The Educated Guess Skeptics named to common-core commission

The Educated Guess

Skeptics named to common-core commission

Tags: Academic Content Standards Commission, Bill Evers, Greg Greeting, Ze'ev Wurman

Posted in Common Core standards

Two men who helped craft the state’s math standards in 1997 and have been critical of the effort to create national common-core standards in math and English language arts are among the 11 individuals named by Gov. Schwarzenegger to a commission to evaluate them.
With the nominations Friday of Ze’ev Wurman and Bill Evers, both of whom served in the Department of Education under President George W. Bush, and nine others, the roster of the 21-member Academic Content Standards Commission is complete. But by the time the commission holds its first meeting, on Thursday, June 17, it will have less than a month before it must report its findings to the State Board of Education. That’s little time in which to cram a lot of work, with little professional help to get it done.
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By John Fensterwald on June 6th, 2010

Learning algebra on the fly

Posted in Uncategorized

The 20 sixth graders who are going to take pre-algebra summer school later this month discovered for themselves that solving algebraic equations in your head – specifically involving distance-rate-time variables – can mean the difference between life and death at 30,000 feet.
The students from the ACE Charter School in Alum Rock, a low-income neighborhood in San Jose, were at the helm last week of an FAA’s flight control simulator, guiding in planes on flight paths that put their sense of proportion to work.
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By John Fensterwald on June 6th, 2010