I attended the Monday, Sept. 21, meeting of the Fayette County Board of Education where Amy Riley made her eloquent presentation on behalf of the Concerned Parents for Better Fayette Education group of which I am a part.

I was scheduled to make a two-minute "public comment". But I declined because I realized at the last minute that I could not say what needed to be said without more time and more reflection on what transpired. Thus I am writing to you where I hope I can also reach a wider audience.

Our group is all but invisible as a body because it is an completely informal association and because we have such an effective leader. Amy receives input from many sources and does a masterful job of assimilating the information and incorporating it into her data bank pertaining to the Chicago Math controversy. Your readers have seen the fruits of her labors in the many insightful letters you have published. Now she has condensed a large fraction of those data into a presentation to the BOE that spells out very clearly the nature of our concerns. I would encourage everyone with Internet access to read what she had to say by clicking on Presentation in the CPFBE Web page which can be found at www.accessatlanta.com/community/groups/cpfbe.

In that presentation, as well as in her letters, she is respectful to everyone involved: parents, teachers, administrators and BOE members. No one has any reason to be offended by her writings because her intention is to enlist everyone's involvement in devising a resolution to this issue.

It is notable and clearly evident that already much progress has been achieved, this school year, in the form of supplementation which, combined with Chicago Math, can yield a workable (though informally) upgraded math curriculum. Several math teachers, at the BOE meeting, offered "public comments" proclaiming success of this nature. This is consistent with one of my previous observations that the dictionary definition of "teaching" means "imparting knowledge," not simply expecting the children to teach themselves from the UCMP workbooks.

There is an obvious "circle the wagons" reaction on the part of some of the math faculty. This reaction is not at all justified. They have not been attacked by anyone. In fact, they would be welcomed to work with us toward our common goal: a quality math curriculum that fits the needs of all of our children. Testimonials relating how well the math teachers' children are doing with Chicago math are nearly irrelevant because, with their gene inheritance plus first-rate parenting, it would be surprising if those children were struggling. What is relevant is that the disappointing national experience with Chicago math is being duplicated in Fayette County.

It is the conceptual basis of the Chicago Math textbooks that is at issue. Chicago Math, some times called New-New Math, is part of the Constructivist education movement in science and mathematics. The problems with it are well addressed in the many fine documents to be found at various Web sites. These are extensive studies of the problem, done by nationally respected, well qualified people. Anyone who has not put forth the effort to examine what is being said there simply is not serious about understanding the alleged problems with Chicago Math. The Web site www.mathematicallycorrect.com is a good starting place, and most of the rest can be found there by reference.

Finally, I wish to address the matter of apparent success in college. After I became aware of this issue, I made contact with an old graduate school chum who spent 38 years teaching physics at the university level. He confirmed my worst fears about the effect of our 30-year, downhill toboggan ride in mathematics education due to the adoption of Constructivist curricula.

It was in the 1980s when, suddenly, he and other physics professors around the country noticed that the students' diminished math skills caused them to fall well below the historical norm on standard physics examinations. Note that these exams are almost the ultimate in "problem solving," supposedly the great strength of the modern math curricula.

The politically correct "solution," adopted by most institutions, was and still is, grade inflation. This has severely undermined the quality of education in both science and engineering, making grade-point average almost meaningless as a measure of real achievement. My point is that we are dealing here with a matter that has very serious consequences for our country.

Thus, fellow citizens, we all need to understand that this issue is much larger than a tempest in the teapot of Fayette County. It is time that we all work together in resolving it in a non-adversarial manner. After all, citizen participation in reviewing and adopting new curricula is part of the formal flowchart I have seen for that process in the Fayette County school system.