After the Common Core standards were drafted, they went to review committees. In the prior post we showed the comments and testimony of Dr. Sandra Stotsky on the English standards.

For math, the only professional mathematician and expert on content on the review committee was Dr. Jim Milgram from Stanford. He has long been involved in writing standards and evaluating international standards of the high achieving countries. A few years ago he was instrumental in providing testimony that Utah had very poor standards and this helped bring about our A- rated 2007 standards. His review of Common Core concludes:

“So it seems to me that you have a clear choice between

• Core Standards – in large measure a political document that, in spite of a number of real strengths, is written at a very low level and does not adequately reflect our current understanding of why the math programs in the high achieving countries give dramatically better results;

• The new Texas Standards that show every indication of being among the best, if not the best, state standards in the country. They are written to prepare student to both enter the workforce after graduation, and to take calculus in college if not earlier. They also reflect very well, the approaches to mathematics education that underlie the results in the high achieving countries.”

You can see more of his comments here:

http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/04/james-milgram-on-the-new-core-curriculum-standards-in-math/