Deeper Understanding in Common Core Math Not True
The talking points of Common Core supporters have worn thin. Many have been blasted out of the water, but if you are still thinking about diving head first into using the standards, remember this image.Professor emerita of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley Martina Ratner wrotean op ed in the Wall Street Journal about her experience with the CC standards in California. Spoiler alert – it was not glowing.
She has the credentials to take on the standards themselves and pick apart their weaknesses. In particular she writes about the false claim that the standards are more “rigorous” and require “deeper thinking.”
It became clear to me that the Common Core’s “deeper” and “more rigorous” standards mean replacing math with some kind of illustrative counting saturated with pictures, diagrams and elaborate word problems. Simple concepts are made artificially intricate and complex with the pretense of being deeper—while the actual content taught was primitive.
Ratner provides examples from the standards themselves to illustrate this problem and examples of how this is playing out in her grandchild’s classroom.
“The students were constantly told to draw models to answer trivial questions, such as finding 20% of 80 or finding the time for a car to drive 10 miles if it drives 4 miles in 10 minutes, or Deeper Understanding in Common Core Math Not True | Missouri Education Watchdog: