Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 7A
ForsythOpinion
YOUR ELECTED
OFFICIALS
CITY COUNCIL
Mayor H. Ford Gravitt, PO. Box
3177, Cumming, GA 30028; (770)
887-4342
Ralph Perry, 1420 Pilgrim Road,
Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-
7474
Rupert Sexton, 211 Hickory Oak
Hollow, Cumming, GA 30040;
(770) 844-7929
Mayor Pro-Tem Quincy Holton,
103 Hickory Ridge Drive,
Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-
5279
Lewis Ledbetter, 205 Mountain
Brook Drive, Cumming, GA
30040; (770) 887-3019
John Pugh, 108 13th St.,
Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-
3342
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Chairman R.J. (Pete) Amos, Post
1, 10 E. Main St., Cumming, GA
30040; (678) 513-5881; rjamos @
forsythco.com
Secretary Brian Tam, Post 2,
4410 Dorset Lane, Suwanee, GA
30024; (404) 392-6983; office,
(678) 513-5882; brtam @forsythco.
com
Todd Levent, Post 3,
110 E. Main St., Cumming, GA
30040; (678) 513-5883; tlevent@
forsythco.com
Cindy Mills, Post 4, 110 E. Main
St., Cumming, GA 30040; (678)
513-5884; cjmills@forsythco.com
Vice Chairman Jim Boss, Post 5,
110 E. Main St., Cumming, GA
30040; (678) 513-5885; jjboff@for
sythco.com
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ann Crow, District 1, 320
Dahlonega St., Cumming, GA
30040; (770) 490-6316; acrow @
forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Kristin Morrissey, District 2,
3310 Cany Creek Lane, Cumming,
GA 30041; (404) 550-3083; kmor
rissey @forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Chairman Tom Cleveland,
District 3, 5225 Millsford Court,
Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 844-
9901; tcleveland @forsyth.kl2.
ga.us
Vice Chairwoman Darla Sexton
Light, District 4, 50080 Hopewell
Road, Cumming, GA 30028; (770)
887-0678; dlight@forsyth.kl2.
ga.us
Nancy Roche, District 5, 7840
Chestnut Hill Road, Cumming,
GA 30041; (770) 889-0229;
nroche@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
NATIONAL LEGISLATORS
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, 120
Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20510; (202)
224-3643 or (770) 661-0999
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, 416
Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20510; (202)
224-3521 or (770) 763-9090
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 9th
District; 513 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C.,
20515; (202) 225-9893; fax, (770)
297-3390
U.S. Rep. RobWoodall, 7th
District; 1725 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, D.C.,
20515; (770) 232-3005; (202) 225-
4272; fax, (202) 225-4696
STATE LEGISLATORS
Sen. Jack Murphy, 27th District,
Coverdell Legislative Office
Building, Room 325-A, 18 Capitol
Square, Atlanta, GA 30334; (404)
656-7127
Sen. Steve Gooch, 51st District,
Suite 421-C, State Capitol, Atlanta,
GA 30334; (404) 656-9221
Rep. Kevin Tanner, 9th District,
Coverdell Legislative Office
Building, Room 401-E, Atlanta, GA
30334; (404) 656-0152
Rep. Calvin Hill, 22nd District,
Coverdell Legisiative Office
Building, Room 401-B, 18 Capitol
Square, Atlanta, GA 30334; (404)
656-7855
Rep. Mark Hamilton, 24th
District, Suite 218, State Capitol,
Atlanta, GA 30334; (404) 656-
5132; local, (770) 844-6768
Rep. Mike Dudgeon, 25th
District, Coverdell Legislative
Office Building, Room 608-C, 18
Capitol Square, Atlanta, GA
30334; (404) 656-0298
Rep. Geoff Duncan, 26th
District, Coverdell Legislative
Office Building, Room 512-B, 18
Capitol Square, Atlanta, GA
30334; (404) 656-7859
Send aletter to the editor to PO, Box 210 Cumming, GA 30028; ax it o (770) 889-6017; or e-mail i o editor@forsythnews.com.
: :::,:pze;f: g . What's a stamp? ,
going up again!
fl
() "%
Y S 3
' \a (T
f( 7
| (fié SBY
’—-.
cHI SR A
=\ | 3 |
% -,' ’//;’ ‘
\/ ')Z g |
g = \\) : ?o“;g:r@
9 2 :
Jim Powell for the Forsyth County News ”
Obama’s war on academic standards :
America’s downfall doesn’t
begin with the “low-informa
tion voter.” It starts with the
no-knowledge student.
For decades, collectivist agi
tators in our schools have
chipped away at academic
excellence in the name of fair
ness, diversity and social jus
tice. “Progressive” reformers
denounced Westemn civiliza
tion requirements, the
Founding Fathers and the
Great Books as racist. They
attacked traditional grammar
classes as irrelevant in modern
life. They deemed ability
grouping of students (tracking)
bad for self-esteem. They
replaced time-tested rote tech
niques and standard algo
rithms with fuzzy math, inven
tive spelling and multicultural
claptrap.
Under President Obama,
these top-down mal-formers
— empowered by Washington
education bureaucrats and
backed by misguided liberal
philanthropists led by billion
aire Bill Gates — are presid
ing over a radical makeover of
your children’s school curricu
lum. It’s being done in the
name of federal “Common
Core” standards that do any
thing but raise achievement
standards.
Common Core was enabled
by Obama’s federal stimulus
law and his Department of
Education’s “Race to the Top”
gimmickry. The administra
tion bribed cash-starved states
into adopting unseen instruc
tional standards as a condition
of winning billions of dollars
in grants. Even states that lost
their bids for Race to the Top
money were required to com
mit to a dumbed-down and
amorphous curricular “align
ment.”
In practice, Common Core’s
Back from the debt-ceiling brink
The following editorial
appeared in the Los Angeles
Times on Jan. 22:
The House GOP seems to
have extricated itself from a
bind that could have dam
aged both the American
economy and its own politi
cal future.
Frustrated by Democrats’
opposition, many House
Republicans wanted to use
the debt ceiling as leverage
to force the Senate and the
White House to accept
deeper spending cuts.
But after three days at an
annual retreat, party leaders
said they were willing to
move the fight over spend
ing to more appropriate
times — including the
looming debate over fund
ing the federal government
after March 27, when the
money for most operations
MICHELLE MALKIN
Columnist
dubious “college- and career”-
ready standards undermine
local control of education,
usurp state autonomy over
curricular materials, and foist
untested, mediocre and inco
herent pedagogical theories on
America’s schoolchildren.
Over the next several weeks
and months, I'l] use this col
umn space to expose who’s
behind this disastrous scheme
in D.C. backrooms. I'll tell
you who’s fighting it in grass
roots tea party and parental
revolts across the country from
Massachusetts to Indiana,
Texas, Georgia and Utah. And
most importantly, I'll explain
how this unprecedented feder
al meddling is corrupting our
children’s classrooms and text
books.
There’s no better illustration
of Common Core’s duplici
tous talk of higher standards
than to start with its math
“reforms.” While Common
Core promoters assert their
standards are “internationally
benchmarked,” independent
members of the expert panel in
charge of validating the stan
dards refute the claim. Panel
member Sandra Stotsky of the
University of Arkansas report
ed, “No material was ever pro
vided to the Validation
Committee or to the public on
the specific college readiness
expectations of other leading
nations in mathematics” or
other subjects.
In fact, Stanford University
professor James Milgram, the
only mathematician on the vali-
GOP leaders appear to have
persuaded their members to
support a bill that would
effectively waive the debt
limit until May 19.
Their goal is to win deep
spending cuts before that as
part of the negotiations over
two other looming legisla
tive battles: funding govern
ment for the rest of the fiscal
year and reshaping the
across-the-board spending
cuts due to go into effect
March 1.
What's often lost in the
debate over deficits and the
debt ceiling is the fact that
Congress holds the federal
purse strings, with the presi
dent limited to vetoing the
measures he doesn’t like.
If Congress wants to
staunch the flow of red ink,
it needs to trim the annual
spending bills and adjust the
tax and entitlement laws
runs out. That’s a good deci
sion for everyone involved.
President Obama has said
repeatedly that he won’t
negotiate over the debt limit
again, arguing — correctly
— that refusing to raise it is
irresponsible. It’s not like
cutting up the federal credit
card, as Republicans have
suggested; it’s refusing to
pay the bill.
If Republicans had insist
ed on holding the debt limit
hostage to deeper cuts, they
could have triggered at least
a partial default that would
have shaken global financial
markets, raising interest
rates and exacerbating
Washington’s budget mess.
The political fallout for the
GOP could also have been
significant.
Rather than finding out
the hard way whether the
president is bluffing, House
Thisis a of opinion — ours, yours and
Mnn.smcdummdcmanm
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views,
dation panel, concluded that
the Common Core math
scheme would place American
students two years behind their
peers in other high-achieving
countries. In protest, Milgram
refused to sign off on the stan
dards. He’s not alone.
Professor Jonathan
Goodman of New York
University found that the math
standards imposed “significant
ly lower expectations with
respect to algebra and geome
try than the published standards
of other countries.”
Under Common Core, as the
American Principles Project
and Pioneer Institute point out,
algebra | instruction is pushed
to ninth grade, instead of eighth
grade, as commonly taught.
Division is postponed from
fifth to sixth grade. Prime fac
torization, common denomina
tors, conversions of fractions
and decimals, and algebraic
manipulation are de-empha
sized or eschewed. Traditional
Euclidean geometry is replaced
with an experimental approach
that had not been previously
pilot-tested in the U.S.
Ze’ev Wurman, a prominent
software architect, electrical
engineer and longtime math
advisory expert in California
and Washington, D.C., points
out that Common Core delays
proficiency with addition and
subtraction until fourth grade
and proficiency with basic mul
tiplication until fifth grade, and
skimps on logarithms, mathe
matical induction, parametric
equations and trigonometry at
the high school level.
I cannot sum up the stakes
any more clearly than Wurman
did in his critique of this mess
and the vested interests behind
it:
*“I believe the Common
Core marks the cessation of
educational standards ‘o
improvement in the United _
States. No state has any reason'
left to aspire for first-rate stan
dards, as all states willbe ~ ©-
judged by the same mediocre
national benchmark enforced
by the federal government.
Moreover, there are organi- ~ ;
zations that have reasons to
work for lower and less- s
demanding standards, specifi- ..
cally teachers unions and pro
fessional teacher organiza- :
tions. While they may not
admit it, they have a vested |
interest in lowering the ’
accountability bar for their
members. ...This will be done
in the name of ‘critical think- |
ing’ and ‘2lst-century’ skills,
and in faraway Washington, °
D.C., well beyond the reach of .
parents and most states and
employers.”
This is all in keeping with
my own experience as a parent
of elementary- and middle
school age kids who were
exposed to “Everyday Math”
nonsense. This and other fads
abandon “drill and kill” mem
orization techniques for fuzzy
“critical thinking” methods
that put the cart of “why” in
front of the horse of “how.”
In other words: Instead of
doing the grunt work of ham
mering times tables and basic
functions into kids’ heads first,
the faddists have turned to
wacky, wordy non-math alter
natives to encourage “concep
tual” understanding — with
out any mastery of the funda
mentals of math.
Common Core is mtten to
the core. The corruption of
math education is just the
beginning.
Michelle Malkin can be reached
at malkinblog@gmail.com.
responsible for the imbal- -
ance. That’s far easier said ..
than done. Even the House -
Republicans’ belt-tightening .
budget proposals in 2011 .-
and 2012 still called for tril- «
lions of dollars in new bor- -
rowing over the coming ,
decade. And any dramatic -
shift toward austerity “
through spending cuts or tax.
increases threatens to scuttlé -
the fragile economic recov- -
ery. .
Even if Congress agrees to
take the possibility of a ‘
default off the table, the
stakes in the budget battle
remain high. If the past is
any guide, the public won’t
respond well to the House .
GOP if it forces a govern
ment-wide shutdown in late«
March. But at least the party. -
seems ready to stop threat- -
ening to put the entire econs
omy at risk. o