The New York State Board of Regents (i.e., a bunch of
losers who think they know what's best for all New York State children) decided
to re-engineer their math courses. They replaced the familiar
with Math A and Math B. These courses teach the following material:
This is a basic Algebra I course, but in the interest of raising
standards they made what was Course I a two-year series of courses. (Um,
hello?) They took out the formal proof and symbolic logic from the
curriculum (1).
On the Math A test they allow, but do not require graphing
calculators (2), discriminating against poorer schools;
for the Math B exam, they require that schools provide graphing calculators.
This has the added benefit of letting students use the built-in equation
solver rather than actually learn to solve equations.
Footnotes:
- These were, of course, the two topics I, a math geek, enjoyed.
- At least they're smart enough to ban TI-89 and other calculators
that can do symbolic manipulation.