Fuzzy Math

Truly persistent people don't give in, period. --Rick Pitino, "Success Is a Choice," page 200 Comment from Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe: "But Rick has given up, walking away from approximately $27 million in order to stop the relentless hemorrhaging that was endangering both his mental health and professional reputation. "Moral of the story? There is none, other than 'players still win the games.'

Drummer Peter Erskine calls his record company Fuzzy Music. And unlike fuzzy math, it's an exemplary phrase, used to underscore Erskine's belief in music "that does not fit the large corporate record company way of thought or aesthetics." On Monday night at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica, he put that belief into action in an evening featuring two of Fuzzy Music's best-known bands: his own Lounge Art Ensemble and the group 3prime.

Los Angeles City Council members warned the Department of Water and Power on Tuesday that it must do a much better job of reaching out to the city's neighborhood councils if it hopes to sell the public on a surcharge to pay for the city's shift to green power. DWP officials presented a City Council panel with a briefing on plans to increase solar and wind power and other renewable energy generated by the agency from the current 2.2% to 20% by 2017.

A 2-1 vote authorizing a Los Angeles law firm to wrap up its investigation into alleged candidate spending improprieties did not violate city codes, City Atty. Mark Sellers said this week. Questions over the vote were raised last week by Mayor Dan Del Campo, who was the lone dissenter in the Nov. 14 decision. According to the municipal code, three affirmative votes are required for the payment of money.

Re "Drive to Kill Estate Taxes Loses Steam," Feb. 15: I was glad to see the argument that repeal of the estate tax in higher estate brackets would promote income and wealth inequality. It could be noted further that such inequalities tend to create political inequality and that particularly harmful income and wealth inequalities are involved in the abolition of estate taxes. Income and wealth inequalities that arise from the ability and effort of those acquiring comparatively large incomes and wealth have a redeeming feature of promoting economic growth.

Agood teacher will tell you that progress in learning often comes in a rocking motion, two steps forward, one step back, with starts and stops, through peaks, plateaus and valleys. The results of this year's California Academic Performance Index reflect this rhythm of instruction. Fewer schools reached their goals, only 59% as compared with 70% a year ago, after year-to-year improvement goals were first instituted.

California's energy hoax, er, crisis, has sparked lots of confusion. Here are answers to the most frequent questions: Question: On "The Addams Family," how did Uncle Fester get that lightbulb to turn on when he put it in his mouth? Answer: He had an "electric personality" that enabled him to generate electricity. Q: How is electricity normally created?

Picture it: Teachers unions giving a thumbs up or thumbs down on every decision about which textbooks to use in the public schools, about whether Dickens is to be covered in English and about whether students are to learn multiplication tables or fuzzy math. Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature should stop this power grab by the state's largest teachers union, an action that threatens statewide school reform. A bill proposed by the California Teachers Assn.

As a parent, I want to applaud the State Board of Education's decision to return to basic math in our schools in spite of all the education establishment's opposition (Dec. 13). If you want to talk about who is dumbing down our kids, you could speak with just about any parent with children in K-6 in Garden Grove Unified School District. Our district went for the new fuzzy math two years ago. Last year wasn't too bad because our teachers still had the previous math textbooks to use and most of them did. When parents found out that the district planned to remove the books from the classrooms for this school year, many of us went before our school board to express our concerns.

As a parent with two children in public school, I'm a firm supporter of Prop 8. Its most important provision, school-site governance, ensures parents become decision makers in their local schools. Academic decisions need to be made at the local level by parents, teachers and principals, not Sacramento bureaucrats. If Prop. 8 had been in effect 10 years ago, California would not be at the academic basement of the nation. Children would not have been subjected to damaging whole-language reading programs and the new "fuzzy math" curricula.