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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).

I tell the parents of kids I tutor - Make sure your kids learn math the way you learned it. The approach they are using today comes from Bachelor PhD Math Professors who do not remember ever having LEARNED math. The kids will still have to know long division, borrowing and carrying, fractions, multiplication tables. IF they do not learn this in school, make absolutely sure you teach them.

I can do what I can do to help the kids learn these things, but parents must carry the burden as well.

I was fortunate to escape from Whole Word Reading but only because I was ill for an entire year with rheumatic fever and the county extension teacher hated Whole Turd and taught me phonetic reading. That was the basis for my life long love of reading and it did make me different intellectually from even brighter peers. I grew up hating the TV culture and its trivializing din and have only hated the ignorant coarsely sensual popular culture that has been foisted on us by the same forces that manufactured Whole turd reading. These people genuinely wish for a docile, dumbed down sheep like populace who will do what their betters tell them to do. I suppose all this is the basis for my deep skepticism towards Common Core and anything else the Wizards of Smart from any of various establishments push at us telling us we are too stupid to understand the dazzling brilliance of what they are offering and that we dumb plebeians should just shut up and eat their sh-t sandwich du jour.

I know it’s HOPELESS here, even on FREE REPUBLIC, but I’ll state the obvious anyway:

This article makes it clear that Common Core is nothing new, it is just picking up with Mathland, Everyday Math, and all the other garbage left off.

Some of us have actually FOLLOWED WHAT WAS GOING ON - for decades in my case. Some of us put two and two together and figured out that the people running education, most of whom HATED math (which is why they’re stuck in ‘education’), are the LAST PEOPLE you ever want to trust in teaching math (or for that matter, reading) to your kids.

There are OTHER OPTIONS (believe it or not). Many of us, me included, simply looked at grade school as nothing more than DAYCARE and taught our kids ourselves, and got them WAY AHEAD of their grade level. Others use after school learning centers, which actually work (how do you think Asians do so well here...when their immigrant parents are otherwise clueless in understanding this country?) It’s not hard...in countries like Singapore and Russia, even students that are considered learning-impaired are still years ahead of “normal” students in the United States.

But no matter what I post, no matter what my kids accomplish, 90% (or more) of you FReepers WILL STILL send your kids to that public school and still hope and pray that things will turn out differently - because you pay PROPERTY TAXES and dammit, you are going to make those schools teach your kids right (as if they care, at all, what you say). And I know, it’s one or the other - either I abused my kids by making them learn reading and math early, rather than playing video games - or they are simply geniuses and no other kids can do as well (except for the billion or so in Asia).

So, go back to listening the smiling teacher and the principal with his 7 degrees in “Education” (they ALWAYS brag about their degrees) and let them show you how Everyday Math and daily calculator use (often starting in Kindergarten) will make your kids the next Einstein, because they will develop “higher order thinking skills”.

...but remember, YOU WERE WARNED.