Hunter & Anderson's Math Letter to SBE members

On January 29th I wrote:
Our only chance for success is if the legislature has the courage to say: "Dr. Bergeson you are not doing what HB 1906 was designed to do. You were to end the Math Mess you created and instead you plan to continue it."

I did not know that three days prior the letter below had been sent.

Check this for a nice bold reading. --- Dan

Here’s the letter Ross Hunter and Glenn Anderson sent to the SBE:

January 26, 2008
Washington State Board of Education

Dear State Board of Education Member,
This week the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction released the second draft of proposed new math standards for review and feedback. Also this week an alternative set was released by the “Where’s the Math” group. Both drafts were discussed at the House and Senate Education Committees’ meetings on January 24, 2008.

We understand the State Board of Education has retained Strategic Teaching to perform an independent review of the proposed OSPI standards. By February 5, 2008, Strategic Teaching is scheduled to complete its assessment of how well the draft standards comply with its recommendations as described in the Strategic Teaching’s report to the State Board of Education of August 30, 2007.

We understand that the timeline is short for such an important task. Choosing a new set of mathematics standards is a critical event that will significantly impact the success of many other education reform efforts over the next several years.

We hope that you will continue to retain the focus on quality and rigor that you showed in the original Strategic Teaching review of the standards. Specifically, we encourage you to come to a clear opinion about the relative alignment of the proposed standards from the superintendent and other standards, both adopted by other states and the proposed Where’s the Math proposal, according to the specified legislative intent and direction of HB1906.

We need an unambiguous plan to move forward and benefit our state’s children. We are willing to encourage our legislative colleagues to revise the timeline the Legislature initially provided if you deem that necessary to adopt high quality standards. We should not settle for mediocrity. If the current proposed alternatives aren’t close enough to the other high quality sets of standards you compared our original standards to, we suggest you request that we give you more time and/or a better process to follow.

Thank you for immediate attention to this matter, and for your work in improving math education in the State of Washington.

Sincerely,