Re: Algebra (was Re: Half Grades?)

[Rick Parkany <rparkany@BORG.COM>]

No, Folks...again, *NYS* Course A & Course B are *Assessment
Protocols* for WHATEVER is taught in the HS math courses
whose *contents* are specified only wrt NYS benchmarked
standards (#1 - 7) in Math--the course content and process
is up to individual districts.

This is the heart of SBE (Standards Based Educational) in
NYS--the courses are specified according to the standards to
which the assessments will be applied. What this means, in
practice, is that the old Yale sequence of the 60s (Algebra
1, Plane Geometry, Algebra 2, Trigonometry/Solid Geometry)
or the Sequential Math (ca. 1980-2000, NYS: Course I, Course
II, and Course III, covering the same topical domain) is
replaced by an assessment regime--theoretically allowing any
district to teach anything in its Math Curriculum that will
give up a body count acceptable to the NYS legislature as
*assessed* (read *measured) by these standards and their
testing protocols.

Ostensibly, these *standards* emphasize *higher order
thinking skills* and discursivity concerning mathematics,
but in reality, they are nothing but naked accountability
schemes that hold every teacher of mathematics in NYS to the
same *high standards* of political agendas passing for
curriculum reform...to the extent that now, the NYS
legislature, in its picayune wisdom, has seen fit to install
curricula in the name of *Safe Schools* mandates (AGAIN, w/o
funding) across legislation (vs. regulation via NYS Regents
and Commissioner, aka Educational Czar or Gauleiter, Richard
Mills) w/o even a pass to the sovereignty of the Regents who
were installed into the political matrix of this state, JUST
to depoliticize the school agenda.

But we know just how non-political the school agenda has
always been, despite trappings and sops to moral & ethical
integrity, No?  ;-} rap.        ;-} rap.

Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
> At 8:03 AM -0700 9/1/01, Judi Hirsch wrote:
> >In our district Math A was considered amth for those who couldn't do
> >algebra. Is that what this is?
> >Judi
>
> I thought California Math A/B from the previous incarnation of the
> standards was an integrated alternative to algebra, without the
> stigma of being secondary to it. Am I wrong? Was the Math A intended
> to be a separate track for those who could not crack algebra?
>
>         VS-)

--
"Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust!
Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld
bereit',
auf dem du bluehen musst." Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany
Prometheus Educational Services -
http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/
Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA

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