A couple weeks ago I had flashbacks to a meeting 20 years ago. I learned that the secretive RFP for a review of the new Utah 2026 math standards rewrite had been awarded to WestEd and they completed their review.
In 2004 I got involved in the math issue when I discovered Alpine School District (ASD) was no longer teaching the times tables or long division to children, or division by fractions, and by 2005 I understood it was because of our pathetic math standards. I went to speak at numerous district meetings and when I saw that was pointless, took my research to the legislature and wrote a letter to every senator and representative pointing out Utah’s D-rated standards (Fordham foundation) were allowing tens of thousands of students in ASD to grow up and graduate without knowing 5 x 8. Senator Howard Stephenson called for hearings and at one of the hearings (I think in 2006), WestEd presented their findings comparing Utah’s standards to other high achieving states and maybe even one of the Asian countries and basically said our standards were great. Nothing to be concerned about.
Then we got Dr. Jim Milgram on the phone from Stanford. He had reviewed our standards and completely destroyed them and trashed the WestEd report. They left embarrassed and the state superintendent pledged to work on new math standards. Senators Stephenson and Margaret Dayton were both a tremendous help in getting new standards for Utah in 2007.
WestEd was a rubber stamp and left in shame.
Fast forward to 2026.
Utah got new standards and the state office has concealed who the authors were even till now. Dr. David Wright, retired math professor, has submitted a GRAMA request for the names at least twice this year and has yet to learn who wrote these standards and what their agenda may be. (I don’t think we actually need the names to know their agenda is pro-Common Core and constructivism. It’s just the math ed world we live in.)
In reviewing the math standards and getting a cursory review by outside mathematics standards experts a few months ago, we knew there were problems with the math standards so we asked the board of education to please send them out for an external review. That process was closed to the public and I believe the board was in the dark as well but an external reviewer had been awarded the project.
Then a couple weeks ago we learned the review was completed by WestEd. Unfortunately, I was not surprised.
A copy of their 78 page report is available here: https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/3.-Full-and-Final-Report.pdf
I immediately dropped the report into ChatGPT and asked for an analysis of the 3 authors. What were their educational credentials and do they have an agenda toward constructivism. I figured I knew the answer but wanted to see what the response would be.
Again, I was not surprised.
Let me start with this one. In the references section at the back of the review, which contains the papers and studies that the authors rely on for their opinions and viewpoints, you’ll find these gems. (underlining mine)
Cardichon, J., Darling-Hammond, L., Yang, M., Scott, C., Shields, P. M., & Burns, D. (2020).
Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced
Teachers. Learning Policy Institute.
That’s Linda Darling-Hammond, author of teaching for social justice in the classroom.
Priniski, S. J., & Thoman, D. (2020). Fostering an inclusively relevant mathematics environment:
The case for combining social-justice and utility-value approaches. Preprint]. Open
Science Framework. https://doi. org/10.31219/osf. io/wsx9d
Allensworth, E., Cashdollar, S., & Gwynne, J. (2021). Improvements in math instruction and
student achievement through professional learning around the Common Core State
Standards in Chicago. Aera Open, 7, 2332858420986872.
Now for the 3 authors of the review. None are mathematicians.
- Priya Kannan, PhD (Senior Researcher): Dr. Kannan is an expert in psychometrics, standard setting, and score reporting �with over 15 years of experience (including 12 years at the Educational Testing Service – ETS). Her professional “agenda” is psychometric rigor, validity, and measurability. Her focus explains the report’s strict, detail-oriented critique of vague standard language and its demand for observable, assessment-ready student performances.
- Angela Knotts (Research Associate): Knotts is a K-12 math content and pedagogy specialist �with over 20 years of experience as a teacher and instructional leader. Her research focuses heavily on modernizing and redesigning secondary math pathways to include statistics, data science, and quantitative reasoning. Her advocacy explains why the report is highly supportive of Utah’s integrated secondary math tracks and PK-12 Data Science progression.
- Elizabeth Dyke (Project Coordinator): Dyke works on WestEd’s project management team, providing operational and logistical support for large-scale state contracts.
The way a WestEd report works is they look for language similarity. If two standards both talk about a math skill, it’s a green check mark.
ChatGPT correctly identified that they are strongly pro-Common Core and they advocate for a “balanced curriculum” which is the code-language adopted years ago by constructivists who were getting attacked by parents and mathematicians.
The new Utah math standards have NOT gone through a real review process. This was a rubber stamp sham.
WestEd’s support of the standards is all you really need to know. The question now is, will the state board of education, our elected officials, demand a real review by mathematicians who will truly examine the standards for what works well.
We know what works well and we could choose standards that have been extremely successful. The pre-Common Core CA or MA standards would be amazing for Utah students. The Hoover institute proved out how destructive CA’s mistake was in adopting Common Core.
https://www.hoover.org/research/californias-common-core-mistake
I encourage you to check out the WestEd report. Then I would suggest writing the state board of education and requesting a real external review done by competent mathematicians with experience in writing and reviewing world class standards, or do a full rewrite of the new math standards. Or we could follow an alternate logical path and simply adopt what works such as California’s 2000 Green-dot standards framework.
If you feel so inclined, feel free to write a polite request to the state board at: board@schools.utah.gov
