It seems a waste that there is no process by which a panel can give input into potential reversals of findings. In fact I only found out about this turn of events by happening to look at the CMC Blog. Lacking such a process, I will leave it to Carnegie to address the specific new findings of the commission.

I want to share two brief comments.

First, I trust the Math SMC did not reverse our recommendation lightly. I trust that the committee built on the work of the panel, both by reading the Findings document and by considering the hours of our taped public deliberation.

Furthermore, I trust that the commission members had a healthy amount of time to review the specific program and publicly discuss it in the same detail that the panels did. I trust that the alternate statement of findings was created as the end-product of public consensus building and public scrutiny of each painstaking citation and conclusion, just as the panel's findings were created.

I believe public confidence in the adoption process demands this, and the commissioners should publicly affirm these steps were taken. No one would be happy if the duly-selected panel's work was overruled outright by a less considered, less transparent review.

Second, our panel disagreed on a lot of things. If we were a district adoption committee, we might still be arguing about which program we liked better than which. But for this task, we agreed to put aside our differences and focus on the following: California is a big state, with many different districts with different students and different teachers and both traditional and non-traditional teaching. So California needs as many good choices as possible. Our task was not to say WE would use THIS program or that WE would NOT teach in THAT way. Our task was to help adopt a rich menu of curricula which, in the right hands for the right student body, will effectively aid the learning of math as specified in the Frameworks. Anything else would be a betrayal of the public trust put in these proceedings. I earnestly hope the Commission views its mandate similarly.

Thanks again to the Commission for your work. The public is counting on you to do the right thing.

- Eric Hsu