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Monday, December 2, 2013

Should American high schools prepare any students for STEM?... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Should American high schools prepare any students for STEM?... | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com:

Should American high schools prepare any students for STEM? Common Core doesn’t think so. 


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College professor Sandra Stotsky was on Common Core’s Validation Committee from 2009-2010.  She wrote a report for state Sen. William Ligon, R-Brunswick, comparing Common Core's English standards with Georgia's Performance Standards.
Stotsky has become one of the leading critics of Common Core and also one of the most quoted. You can read more of hercommentary here.
 By Sandra Stotsky
 When states adopted Common Core’s mathematics standards, they were told (among other things) that these standards would make all high school students “college- and career-ready” and strengthen the critical pipeline for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  
 However, with the exception of a few standards in trigonometry, the math standards end after Algebra II, as James Milgram, professor of mathematics emeritus at Stanford University, observed in “Lowering the Bar: How Common Core Math Fails to Prepare High School Students for STEM,” a report that we co-authored for the Pioneer Institute.
 Who was responsible for telling the Georgia Board of Education when it adopted these standards in 2010 that Common Core includes no standards for precalculus or for getting to precalculus