Well, I agree with some of what he wrote and like the inclusion of the College Board's own material as evidence that he changes are politically motivated. But he goes overboard on dumping on the Common Core:
Perhaps the most vivid example of how the Common Core lowers standards and creates a situation which invites mischief with the SATs is the decision of the Common Core architects to defer teaching algebra to 9th grade. That move, along with several other pieces of the Common Core's Mathematics Standards, generally means that students in high school will not reach the level of "pre-calculus." And that in turn means that as college freshmen, they will be at least a year behind where college freshmen used to be. Instead of starting in with a freshman calculus course, they will have to start with complex numbers, trigonometric functions, conic sections, parametric equations, and the like.
Hmm. One, algebra in 9th grade meals precalc in 12th, which sets students up for calculus as college freshmen. So that statement seems to be a blatant attempt to distort and mislead. Two, personally, I think that leaving calculus until college is a good thing, given the generally low quality of high school calculus courses these days. If this isn't dumbing down, I don't know what is.
Three, a major point of the CC math standards is that acceleration-itis is dumbing down the curriculum by virtue of equating
rigor with t
aking it sooner (e.g. algebra for all in 8th grade). Most students aren't capable, so the solution seems to have been to water down the courses.
IMO, for a large majority of students, the new sequence will be beneficial (if the textbook manufacturers can do their jobs, and that's a big IF). For gifted students, the solution is to let them move through high-quality CC material at a faster rate. It's not the CC's fault if the schools don't do that. The standards themselves and how they're implemented are two very different things.
