Thursday, January 08, 2009

Senate math instruction upgrade unveiled

The Senate Education Committee this morning will start discussion of SJR 19, which would squeeze out the feel-good nonsense that pervades a lot of our K-12 math curriculum.

The bottom line is that children in India and China are eating our lunch in large part because they are learning math and we aren't.

Sen. Dan Kelly would upgrade math instruction in Kentucky by requiring the Kentucky Department of Education to base their curriculum on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics "Curriculum of Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics" and "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics."

The Democratic response to this key initiative so far appears to be Speaker Greg Stumbo's "casinos will give us $700 million more to spend" nonsense. Let's hope they snap out of that long enough to do something simple to improve education in Kentucky.