Common Core is Just Standards?

If you've followed the debate about the adoption of the Common Core State Standards as the new Utah Core Standards, you know that proponents of these new standards assert that they are "just standards" and that they don't dictate curriculum or approach. Those who oppose the standards, including myself, see plenty of evidence that Common Core does dictate teaching methods, and we know that once the assessments are in place, curriculum will be more or less dictated by the need to do well on those assessments.

KSL helped add to the evidence last Thursday with this article, New Ways of Teaching Math Focus on Concepts, not Just Memorization. David Smith, the elementary mathematics specialist at the Utah State Office of Education (USOE), is quoted as saying, "The questions parents have about math instruction changing, they are absolutely right, it is changing." 

What? Then why have we been told that the Common Core is just standards? 

Apart from the frustrating doublespeak - on the one hand, it's just standards, not orders to teachers on how to teach them; and on the other, "math instruction [is] changing" - the way in which it's changing will not help most kids learn math any better. In fact, it will undermine students' ability to do and therefore understand math.

What's involved in this "new way" of teaching math? A teacher gives the kids a problem, and lets them try to figure out how to solve it, often in groups. Even though the students may eventually be taught the traditional algorithm - which always works in finding the answer, which is the real point of math - students are often required to show several different ways of getting the same answer.

There is no research or evidence showing the benefits of this kind of instruction for elementary and secondary students. Even so, it's fair to think that this may be a great approach for some students. 

But for others, it's a disaster. With this approach, a child who prefers math to reading and writing is forced to do even more reading and writing for their math assignments. If you get the chance to look at your child's Common Core-aligned math book, you will see far more words than numbers, very few problems to solve (plenty of research points to the fact that repetition is essential for mastering a mathematical concept), and requirements for the students to write actual sentence and paragraph answers for what would be easily answered with a simple number sentence.

Can you just hear your little math genius screaming with frustration? 

The U.S. put a man on the moon with engineers who learned math the traditional way. It seems we're getting a little carried away with the "new is always better" mindset. 

Several years ago, this "new way" of teaching math was widespread in Alpine School District. Kids in 7th grade didn't know their times tables, 10th graders couldn't do long division, and parents got upset. It's widely known that the high number of charter schools in the Alpine District are a direct result of parents wanting their kids to have traditional direct math instruction. They know that kids who've experienced direct instruction can do the math, even if they can't fully explain it, while kids who've experienced this "exploratory" math may be able to explain it, but often can't get the right answer.

Why would the state require teachers to teach in this way? Isn't that outside the scope of standards? Shouldn't the parents and teachers in any given school be able to decide how they want to handle teaching methods?

In a touch of ironic commentary, the KSL article quotes two owners of math tutoring businesses, who offer their services to the parents whose kids are struggling with this "new" math. I think math tutoring businesses serve a purpose, and I'm glad they're there. But I don't think the state should be increasing their business by mandating an ineffective teaching approach which kids can't understand and parents can't help them with, because it's "new."

Further Information:

KSL Article
New Ways of Teaching Math Focus on Concepts, not Just Memorization

USOE Instructional Materials Review of Saxon Math
Instructional Materials Search Detail Course: Grade 4
Saxon Math is a popular approach to teaching math which employs a lot of direct instruction (the teacher tells the student how to do the problem) and repetition. It revisits concepts and builds upon them lesson after lesson and year after year, which, according to this review from the Curriculum Department at the State Office, is not desirable because the Federal "National Math Panel" has said that concepts should not be revisited. This review highlights how Common Core does indeed get into dictating teaching approaches.

What To Do:
Contact your representative on the State Board of Education and let them know how you feel about teachers being required to teach a certain way under the new "Utah Core," and how you feel about this "new" approach to math in particular. 

Find your State Board member here.

Contact your local School Board members and tell them how you feel about these same things. 

Educate yourself on the debate about teaching approaches for math, and if you've been feeling frustrated with what you're seeing with Common Core, don't think you're the only one. Heed that sense that it's not quite what you'd like, and talk to your kids' teachers and principals. While they'll probably tell you why it's a great approach - a lot of time and money has been spent in training them how to teach CC (another piece of evidence that it's not just about standards), and colleges of education have been teaching this approach to young teachers-in-training for years - they need to hear from involved parents when things aren't working for them.