Bill Honig’s Conviction

As one who has been busily involved implementing the ex-superintendent of public instruction’s reforms at the classroom level these past 10 years, I was not surprised by Bill Honig’s conviction (Jan. 30). It was obvious to me during this period that Honig was nothing but a rubber stamp (good intentioned, of course) for any dogma or doctrine that came out of university education think tanks.

When Honig came into the office in 1982, he was parroting the virtues of back to basics, but in the latest innovative, earth-shaking California Mathematics Framework, with Honig’s name attached to the front cover, we now get the new dogma/doctrine that although students need to be proficient in the back to basics of math (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing) they also need to really understand the essence of what they are doing, (a rehash of the old “new” math).

Honig’s eagerness to please his professional colleagues (among them, his wife) has ended in tragedy. I now hope the public will take a much closer look at his vaunted reforms.

DANIEL E. LEWIS

Calimesa