Yep, been there, done that (many times):
Mathland —
My kids were guinea pigs with this one. I couldn’t do much to help. No books, pages were xeroxed at school. Homework was different than the day’s lesson at school. Kids hated it. They hated me trying to help, because I was ‘teaching’ and off track with what was going on at school. One son was flunking Geometry, but scored gold star in Calif Geometry exams. (He knew his stuff, but school method was a disaster.)
During the 1960s, the Education Establishment watched New Math, —
My younger brother got caught in this one. He was getting stuff in grade school that I was getting in HS Math Theory. I could discuss ‘sets’, etc. He was just not ready for that, and suffered because of it.
I thank God that I slalomed between the crappy math offerings. I had the traditional add, subtract, mult, divide, memorize the tables. Then a little pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, adv. algebra, then “Math Analysis”. Math Analysis as an HS Senior was what they are trying to give kids today in the early grades. We got logs, trig, square roots of negative numbers, number systems, math principles at that time (not before; not needed before).
I had good, math-smart, and caring HS math teachers. Did me well all through college (and to this day).
Experiencing the same thing with my youngest son who just finished freshman year in high school. He aced Algebra and Algebra-II in Junior High, Geometry he barely made a C grade his Freshman year.
This common core crap doesn't TEACH the kids anything. And the "methods?" Teachers print out the assignments, tell the kids to "work through it for themselves and in groups" and don't INSTRUCT the kids at all.
Purchased "Geometry for Dummies" and he flew through the book with some assistance from Wife and I and was able to learn an entire Freshman year of Geometry in the last 6 weeks.
The schools -- public AND private -- are a disaster. Even the private schools here are doing it!!