S.F. schools to test new U.S. math standards (Common Core)

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

...San Francisco has signed up to be among the first districts in the United States to put new national math standards in its classrooms. Adopted by 45 states, the standards' purpose is to make math more relevant and interesting, less about getting the right answer and more about why one might need to get that answer in the first place.

The school district has received a $3 million, three-year S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation grant to carry it out.

"We're getting killed across the world in terms of mathematics," said Terry Bergeson, executive director of the San Francisco School Alliance, a district partner in the implementation of the grant. "Around the rest of the world, the kids are ... applying mathematics to real-world problems. We teach formulas. We teach algorithms. We teach math facts."

And we bore students to tears.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/27/MN121L7K1D.DTL

[stockholmer]

1. " less about getting the right answer"!?! I hope none of these budding scientists grow up to design

nuclear plants.

:crazy:

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. "Right answers" can happen by accident. Understanding the how and

why of the answer is far more educational. Proper methodology will take a scientist much farther than punching in numbers on a calculator.

[kentauros]

6. Well, let's see

I learned more about trigonometry from Applied Trigonometry in my drafting classes than I ever did in any of the science/math career courses I attempted. And what do I do now for a living? I make pipeline maps :)

Why not teach real-world applications for all of the theory? If it can work for us drafters, why not the budding engineers and scientists, too? I doubt most kids would be able to get through chemistry without the lab coursework, too. It's helps to be able to visualize what's going on beyond the dry theory.

[Abq_Sarah]

12. But... but... they'll feel so good about themselves

When they get the wrong answer. Isn't that what education is all about?

[DrunkenBoat]

3. Bill Gates project.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Designed to make us more dependent

on software that can actually do math?

[seafan]

4. Jeb Bush and Joel Klein are pushing this HARD.

September 27, 2011: S.F. schools to test new U.S. math standards, known as "Common Core".


Here are two of the "education fixers" pushing "Common Core".

Jeb Bush and Rupert Murdoch's right-hand education privatization operative, Joel Klein, took to the WSJ, a few months ago.




Why this next insufferable Bush charlatan is bigfooting around the country peddling his "bold educational reform" snake oil, while fabricating a deep educational 'expertise' and hoping no one notices the abject disaster he perpetuated in Florida's educational system while he was in office and continuously since he left office, is a stunning case study in arrogance and deception.


And then there is the primary reason:


If it's For Profit, there is Jeb Bush.



He laid waste to Florida's public education while he was in office, and he continues to debase it today, now on a national scale, through the destruction of teachers' unions; forced vouchers; forcing standardized testing in public schools; exploding the numbers of charter schools, including religious schools that are all unaccountable to the public; undermining smaller class sizes; pushing digital learning and relegating textbooks into obscurity; touting a cookie-cutter approach to education across the country, despite the outrage of teachers, students, parents and future employers who desire well-rounded education in their hires.

But that all makes little difference to Jeb Bush. It's always been His. Way. Or The. Highway. It is no different now.


That this flim-flammer is allowed to go unchallenged as he poisons the foundation of public education, with Big Money and Big Venture Capital funding the effort, is unconscionable to rational people who are paying attention to what he has done and is doing, now on a national scale.





From this entry, documenting Jeb Bush's arrogant snake oil peddling in the Minnesota legislature a few months ago:

.....

Additionally, Bush did not address Florida’s low eighth-grade test scores, nor did he explain the state’s 67% high school graduation rate, though he did admit that it “still sucks.” He did point out that the graduation rate rose substantially from 50% at the time he was elected.

Democratic legislators weren’t the only ones to dislike parts of the Bush plan. Recently, Minnesota’s GOP leadership inserted a provision into the Omnibus Education Finance Bill that would prevent the state from adopting the Common Core Standards, dismissing them as an effort towards a “national curriculum.” Governor Bush is a strong supporter of the Common Core.

.....

What an "expert".




The Murdochs and Bushes lust for control of public education money. It's the final frontier.



Never forget, if it's For Profit, Jeb Bush is there.

[ryamkajr]

5. God, no!

OK, I am a pretty staunch Conservative, and I stay out of ALL of the political discussions here out of courtesy.

But I find it hard to believe that ANYONE of any viewpoint can support this "new math".

A lot of this is done for the sake of making children feel better about themselves. It is not the right answer that matters, but how you get there, which is irrelevant.

For things like history, English, social studies, et al, absolutely this train of thought could be applied.

But math is discrete. Answers are mostly absolute, especially at the grade school level. Nothing taught at the grade school level gets into the theoretical parts of math where this idea could, in concept, be supported.

This is just supporting the dumbing down of our children, and making them less competitive in the global environment.

As someone else stated above, I do not want "good intentions" math to be behind the design of new technologies, electricity sources, infrastructure, etc.

[slackmaster]

7. Bring Back New Math!

I say to you as a child of the 1960s.

[pam4water]

8. Owww Tom Leher can write a new "New Math" Song ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HkLsfa67mA

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfCJgC2zezw

[FarCenter]

10. They seem pretty high level regarding what should be taught at each level

http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/mathematics

I looked at what is expected at various grade levels and it seems pretty reasonable. The standards don't dictate the use of particular teaching methods, books, etc.

[grntuscarora]

11. My kids use

a Singapore Math curriculum, and if these people think the rest of the world is killing us in mathematics ONLY because students in other parts of the world are "applying math to real-world problems", they're kidding themselves. Before they're tackling "real world problems" those kids are getting thoroughly (and I mean THOROUGHLY) drilled in the ordinary math problems this article seems to give short shrift to.
Admittedly, though, I'm not an education or math specialist....