a great deal of confusion and set students back. seven divided by seven, let s go. reporter: the new framework urges teachers to focus on historically marginalized people and take a justice oriented perspective by changing course material with less emphasis on problem solving. more than a thousand university professors pushed back calling it a quote insult, immoral and foolish to replace arithmetic with what they say is an endless river of fads that intercertifies equity social justice and environmental care into math class. 360 divided by 24 is? mathematics should be about numbers and calculating and not about politics, not about political indoctrination not about turning children into activists. reporter: why is one state so important? as the nation s largest textbook market, publishers tend to follow the california framework. this framework will not prepare students for courses in math or computer science. reporter: that s because the
empowering. what about, you know, the actual math part? hum. senior national correspondent william la jeunesse is in los angeles for us. william. harris, the reason you should care is this. as the nation s largest textbook market, when california enacts a new curriculum others the end to follow. in this case math, which actually is encouraging people not to focus on numbers or memorizing tables but social awareness. this this a state where 1-third of the students are proficient in math. it received push back from professor of science and math at the university letter. in a letter they said the reforms are a big mistake. insulting, immoral and foolish to replace math with an endless river of fads that insert equity, social justice and environmental care into math class.
class. 360 divided by 24 is? mathematics should be about numbers and calculating and not about politics. not about political indoctrination. not about turning children into activists. why with s. one state so important? as the nation s largest textbook market, publishers tend to follow the california framework. this framework will not prepare students for courses in math or computer science. [bell] that s because the new framework pushes algebra from eighth to ninth grade which effectively prevents students from taking calculus as a seen year. the state education board which declined an interview says the new approach provides new opportunities for those who need more assistance to catch up and surge ahead. right now just 1/3 of california students are considered proficient in math. that ranks 38th among states. and while these reforms may make math easier, critics say it does not make students better. bret? bret: william, thank you. up next, the panel on the
walk us through why the price has gone up so much. i mentioned it s up 130% from four years ago. you think given the world we live in we would see the opposite. the fact of the matter is the free market is not free. there s a lack of choice for consumers. three companies control publishing companies control 85% of the textbook market. what does that mean? they can collude to keep prices high. they also bundle in supplemental materials like cd-roms and study guides that not all students need that help drive up costs. they also can essentially work together to make bookstores also set prices high because bookstores want to get good profit margins as well. so i mean, there s a collusion multiindustry here. bookstores also set prices high because they want students to resell their books back in good condition so they can continue to only have to drop the margins a little so that they get as
minds by not valuing our public colleges. that s the value that s been lost. are there things we can do to get better efficiency? kill the racket of the textbook market? you bet. we need to do those things. but the reality is up until now, the best way students learn is with a teacher. but nobody is saying the technology lets the teachers do more. not less. absolutely. you have my sympathies. and your parents have my sympathies. and i understand as a birthday present to your dad, you re moving out at the end of the summer. we said by his birthday we would be out. now he has it on tape. thanks to all three of you. straight ahead, a full debate on voters are fed up with all these wedge issues.