California Math Wars

The Chronicle has an article up on Superintendent of Education's response to the new algebra standards pushed by the governor:
O'Connell to Schwarzenegger: Here's the bill, where's the cash?
O'Connell estimates the bill for this failed policy decision at 3.7 Billion dollars.
In my eyes, this is just a continuation of the math wars of the nineties; it appears that the power of the small band of fundamentalist fanatics who run the Mathematically Correct: website still outweighs the opinions and wishes of the math teachers actually in the trenches...