Math A

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

• Course I (Algebra I and a touch of logic anywhere else)
• Course II (Geometry and a touch more algebra anywhere else)
• Course III (Algebra II and Trigonometry anywhere else)
• Your-school-can-teach-prealgebra-and-calculus-if-it-really-wants

with Math A and Math B. These courses teach the following material:

• Mathematical reasoning
• Numbers and numeration
• Operations
• Modeling/Multiple representation
• Measurement
• Uncertainty (their magical word for probability)
• Patterns/Functions

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:

1. These were, of course, the two topics I, a math geek, enjoyed.
2. At least they're smart enough to ban TI-89 and other calculators that can do symbolic manipulation.