Why parents struggle with Common Core math: “The diagrams are absolutely insane.”

San Jose Mercury News ^ | June 17, 2018 | Karen D'Souza

[BobL]

(snip)

Eight years after California adopted new standards designed to boost students’ critical thinking and analytical skills, it’s become clear that a critical group was left behind in the push to implement Common Core: parents.

The good old days of memorizing math formulas or multiplication tables are gone. Instead, Common Core math requires students to show how they reason their way to the right answer. As a result, many parents say homework is far more complicated than it used to be. For example, the right answer to 3×5 isn’t just 15 anymore, as one popular social media post noted. It’s 3+3+3+3+3. And it’s 5+5+5. The new methods leave many parents baffled.

“I despise common core math,” says Katie O’Donnell, a pediatric respiratory therapist who lives in San Jose and often uses math at work. Though she loves volunteering in her son Nima’s class, she admits she sometimes ducks out early because she’s embarrassed that she has no explanations for students who ask for help.

(snip)

[BobL]

“Nice racket they got there. “

Absolutely:
1) Give kids methods to do problems which don’t make sense
2) Watch the kids struggle and ‘fail’ at it
3) Tell the parents that their kids are ‘learning impaired’

[BradyLS]

It’s just a way to arrive at an approximate answer. But, like I said, it’s no way to teach it. Teach it the right way!

[wintertime]

I likely have the earliest editions of these books so they have probably improved.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Plus "properly" establishing the intellectual hierarchy between parent and teacher.

Most teachers are not intellectually gifted but are assumed to be.

[cynwoody]

And you lied. There is no one named cynwoody at that phone number.

Given you took the trouble to suss out that fact, you are likely in a position to list those gozintas!