National standards would harm math curriculum

Ze’ev Wurman & Bill Evers:

The State Board of Education is voting Monday on adopting national K-12 curriculum standards in a package that includes an obese, unteachable eighth-grade math course.
Back in May 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell pledged to adopt the then-not-yet-created national curriculum standards only if they “meet or exceed our own.”
The pledge these public officials took was wise and honorable. California has K-12 academic-content standards that are widely praised as the best in the nation. For example, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found on July 21 that California’s standards in both English and mathematics are the absolute best in the nation and better than the national standards. Clearly, Fordham’s expert reviewers did not agree with the calls we sometimes hear that we must ditch our standards because they are inadequate.