Weekly Math Updates

July 19, 2007

Contents:

• Media Articles
• Poster Project Update

Hi all,

I was going to skip the update for this week but then a couple major items have popped up you need to be aware of.

Special legislative session on school district splits?
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6405994

There's talk about making property taxes cover school construction either county-wide or state-wide. State-wide makes more sense to me because then you have the ability to put up a school where it's needed no matter where it is. The best thing after putting up a building would then be to send the wpu directly to the school so parents (community council) and administrators at the local level can determine what needs to be done to have an excellent school.

State lawmakers want feds to pick up school tab for children of undocumented workers
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6405577

Illegal immigration is taking a toll on Utah schools and some lawmakers want the fed to pick up the tab because of their inability to deal with the issue. The end of the article is quite telling.

    Urquhart said he wanted legislative leaders from both parties to co-sign the letter. However, it quickly became clear that faced an uphill battle when Minority Caucus manager, Sen. Patricia Jones, D-Holladay, joined with two other Democrats on the committee in opposition to the letter.
    "It is more complex than we're painting it here," Jones said. "Many of the businesses I've talked to, many would say their companies would fold if these people were excluded from the population."

News to lawmakers...THEY'RE BREAKING THE LAW SO EITHER MAKE THEM LEGAL OR PENALIZE THE BUSINESSES EMPLOYING THEM SO THERE'S A REASON TO EMPLOY LEGAL CITIZENS.

New-math curriculum stirs passions among Bellevue parents, teachers
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003785645_mathwars12e.html

A great article up in Seattle on fuzzy math directly comparing Investigations to Singapore math. The only problem is Seattle schools just opted to use Singapore math in conjunction with Everyday Math. At least Seattle has this to look forward to...

State should go back to basics on math, new WASL review says
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003795680_math19m.html

"Consultant Linda Plattner, hired by the state Board of Education, says Washington expects too little of its students in math, even though roughly 40 percent of Washington 10th-graders fail math each year on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL)."

Education is in need of more local control
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/228245/

A great letter to the editor by a young man that just graduated from 6th grade. :)

UHSAA: Lawmakers push for inclusion of charter athletes
http://www.sltrib.com/sports/ci_6409722

It's about time. I hope ASD changes it's policies quickly on this to allow charter students to participate in district sports if they desire to.

Poster Project Update

OK, a few of you have been helping make calls and now the Davy Crockett Society at UVSC is going to help out as well to raise funds and contact other districts. So far we've put posters in ASD, Daggett, Morgan, Millard, and Ogden School Districts. Cache and Jordan have both requested posters, but their needs are in excess of what I have. The good news is, someone contacted me about Rocky Mountain Printing and for about $4,000 I can get 30,000 posters and curriculum pages printed and shipped to all the remaining school districts (about 40). This is a fraction of the cost I had thought it would take and it's due to the size of the run that gets the price down so much. I wish I'd known this the last time we did ASD and bought extra...

Regardless, I need your help now to raise some money, but a lot less than I thought I needed. Please speak with co-workers, employers, anyone that can contribute and ask them to go to www.InGodWeTrustPosters.com, scroll to the bottom and click make a donation. You can pay via paypal or credit card. It would be really great if you could get people from around the state to help donate as well, or if you didn't the first time around, please do so now.

Till next week,

Oak Norton

http://www.oaknorton.com/mathpetition.cfm