Regular readers will know that besides being the region’s ne plus ultra weather geek, UW meteorologist Cliff Mass takes a keen interest in our state’s math performance. A few years ago, he and others went to court against the adoption of the Discovery Math series–and got a King County Superior Court judge to agree.
Now Mass is holding forth on his blog about a move to scrap “A-rated State math standards” in favor of a national set, Common Core State Standards, that Mass says just don’t measure up:
What do our state education bureaucrats want to replace our new math standards with? Recently drafted, untested, and poorly written Common Core standards developed by a group sponsored by the National Governor’s Association. These standards are also being pushed by the Gates Foundation and Obama’s Secretary of Education, and about 40 states have signed on (some of whom are having second thoughts!).
Mass isn’t the only one critical of Common Core, but regardless of where you stand on the content, the cost of adoption might bring you up short: “OSPI has estimated (in the report they submitted last week–a month after required by law!) that the switch to Core math and language standards would cost $192 million dollars…which I suspect is low,” writes Mass. In December’s special session, $51 million was cut from higher education, so a hundred million or two makes a big difference.
Congrats to Mass on stoking the fires.
I’m no expert here, but it does seem the Common Core is a mess. But most of all, thanks to making folks pay attention.
Regardless of the power of Gates, let’s remember he was a Lakeside kid, and hardly subject to the mess of public schools. Having Gates the college-dropout geek vs. out fave local PhD geek is a worthy battle.
I actually think both sides have the best interest of the kids at heart, and having a healthy dialog is a fine, fine, superfine thing.
The world is upside down in so many ways. It only makes sense that sanity and rational discourse on issues that really matter, so very, very rare these days, should have a weatherman as its leader.
This is, perhaps, the most important fight on the board. And we can’t afford to blow it.
To clarify for all – Cliff Mass is not a ‘weatherman’, in the sense of a TV weatherman. He’s a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at UW. I guess given that his job involves weather, you could consider that a weatherman, but I don’t.
I think he deserves a bit more credit than being another Larry Schick (look it up)