What's Up With the Adoption of "Fuzzy Math" in Silicon Valley?

A few weeks ago I ranted blogged about how my local district voted to adopt the notorious "Every Day Mathematics" program. As it turns out, my district is not the only one in the area making the switch. The "Kitchen Table Math" blog has an excellent series of posts on the battle over the adoption of EM in Palo Alto.

I just don't understand why the districts are pushing to switch their math programs now. Doesn't it cost a lot of money to buy new materials and train teachers to use them? Aren't the schools facing huge cuts to their budgets because of the state's economic crisis? Not that I think that they should ever adopt a "fuzzy math" program like EM or TERC Investigations. But it strikes me as a spectacularly bad waste of scarce resources at the present time.