When the man overseeing the common-core standards initiative in math admits that the deadlines for completing the work are “insane,” you know we may be headed for trouble.
And if a panel discussion at a national mathematicians conference in San Francisco over the weekend is an indication, William McCallum and a group of 45 mainly mathematicians drawing up K-12 national math standards are in for withering criticism.The panelists, who included two elementary school teachers and an author of two college textbooks on elementary math, were blunt. They complained that the draft standards were obtusely written, that they expected too much of students in early grades, that they would encourage the same kind of bureaucratic enforcement of state standards that has already damaged math education.
Most of all, they pleaded with McCallum not to rush the standards into