For those who don’t know, besides not requiring memorization of things like the times tables, another major fault of common core is exposing kids to math concepts before they are ready to understand them. I’ve subbed in 2nd grade classes where the kids are given fractions to play with—before they’ve even mastered basic addition.
They are exposed to concepts for a couple or three weeks before moving on to the next. There is no mastery of anything. You end up with 8th graders most of whom have to rely on calculators to do two and three digit addition. Whatever appears on the calculator’s screen, they will put down as the answer, no matter how absurd it is.
Breaking the primary rule for teaching math: Math skill is progressive. You must learn foundational concepts before progressing to the next concept, like placing one row of bricks on top of the other.
The other issue, memorization of tedious but ubiquitous -- and vital -- core elements such as times tables enables automaticity.
There are some parts of Common Core math which might be of benefit to a student who is going to major in math, but for the other 99.9% of the class, standard shortcuts such as long division are far more useful.