I’ve been very pleased with the implementation of CC in our middle school. I found it pretty rigorous and heavy on analysis.
Really, what you should be “against” is incompetent administrators who had no clue on how to implement change.
Below is a sample Common Core math problem for 3rd grade that I found on one of our social media pages:
I get the theory behind what they’re trying to do (although my dyscalculic DD wouldn’t have had a clue) but how does that work out when you have a column of numbers? What’s wrong with carrying and borrowing? I taught my DD the traditional methods and she’s now doing grade level high school math. If she adds 6+7 and gets 13, then carries the 1 (which she understands as 1 group of 10) to the 10’s column and ends up with the right answer, how is that wrong? According to local parents in our public school, it would be because it’s not the Common Core method.
If students can no longer use math tricks (like cross multiplying fractions or crossing off zereos when dividing by 100), will those tricks be banned on the SAT? It should be an interesting test if all the work has to be shown the Common Core way.
An interesting article by James Murphy, in [The Atlantic](New SAT, New Problems - The Atlantic) gives a preview of some of the new SAT math problems.
The new paragraph length math problems aren’t going to help kids like my dyslexic, dyscalculic teen either. I wonder how many families like ours will just opt for the ACT instead.
That method may be useful for doing mental math, but it’s far more efficient and less error prone to use the standard method when working problems. I would never add numbers on paper like that.
Honestly, carrying is not that hard for kids to understand. My kids attended Montessori school, and they used some well-designed manipulatives to teach carrying to kids as young as 3. Those materials have been used in many countries for many years to teach these concepts to kids ages 3-5. They were designed for regular kids, not gifted kids in particular. It’s ridiculous to be dragging 3rd graders through this. If they don’t understand this already, there is something wrong with the K-2 education.
Actually, for two of the problems I cited above, I taught myself the math as I was doing the analyses. You do have to know the basics, but one of the best ways to learn high-level math is to do something that requires it.
But @sylvan8798 captures the essence of what I was trying to say - I’m talking about the way that we conceptualize of math and how teaching it can change that conception. You do have to learn the basics, but using word problems in middle school in addition to regular worksheets gets students used to the idea that math is used to solve actual, real-world problems. I don’t think there’s a need to separate out “actually doing” the problems and contextualizing the problems - it’s the same math, just pitched in a different way. Note that I did say that there are certain things that need to be learned in certain ways - like multiplication tables quickly.
But the answer to that question is never “never.” All of the math you learn through high school has practical, real-world applications, and good math teachers should be able to answer that question. And that’s exactly what I’m arguing - that deeper meaning and the bigger picture should be baked into the math curriculum (and the rest of the curriculum).
Carrying and borrowing is difficult to do mentally. It’s easier for me to mentally say “26 plus 4 is 30, then add 13 more and thats 43.”
Now if I’m adding numbers on paper I’m going to use the carrying and borrowing methods, but again, this is preparation for the higher level. When you’re doing calculus a lot of times you need to add and multiply in your head. (Also, I don’t see any indication that teachers are teaching his instead of carrying, just in addition to it.
Oh, I would love it if teachers were adding mental math methods or deep meaning lectures to the basics! That would be a dream school.
Unfortunately, what I am seeing in the Common Core implementation (at least here) is exactly replacing the teaching of basic background knowledge with extras. Of course, they need word problems (they use way too many blunt numeric exercises anyway) and not just in middle school but from the start in K but should those problems be the length of a good novel? I doubt it. Of course, they need to explain their thinking in solutions but in mathematically precise way, not to write an essay on each problem (the recent Common Core requirement). And I am not surprised that somewhere teachers are replacing the carrying over methods with “mental math on paper” (btw my kids just love those methods - they play “mental math battles” almost every time during the longer car rides)
Also, it looks like all these one-sided approach issues somewhat dissolve once kids hit HS and they definitely don’t exist in AP courses like Calc or Physics (teachers’ competence rises?). Or maybe Common Core just didn’t reach our HS yet or we got lucky with the teachers 
As for the polynomial factoring - that’s my personal favourite: the last time I (and my husband too, actually) factored a polynomial was in middle school. Decades later, after my EE degree, CS education and work, my H’s PhD in physics and all his subsequent work (both in physics and CS) never once did any of us get to factor a polynomial. Who would have thought! ;))
Ugh I really don’t like the common core, and when I took the old PSAT in my freshman year ('14) I scored a 194. I took the new PSAT as practice at my tutoring center and I got a 1100…I scored much lower on the math. It’s just so confusing and now I am taking the new SAT in my junior year, and I have to adopt the common core and try to learn it as best as possible…ugh whyyy
Well, a policy that can’t be implemented successfully is not a good policy. Policies should be easily adaptable by existing work force. A better measure of a policy is how much the net gain it brings after implementation. Only a bureaucrat will disregard the aspect of implementation. Wasn’t the rail road track invented in America because America at that time didn’t have labor with skills to manufacture european style tracks which called for more precision? I don’t think they sat around lamenting lack of skillful labor.
I believe there exist enough good methods on teaching math. I read Japan implements American methods to successfully teach their students. If so, the weak link is in teacher training, not lack of a policy. They should spend resources on training teachers instead of coming up with methods or a new policy. We have those. What we need is implementation.
This may be a very incorrect thing say but we may be better off to segregate students according to their learning style. Some kids may progress better by mechanically plugging number using “tricks”. Others may need to have quantitative sense before emplying tricks. My D’s experience of learning to read time was instructional. She couldn’t make sense of it until she conceptualized the flowing nature of time and how it was represented in the moving hands of the clock. Once she got that, she could read all the tricky ones. Unfortunately, at school, her first grade teacher gave out a recipe on how to read time, you cut it four pieces, it’s quarter till…etc. She could conceptually reconcile cutting flowing time into pieces. It didn’t seemed to bother other kids. She shun math until calculus in HS. Math finally made sense in calculus.
The schools initially worried about the graduation requirements related to the Common Core. Now NJ sent a memo to say if the kids get a 400 in math and English on SAT/PSAT, they can graduate.
Wait, a 400 on SAT? For the new SAT math, there are 48 questions in total. 40 of them are multiple-choice questions. If you randomly guess on those 40 questions, you would have a chance to get 10 correct, and you need to get 11 correct to get a 400. Literally, you need to know about 5 questions to graduate, why bothered by Common Core? For English, there are 91 multiple-choice questions, and you need to get 30/91 to pass. If you know how to answer 10 questions and guess the rest, you would have a chance to pass.
So, a lot of schools let the entire 10th graders and 11 graders to take the PSAT on Oct. 14.
What are schools supposed to do? Hold them back? You can’t suddenly raise the bar for graduation. They should phase in any new changes.
Perhaps true, but that also does not mean that they are linked; in other words, correlation does not equal causation. Just bcos some high paid (moronic?) administrators flubbed a roll-out doesn’t necessarily mean what’s being rolled out is bad.
Common Core is not on the SAT/psat.
What course did you take Frosh year? (With a 194, I assume that you are advanced in math.) What did you take Soph year?
More importantly, since you took a practice test at a tutoring center, which problem types did you miss? (There are plenty of advanced math students – Calc as a Junior – who bomb the math section of the SAT just bcos they forgot all those pesky Alg I and Geom rules.)
fwiw: there are plenty of online articles available about California’s rollout of Common Core; even the teachers are supportive. Here’s one I found.
Of course, it will depend on how representative they are. If it a small minority of administrators flubbing, it’s on them. If it is more wide spread, it’s on the policy. That’s where we need an honest assessment.
I agree with the article about California’s rollout of Common Core. As an elementary school board member, I appreciate our state’s willingness to stand up to the US Dept of Education and say, “We aren’t doing what you want us to do for these waivers. And, we aren’t double-testing our students in the transition year.” Our process has been much smoother so far (knock on wood) than we hear about in other states. The SBAC results came out fairly late this year, but the emphasis everywhere has been that “this is a baseline year” and “kids and teachers are still learning how these tests work.”
We want to support teachers in collaborative efforts to find and develop the best ways of teaching. Punitive and competitive approaches to evaluating teachers are creating a shortage of teachers. Our local teachers are working really hard. They piloted new math curriculum last year and are now learning to use the one they chose. They will also be piloting new reading/writing curriculum this year and new science curriculum next year. All that while adding more technology to their teaching methods and revising their differentiation model for gifted students. It’s exhausting just to watch, and yet we get many, many volunteers for all the curriculum piloting committees.
There were pockets of opt-outs by juniors at high-performing schools in California that foolishly scheduled the SBAC tests in the week or two before AP tests. But, that could have been predicted.
The Seattle Times article is correct that the Common Core standards, even as modified by California do slow down the math progression, which used to be algebra in 8th grade as the normal path. This is becoming a problem for advanced math students, and needs to be addressed. I’m surprised I haven’t yet seen more complaining here on CC by HS freshmen who feel like the new integrated Math I, II, III progression in many districts is holding them back.
The slower math is also a problem in combination with the recent AP Physics 1, 2 split. You really shouldn’t take AP Physics 1 until you’ve done some trigonometry. Intro trig in the Geometry class used to be in 8th grade for some kids here. Now it will be 9th at the earliest and 10th for most kids before they see any trig.
(That’s not to say I don’t like Common Core; there are still plenty of things I like about it.)
If the largest – by student count – and (most?) dysfunctional state can implement rather smoothly, its hard to fathom how others cannot, except by self-inflicted decisions by educrats.
Re #35 and math progression
I remember reading that the push in CA to have all (as opposed to more advanced)8th graders take algebra 1 was a failure in that many failed and had to repeat it in 9th grade.
Also, CA schools can still have the traditional algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2 courses instead of integrated math, and can still place stronger math students a year or two ahead, right?
Re #37 and math progression. Yes, districts can still move advanced students ahead although the ceiling to reach in order for a student to do so has increased and most district are actively discouraging acceleration. Our school district has moved to integrated math. The majority of students will be taking their first high school level math class in 9th grade. Students who scored high enough in 5th grade will be taking a compacted math path. These students will complete all middle school level math by the end of 7th grade and then take a high school level math class in 8th grade. A tiny tiny minority of students scored high enough to take 7th/8th grade math in 6th grade and then 9th grade math in 7th grade, i.e. two years ahead of the majority of students and one year ahead of the regular advanced students.
I did every question from last year’s released PARCC tests (from 4th grade to algebra 2,) and every question on the college board’s new SAT.
- They made the algebra 1 too difficult, some of materials are borrowed from up to precalc.
- Too much of "ratio" and too little "solve". We will have more "linear" speculators than "equation" solvers.
- The new SAT means "Stupid Algebra Test," to me.