A random smattering of articles from this week

EdWeek: Parents Less Worried Than Experts Over Math, Science
Though education experts, business leaders, and government officials have largely embraced the drive to raise the level of math and science courses, students and parents may be satisfied with a less rigorous level of instruction in those subjects.

Overall, only 25 percent of parents think their children should be studying more math and science, and 70 percent say things “are fine as they are now,” the study found.

Sherman Dorn:On communicating math standards
Florida's Board of Education has recently approved new state standards in math, and I think it's the most constructive long-term decision the board has made in years. My judgment isn't based on the fact that I'm a friend and colleague of one member of the group that drafted the new standards. I looked at the standards before the FBOE approved them, and from my lay perspective, I just breathed a sigh of relief. The emphasis is on a few "big ideas" for each grade up through eighth (with plenty of connections to other areas of math), and while the "big ideas" are in line with current grade-level expectations, it should provide focus.

EdWeek: No Child Gets Ahead
In spite of all the political rhetoric about serving the needs of working families, we continue to squander the talents of their children. Grade school data from the federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study suggest that there are more than a million grade school students from families making less than $85,000 a year who start out in the top half of their class but fall off the college track on the way to high school.

What’s to be done? Raising standards would help, but efforts to raise state standards are an uphill struggle. Already, the most ambitious statewide performance standards are foundering on the shoals of Algebra 2, the early marker for students who are most likely to go on to college and have the best shot at middle-class jobs.