Math Wars Continue, State Ed Officials Bristle Under Legislative Pressure
None by KCPW
(KCPW News)State education officials are still bristling over criticism from lawmakers that their recently-approved math curriculum is inadequate. State School Board Member Dixie Allen says legislators need to give the new standards a chance:
"You know, back off a little bit, we'll be tweaking it as we go along. We're always tweaking it. We've done this math core three times since I've been on the board. It happens," says Allen.
Three Republican lawmakers on the legislature's education committee commissioned a Stanford mathematician to review the new math standards. The resulting report is strongly critical of both the standards and the committee of math educators that created them. Legislators are now threatening to establish their own math core for Utah's public schools. That would effectively trump the state school board's authority and any flexibility local districts currently have in their math classes.
State Associate Superintendent Brenda Hales says the issue boils down to a disagreement over how to teach math, and not what to teach:
"The new standards, they really are an improvement," says Hales. "The part that is controversial is that you can take 30 mathematicians in a room and ask them how to teach a subject and you'll get thirty different opinions."
Meanwhile, Hales says the dust-up with state lawmakers has math teachers confused about what they should be teaching in class. The State Office of Education is instructing schools to use the new curriculum, despite legislative threats of a math overhaul.
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1. Dixie Allen said:
Unfortunately you gave the wrong Board Member credit for the quote -- I think that Teresa Theurer from Logan made the statement. Although I agree somewhat with the statement, I agree more with Associate Supt. Hales that we should work to change the language enough to make the math core palatial to the legislature. My only hope is that the legislature would give us the time and support to do that.
2. concerned said:
Math curriculum, over the past 30+ years, has been changed many times, mostly to the detriment of students. Educrats need to stick with a standard methodology so parents can continue to help their children into future generations. Some of these methods are simply failed experiments.