"Common Core" Math
This is a lightly-edited version of a letter I wrote in 2017, addressing some of the misconceptions that are out there regarding the common core state standards for mathematics.
Dear Dr. -----------,
[skipping some stuff only relevant to the original recipient] ...... I don't disagree with the main points you made there, but being a high school math teacher, I want to respond to your remark about not wanting to get on an airplane built with “new math.”
There's an endless barrage of people making fun of “Common Core Math,” especially on the internet. But in most of the criticism, the CCSS (common core state standards) for math are misunderstood and misrepresented.
First, the CCSS are not a specific curriculum, but merely a set of standards. Basically, a list of things that you should make sure to cover. A bad worksheet or activity should not be blamed on the CCSS; there were bad worksheets out there before the CCSS and there will be after. (Although I would argue that some of the “bad worksheet” examples out there do contain useful ideas, and could be used as valuable learning tools after some revision and improvement.)
Secondly, there is no new content in the math CCSS. It's the same math that has been around for hundreds and often thousands of years. What is “new” is the emphasis on conceptual understanding. In past decades, the proverbial pendulum had swung so far in the direction of procedural fluency, that students in a typical math class were often learning things by rote, with no clue what those things meant or how they could be applied. The CCSS come at things from the perspective that procedural fluency and conceptual understanding are both important.
In younger grades, the CCSS encourage teachers to emphasize things such as place value, counting strategies, and estimation techniques before students learn the standard (multiplication/division) algorithms. These things are not meant to replace the standard algorithms, but to serve as an introduction to help students understand how those algorithms work and what they represent. Unfortunately, some elementary school teachers (some of whom struggle with math themselves) have gotten too caught up in these strategies, mistakenly thinking that they are supposed to replace the old standard algorithms. That is not the fault of the common core math standards, but of a misunderstanding and poor implementation of those ideas in particular schools.
Also contributing to its bad name, “common core math” frequently becomes a scapegoat for parents who actually just can't do math, the “old way” or not. Basically, the math CCSS get unfair criticism for all kinds of reasons.
Why do I care about this? Because when students hear their parents and other adults complaining about or ridiculing math (or, “the math they teach in schools these days”), they are much more likely to see hating math as okay, and to give up rather than working through things when they have trouble with a math concept. If their parents think that it's a ridiculous waste of time, why should they put forth the effort?
I do not mind debate over the degree of local control over education, or even the idea that each state should be free to use -or not use- the CCSS in whatever ways it sees fit. However I do take exception when the math CCSS are (though usually unintentionally) badly misrepresented in order to call into question their merit as standards.
Thank you for your time,
Kyrum