Texas' standards for what schoolchildren should learn in math are 'clearly inferior' to recently written national benchmarks, though the state earned high marks for its language arts curriculum, according to a new study. The report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, officially released today, gives Texas a grade of C for its math standards and an A-minus for those in language arts. Texas and Alaska were the only states not to participate last year in an effort to write national, or common, curriculum standards that spell out what students should learn no matter where they live. Those common standards earned high grades from the Fordham Institute: an A-minus in math and a B-plus in language arts. The report partly vindicates Gov. Rick Perry and his education commissioner, Robert Scott, who have blasted the idea of national standards and argued that Texas already has high expectations for students. Perry was so opposed to the concept that he refused to let Texas compete for President Barack Obama's federal Race to the Top grant, which gave an advantage to states that signed on to the common core initiative. 'For Texas to try to make the case that their standards are just as rigorous as the common core, we would say that's true in English, but it's definitely not true in math,' said Mike Petrilli, a vice president at the Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that has been supportive of high-quality national standards. The report's conclusions drew skepticism from the leaders of the two associations representing math and English teachers in Texas. The math grade should be well above average, they argued, while the English mark should be lowered. The State Board of Education adopted new language arts standards in 2008, with the conservative majority drawing heat from educators for rewriting the draft just hours before the vote. 'The teachers were very clear about what we wanted, and the board did not accept what we had to say,' said Carol Revelle, the president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. 'They chose their own political ideology over what researchers and teachers had to say.' Back to basics The teachers argued that the board de-emphasized reading comprehension and implemented a back-to-basics approach that focused more on grammar and spelling. State Board member David Bradley, a Republican who represents Southeast Texas, defended the language arts standards. 'To our critics I say, 'The proof is in the pudding.' I think we've been vindicated,' he said of the report. The Fordham researchers said Texas' language arts standards 'are more clearly written, better presented, and logically organized' than the common standards. But they said Texas does a poor job of defining 'the quality and complexity of texts that students should be reading each year.' In math, the report concluded that Texas' standards were 'easy to read' but lacked specificity. For example, the researchers dubbed this standard for seventh-graders as too broad: 'The student is expected to: use geometric concepts and properties to solve problems in fields such as art and architecture.' The researchers also docked Texas for not requiring students to be able to automatically recall number facts, such as multiplication problems. Maybe higher Paul Gray, the president of the Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said he would give the state's math standards an A-minus or a B-plus, not a C. 'The elementary grades tend to be more specific, and high school grades tend to be a little more nebulous,' Gray said. 'For clarity, we typically turn to released test items to interpret what TEA's expectation is.' The State Board is set to revise the math standards this fall. The current standards were developed in 1997 and tweaked in 2006, according to the Texas Education Agency. 'We know it's time for a strong update of the math standards,' said TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe. The researchers found that the common standards were better than 37 states in language arts and 39 states in math. ericka.mellon@chron.com XXX - End of Story3D 