A man with a mission
Bill Quirk has something to tell you, and by God, he's not going to let you get away until he's proven his point. His homepage, "The Truth About Math Standards and Math Reform", is a strident masterpiece that should be a godsend to frustrated parents everywhere.
Quick synopsis: Bill's a Mathematics Ph.D. who is not happy with fuzzy math, not happy with constructivist math, and thinks our math instruction in the US is going to hell in a handbasket, thanks to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). He's here to help:
We are opposed to the NCTM version of "math reform." We know that math is a vertically-structured knowledge domain, with arithmetic as the foundation. We know it can be all over by the end of the fifth grade, if a child hasn't mastered the facts and skills of pencil-and-paper arithmetic. We are concerned about the math education of all students. We know that the poor suffer most from NCTM math, because there's no supplemental input from tutors or well educated parents.
The man is good. He's good with numbers (natch), good at explaining the numbers, and he never wavers from his appointed mission. And what he has to say is applicable to the current standardized testing debate, because those people who believe in the "anti-truth philosophies of 'postmodernism', 'deconstructionism', and 'constructivism'", who "reject the traditional belief that different people can come to the same shared understanding of subject matter", who are convinced that "all knowledge is inherently subjective", who insist parents "have faith in the 'professional' educators, and stay out of their way", and who claim that the passing on of "specific content standards, dictated by others, will make teacher low-level 'delivers' of knowledge, not respected professionals' "- those people, my friend, are also the ones who think standardized tests in and of themselves stifle creative thinking and damage self-esteem.