Monday, January 21, 2008

Inmates running asylum

File under: "why ideologues have no place in government" OR "this concerns me as a parent of future public school students."

Apparently we have to worry about our math texts not passing muster with conservative Texas Board of Education members now. Who knew that math textbooks could be an ideological battleground? Apparently these folks are now authorities on how kids should be taught math, because they rejected a 3rd grade math text on the grounds that it didn't teach math the right way.

That's right, it meets all state requirements, but doesn't teach the way these folks think it ought to be taught: in a "traditional manner." I wonder if they checked to see if it's been successful. From the DMN article:

In Dallas, officials rolled out Everyday Mathematics books in kindergarten through sixth grade at 19 schools with low math scores during the 2000-01 school year. By the end of the year, only two of those schools still had low scores; a year later, none of them did, said Camille Malone, DISD's director of mathematics.
I'm no expert, but that's an astounding success rate.

This was a 7-6 vote and there is question as to whether the action of the Board was even legal. The Board is currently suppressing the "minority report" of the members who voted to keep the text. So now they're censoring math text and themselves.

My question: is anyone paying attention to these nuts?

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