The Utah Board of Education this summer approved new state math standards, a move that was supposed to signal the end of a battle that began years ago in the Alpine School District over the best way to teach math. The new standards dictate which math skills and concepts are to be taught at each grade level across the state.

But no one was happily shaking hands over the new standards at the state Capitol last week. Instead, lawmakers, educators and mathematicians spent nearly three hours debating whether the new state math standards are world-class or embarrassingly inadequate. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, even suggested forming a new task force to study the issue further.

On top of that, some in the Alpine district say the problems there, where the war essentially began, aren't over either. The district had to stop using a controversial math curriculum as its primary textbook, but still uses it alongside more traditional math lessons, continuing to draw the ire of some parents and teachers.

"It seems like the math wars are alive and well," said Aaron Bertram, chairman of the University of Utah math department.

Subtracting curriculum

The so-called math wars began years ago when Alpine district began teaching "Investigations" math. Investigations focuses on conceptual math over drills and memorization.

Some parents complained their children were so busy working with blocks and concepts that they weren't learning the basics. Proponents of Investigations said it better prepares students for higher-level math and gives them an understanding of the concepts behind the formulas.

Oak Norton, who helped lead parental protests against Investigations, said it upset him that his daughter still hadn't learned times tables by the end of third grade.

"I said to the teacher, 'It's almost the end of the year. . . when are you going to start doing this?' " Norton said. "She said, 'Oh, we don't do that anymore.' "

Others jumped on the anti-Investigations bandwagon, and the issue eventually rose to the state level. There, the state Education Office decided schools could no longer use Investigations as a primary text, and could use it only to supplement other materials.

But the state didn't stop there. The state school board agreed to revise the math core curriculum earlier than scheduled in response to pressure from legislators.

The results of those revisions hit the Capitol in a firestorm of finger-pointing during a legislative Education Interim Committee on Wednesday.

"That shouldn't have been at that kind of a hearing," said Utah Education Association President Kim Campbell, who attended the tumultuous meeting. "That wasn't the forum where that kind of issue could be solved."

Multiple views

Ultimately, legislators agreed to channel their concerns in a constructive way, but not before a line of speakers and legislators took their turns questioning, explaining, defending and attacking the new standards.

Stephenson began by wondering why the school board approved revisions to the secondary math core despite misgivings he, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, and Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, expressed in an e-mail dated Aug. 2 urging rejection of the standards. The board approved the revised secondary math core Aug. 3.

In the e-mail, the lawmakers threatened to try to legislate math standards if the board passed the standards as written. The legislators based their opinions in part on input from Stanford University mathematics professor James Milgram, who said the standards were riddled with mathematical errors.

"They are among the worst proposed state standards I have ever seen in grades K-7!" Milgram wrote in an e-mail to Stephenson and other legislators dated July 31.

Some members of the committee that wrote the new core curriculum denied they're filled with mathematical errors. The members included mathematicians and math educators.

State Superintendent Patti Harrington also defended the standards.

"The core standards are good and solid," Harrington said.

Gina Post, who sat on one of the committees, expressed outrage over the criticisms.

"I'm offended by the way we are demeaning mathematics educators in this setting by saying they don't have any knowledge," Post said. "I'm not a quantum physicist, but I do know math in the K-12 curriculum."

Bertram, who also sat on an earlier committee, argued that some of the so-called mathematical errors in the standards are really just differences of opinion between mathematicians.

"That's a very serious charge, and I don't believe it's true," Bertram said.

He believes the new standards are a big improvement over the old ones.

In fact, David Wright, a member of the committee that rewrote the standards, said he'd give the new elementary math core a "B" grade and the secondary math core a "B-minus" grade.

That, he noted, is a big improvement over the "D" the Fordham Foundation gave Utah's old math core.

Still, some legislators were not pleased, saying they want nothing less than world-class standards as measured against countries such as Singapore and states such as California.

"I know when I supported the resolution, it wasn't to maintain the current system with some minor tweaking," Hughes said, referring to a November 2006 resolution from the Legislature endorsing a full review of math standards.

Other legislators defended the new standards.

Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, said Singapore and California are not necessarily the end-all-be-all of math.

"It seems to me you're pretty much demeaning the math educators of this state as if they don't understand the big concepts," she said. "In some people's opinions, California does not have the best standards."

Finding solutions

Alpine math curriculum director Aleen Ure sat in the audience and watched the struggle. She said the new standards are an improvement and wonders why legislators are taking it upon themselves to decide how to best teach math.

"They generally don't ask us," Ure said. "You'd think if they wanted to understand what was going on in education they'd come into schools." It's clear the state will not be moving on in a larger sense from the math wars anytime soon.

"I know we can get bogged down as a committee on the blame game in this whole thing," Stephenson told fellow lawmakers. "[The question is] how can we focus all of this energy on math - and it's not going away - in a constructive way that will bring about a unified result?"

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* LISA SCHENCKER can be reached at lschencker@sltrib.com or 801-257-8999.