The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is delighted and honored to learn that the Archimedes Standards: Model PreK-12 State Mathematics Standards (jointly created by NAS and Freedom in Education) has informed the South Dakota Department of Education’s proposed new Mathematics Standards. We are grateful to the Department’s personnel, especially to Secretary of Education Joseph Graves, for considering our work. We strongly urge South Dakota’s citizens and policymakers to adopt these revised Mathematics standards.
We endorse South Dakota’s proposed new Mathematics standards because they are good for South Dakota’s students and teachers, period. South Dakota’s previous Mathematics Standards were very unclear, not very rigorous, and not sufficiently focused on content knowledge. The new standards are better on all counts. One public commenter wrote, “I especially like the simplicity and directness of the language. The standards written this way make sense to me, which will assist in having a better understanding of what is expected in my teaching and in my students’ learning.” This is the case—and here we think we can detect the Archimedes Standards particular influence. We wrote our standards to emphasize precisely that simplicity and directness of language, and South Dakota’s Department of Education did the same. We applaud the Department’s approach.
We also particularly appreciate South Dakota’s adoption of the category “Mathematical Fluency.” We believe this parallels the Archimedes Standards’ category of “Mental Mathematics”—and we also believe that it is a wonderful addition to South Dakota’s Mathematics standards.
We appreciate that South Dakota’s Department of Education personnel chose those parts of the Archimedes Standards to inform their work that they thought would be appropriate. That is precisely how we intended state policymakers to regard the Archimedes Standards: as something they should use as they saw fit.
We do think the South Dakota Department of Education should consider some further moves toward the Archimedes model in its next revision cycle of its Mathematics standards. The Archimedes Standards emphasized detailed content knowledge in ways that the proposed South Dakota standards do not—and as a result is substantially longer than the South Dakota standards. While we recognize that a philosophical difference informed South Dakota’s approach, we do think it would be better to include more detail. Another public commenter wrote, “There seems to be some content/rigor missing in the new standards.” We believe this concern could be addressed by incorporating greater portions of detailed content from the Archimedes Standards. We also believe that our model standards on History of Mathematics would make for a fundamentally different, and better, approach to mathematics instruction, and we do urge South Dakota to consider them.
Other changes we might suggest get into the weeds of mathematics instruction—and would amount to repeating, We think the way we approached mathematics instruction in the Archimedes Standards is quite good. South Dakota’s Department of Education made the most important changes in its existing proposed Mathematics Standards: it presents mathematics instruction clearly and focuses on content knowledge. Any disagreements we have with South Dakota now amount to a friendly conversation about instructional details, within a pedagogical framework we share.
Of course mathematics standards are not the end point of mathematics instruction. Another public commenter made a good point: “going to a SD exclusive set of standards also makes it more difficult to find curriculum materials from national publishers in direct line with SD standards.” As it so happens, NAS’ partner in creating the Archimedes Standards, Freedom in Education, has been working on curriculum frameworks, model lesson plans, and professional development linked to the Archimedes Standards. Should South Dakota policymakers decide they wish to use these resources, they will be available for South Dakota.
That is for later. Now, we are delighted and honored that South Dakota’s Department of Education has found the Archimedes Standards useful as a way to inform its own work. Now, we endorse its proposed Mathematics Standards as a great improvement on its previous Mathematics standards, and simply and unreservedly good for South Dakota’s teachers and students. South Dakota’s citizens should be proud of the work done by their Department of Education.
Photo by Beck & Stone
