectives of students’ responsibility, participation, and influence on the planning of teaching and learning mathematics.