Mathematics Standards

My husband and I were fuming after reading David Klein’s commentary concerning math standards in this state and the plan by the Los Angeles Unified School District to sabotage higher standards. (“The State’s Invisible Math Standards,” May 3.) We totally support his fight against mediocrity.

I graduated from [Cal State] Northridge in 1994 with a degree in French. I have to say that I got through college without ever stepping into a math class . . . good for me (at the time) but I see that it is important that we all have certain math competencies.

I see my 16-year-old son just struggling through his math in high school, in LAUSD. I don’t know if it’s the way he was taught basics or his math abilities, but I do know that in elementary school there was not enough drill and he was able to use a calculator by fifth grade.

Professor Klein is right on the money, and we should all help him in his fight for superior standards. We are trying to instill those thoughts in our son.

SARABETH ROTHFELD and PHIL RODD, Woodland Hills

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Klein can be assured that if the state board had adopted world-class mathematics standards for the 21st century instead of the 19th century, there would have been a great deal of support from the “education” community. It is ironic that as a college professor he does not consider himself part of the education establishment. The “prestigious” Fordham Foundation is neither prestigious nor affiliated with Fordham University. It is a self-appointed group of people who would prefer that we still used slates and the horn book and that we had the student body of the 1950s.

The states’ mathematics standards “evaluations” were done by those who have no credibility in either mathematics or education. And they have produced a “grading” that has the same degree of credibility. Klein should get out into the real world.

JACK PRICE, Professor of Mathematics Education, Cal Poly Pomona, Newport Beach