STATE SETS 1ST MATH GOALS; BOARD REJECTS `FUZZY-WUZZY' TACK.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Spelling out for the first time what math students should know and when, the state Board of Education adopted standards Thursday that its president said reject a fuzzy-wuzzy approach and emphasize right answers.

The standards are expected to serve as a guide for new tests and textbooks for students from kindergarten through 12th grade, a process that will take years to complete.

But board members said approval of the standards marked an important milestone in the effort to reverse the steady decline in math scores among more than 5 million students in California's public schools.

``We will finally be fulfilling our responsibility to the children of California by providing parents and teachers with a clear direction to a world-class education,'' said board president Yvonne Larsen.

The board's unanimous vote to embrace the standards came despite opposition voiced by nearly two dozen teachers and school officials, including Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of schools.

Eastin contended the board was making a mistake by rejecting a broader set of proposed standards also calling for students to understand math concepts and solve problems creatively.

``I'm disappointed,'' Eastin told the board. ``I think this is half a loaf.''

But board members said it is appropriate to base the standards on fundamental skills and right answers.

``We've heard a lot of horror stories about fuzzy-wuzzy math and rain-forest math,'' Larsen said.

``The majority of our fourth-graders don't know basic fourth-grade work. That is a profound tragedy,'' said board member Janet Nicholas. ``I think all of us should be shocked - and, I hope, shocked into action.''

Even opponents of the standards adopted by the board conceded that they call for a far higher level of skill, especially in middle school and high school, than demonstrated in most public schools now.

The state board called for students to complete two years of algebra and a year of geometry before 10th grade, now the grade in which many students begin such courses.

State law established a commission to propose academic standards to the board. But board members revised many of the commission's proposed standards.

Among other things, the board rejected standards that favor what teachers call an integrated math curriculum, blending elements of algebra and geometry together in a single course.

Board members said they were not trying to keep individual school districts from using such an approach, but they didn't want to force districts with more traditional programs to change.

There also were more subtle changes by the board.

For example, the commission's proposed standard called for seventh-graders to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of the missing side of a right triangle.

But the board-approved standard called for students to know the theorem itself, as well to apply it, and also to verify the theorem empirically by direct measurement.

Critics charged that the standards give too little emphasis to understanding math concepts.

``It's a giant step backwards,'' said Lisa Usher, a San Pedro resource teacher who spoke against the board approach before the vote.

Usher said that showing children real-world examples of how mathematics works gets better results than the old pencil-and-paper math drills that the board standards embrace.