Anyone Actually like the Common Core

I was living in a Southern state as a kid, up until 4th grade.
When we moved to Colorado, I was told that I was behind in every subject academically and would have to repeat a school year.
Then I was older than everyone in my class and always felt embarrassed about it all the way through high school.
For that reason, and for the thousands of kids like me, I am fully in support of Common Core Standards.
I think no matter where you live, all public schools should be required to have a same basic level of education.
Kids in Southern states and poorer communities are being left behind and it will affect college for them too.

Love the approach to math and have a friend with advanced degrees in math and teaches it and says it's great.

I DEFINITELY like the CCSS. Most of the complaints are from parents who say they can't understand what their elementary aged students are learning in mathematics... Not to sound crass, but if your foundational number sense is that limited why doesn't that make you want better for your children?

My 8 year old DS has done very well in CCSS in all subjects, though he'd like to go a bit faster with the math.

The Common Core does not (despite what people keep saying) add additional steps to "simple" problems. Students DO learn the "standard algorithms" that you learned in school. The issue is that for many adults, the standard algorithm is ALL you learned. The Common Core requires that students understand how the operations work, and then how and why the algorithm works.

In that way we avoid situations like I saw today in my 7th grade class. (They have never been in CCSS the transition is happening behind them). I introduced the Distributive Property, and they were like "Whoa, does that really work?" I mentioned that it was exactly what they'd been doing for years with "long multiplication." None of them (from several schools in a top school system) had ANY idea that the process they'd been taught way back when was based on the idea that large factors could be broken into smaller pieces, and then the sum of the products of the pieces would be the same as the product of the original number. The CCSS deals with that.

That's my 2 cents.

For me, I really appreciate the Common Core format at my son's school. Maybe we just have incredibly talented teachers.... I don't know. What I do know is that the material presented might take me a minute to wrap my head around, but my second grader understands it. More and more often I see him doing his homework independently. While parents might not like the arrays and number families/etc in math, this is how kids actually can learn in a tangible way. (I remember drawing little dots next to my math problems at school in my primary years)

I also appreciate the report cards which are more focused on comprehension and mastery and reflect where the child is in comparison to a benchmark and not just a letter grade. So often, getting graded on a curve (as they used to ) is really not an accurate way to assess knowledge. So much of the focus is having kids *explain* how they came to their conclusion and not just the conclusion itself. What I hear from the older classes I listen in on (they offer a few of them in the library when I volunteer) is impressive; these kids are given great information on how to figure out sources, examine information critically, they discuss the presence of bias in the presentation of information. I'm excited for my kid. The content isn't always exciting (like the Scott Foresman readers) but I do think the teachers offer a lot of balance between what has to be done for learning and what they offer to augment many other realms, including the use of Storylines (which take multiple disciplines and integrate them into one theme which the kids create). We are lucky-- I feel my son is getting a top-quality education at a strong public school. And then, too, I augment at home as well.

Love how Thea explained it!!!

I don't have much first hand knowledge. My oldest is in 2nd grade, and math is very easy for him. I don't always know what he is supposed to do based solely on the directions, but I just ask him to explain it to me and he does. He explains it well. I know what he's saying, and he understands what he's saying.

I teach remedial math at a university. I've been there for several years, and I'm still shocked at what some of my students do not understand. They don't know why they are doing many things. They've just memorized that this is what they are supposed to do. But too often, they apply the wrong method because they don't really understand why certain methods work when they work.

Most of the parents I've heard complain about Common Core Math don't really understand what they were taught. They've just memorized it and know what they are supposed to do. Too often I've heard people say they don't like Common Core because the directions don't tell you which method to use. They seem to have missed the idea that knowing which method to use is part of learning. I've also heard parents say, "Why can't they just do it this way ... " and then proceed to describe a method that really ends up being more of a magic trick than something they understand.

One middle school parent told me that her son was learning a crazy way to divide fractions. "Why can't they just learn the butterfly method like I did?" Butterfly method? I think it's crazy that people can't understand that half of something is the same thing as dividing it into 2 groups.

It's so important for kids to learn why things work the way they work. If they learn why things work the way they work, they will truly understand what they are doing instead of just memorizing a magic trick.

ETA: Love it Thea! I tutor high school and pre-college students (elite hockey players who have graduated high school and play in the juniors) in SAT prep. I was just working with a boy today who was confused by how to solve for 1/8 of 48. He really couldn't see why that's the same as 48/8. It took three different methodologies for him to see it. I work with kids all the time (who are past Algebra II in high school math) who have no flexibility of thinking in math - if you don't use the exact magic words or method that they used to learn a technique in middle school, they don't recognize it. I realized that I'm that way too - it took me forever at work to believe that the simplified way to solve a percent change ((final/original)-1) is the same as ((final - original)/original). I'm glad that my kids are learning more than one way to do thing. This of course pre-dated CC by about 10 years in my school district. I have noticed that with adopting CC, there are more explicit goals for the younger kids in automaticity of math facts, which was not emphasized for my two high schoolers. I'm please with the mix of skills - they're expected to have immediate recall of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts and that allows them to engage in more complex and creative thinking in solving problems.

Original:

I think it's a few things:

1) people are afraid of change

2) people don't like being told that what they've been doing isn't good enough

3) people will look to politicize everything...because the current administration dared implement these standards, there are some folks who will reject them 'til they draw their last breath

4) school districts that are in trouble may have a tendency to jump on board unnecessary and sweeping curriculum changes in panic mode, saying that they are "needed" by Common Core. Common Core is a set of standards, not a curriculum. It doesn't dictate how children are to be educated, just that they are expected to know certain things at certain points in their education careers. There are plenty of textbook companies out there ready to prey on school districts and sell them magic "Common Core" curricula. Shame on any district that buys this stuff without the input of its department heads, faculty, and proof that it is actually effective.

I am a fan of Common Core. I don't find the standards to be onerous or unrealistic. My state's standards (I live in Massachusetts) were already closely aligned with the final CC standards so adopting them required minimal tweaks. My state implemented sweeping education reform in 1993, including rigorous testing, called MCAS. There was much handwringing and people claiming that the sky is falling, we're ruining education, it's not fair to make kids pass a test to graduate, teachers will be teaching to the test, etc. My kids have all gone to school with MCAS and the results speak for themselves - Massachusetts consistently ranks tops in the nation and competitively in the world in education. Teachers don't "teach to the test," we have plenty of music, art, PE and other enriching education opportunities in our schools, and kids are learning what they need to learn. Pre-MCAS, it was OK for schools to ignore or push through under-performing students. Minorities, poor kids, learning-disabled kids and ELL/ESL students were more or less allowed to fail and still get a diploma. There was no objective way to measure one school district against another, and within districts, no way to measure one school against another. Now, underperforming schools don't escape scrutiny - they get the attention and resources they need to turn things around, or they get taken over by the state for several years of failing to turn things around.

I am proud of the public education that my children receive and know that they are well prepared for whatever lies past 12th grade for them. I think it's tragic that kids in Mississippi, Nevada, Florida and other states with abysmal public schools don't get the same quality of education and aren't as prepared for success in college or career. Education is supposed to be the great equalizer...that can't happen without holding every school, every district, in every state to the same baseline standards for what it means to be educated in America. Common Core provides the bare bones minimum for what students should master. Hopefully most students will exceed these standards, but not meeting them and thinking that it's OK isn't good enough for our kids.

I'm fortunate because my son started Kindergarten shortly after Common Core was implemented in our school. If my kid was in 2nd or 3rd grade and had to backtrack to learn a new way, I would probably be kind of annoyed.

I would say so far so good. His teachers genuinely seem to like the program and he is learning easily.

Last year (1st grade) I found the math kind of annoying. He was constantly having to demonstrate how he came up with the answer to things like 8+6 when he automatically knew the answer was 14. It seemed like a lot of unnecessary extra work to me. This year, however, I'm starting to see how some of the methodology will benefit him in advanced math when he is in middle school and high school.

Personally, I had tons of trouble with math back when I was in school (ironic, because I work heavily with finance and computers now). Some of the methods they use now could have definitely helped me when I was a kid. I was a whiz at memorizing but didn't always understand the purpose behind what I was learning.

I find it teaches kids to think rather than to memorize. It also allows all types of learners to find a way that works for them. It is confusing and frustrating for adults, but very helpful for the kids.

I teach it. I love it! You can see some of my responses to other people's questions about why I like it.

I really like the common core reading because it encourages critical thinking. I really HATE, HATE, HATE the common core math strategies because of the implementation. I see absolutely no reason to add an extra 10 steps to a math problem when a simple method works just fine. I find the worksheets to be very cryptic with the instructions. Nothing is intuitive My husband and I are both college educated and have had trouble with this math for the past two years. The fact is that the methodology used now would get you fired in the real world.

I really like it!! I love all the projects they do with classmates during class. I love the debates and power point presentations. Real life situations they will face in our current global economy.

I like that kids who live in Kentucky, Colorado and California all have the same standards. I have seen too many kids struggle due to a family moving from another state to California where our standards have been a bit higher. The kids really struggled. Common Core should do away with that.

My 8 year old's teacher recently told me that while walking around the classroom during Math time, my son raised his hand and told her he found a different way to solve an equation. She asked him to go up to the front of the classroom to teach the rest of the class. She said he did beautifully and very confidently but then made a mistake. He told the class to hold on and that he made a mistake but needed to find out where he went wrong. He found the mistake, corrected it then went on to explain the rest of the equation. He didn't get flustered, didn't freeze nor did anyone laugh.

She said THAT was a true example of Common Core at its best. The students are using critical thinking skills, they are teaching one another and leading discussions. These are skills needed in our global, techi world. He is only 8 years old...I never could have done that at that age. It is only going to get better for the kids who start this in kindergarten and carry through the grades.

Do I believe CC is perfect? No, but I likey what I see so far!! CC is not new. It has elements that have been used for many years in other countries.

I think if you like/dislike it matters partially on if your kids started with Common Core or were forced to adapt to it, and how it is implemented. Just the other day I sat with DD and worked through something where I wanted her not to just know the answer but how to get there. Why the answer was so. I wish I could remember...anyway, my older stepkids were well into school by the time Common Core came around and my DD is new to the game. I'm waiting for strange mental math, but so far it seems pretty standard stuff, very much like what her sister did. (I honestly still use the dot method sometimes to tally up small numbers, and I picked that up from SD's homework.) Perhaps ask me again in a few years when the math is harder if I am bothered by it or not. Whatever they are doing in reading is not hindering her at all. She's well above grade level.

ETA: I also like the idea that it will help kids like "Changed" who move. We moved from one state to another and since different concepts were taught at different times my sister (who has 2 degrees now) had to be tutored through some of the subjects to be caught up to the new district. She was not dumb. She just needed to be taught what the new school was doing. I have many friends who move for jobs or the military who are hopeful that having Common Core will allow easier transitions for their children.

For kids like my DD who are tactile, I can see where some of the methods pertain to kids like her vs auditory learners. It helps her to manipulate a block or draw a line or draw pictures even if it doesn't help the next kid as much, but there are also times she needs to know off the top of her head that 8+4 is 12. Her homework seems to be a good mix of presentations for the same concept.

Seems to me every few years there is a "new" way to teach. Common Core is this year's new flavor.

I get tired of the "educators" experimenting on our kids. First, its this way, then its that way. Its crazy. So glad we don't have to deal with this anymore.

I wasn't too sure about it at first, after seeing those online references to "new math", but I actually like it. My kids are asked "why" they got an answer, instead of just writing the answer down. My mom told me that they used to do this when she was teaching in the 60's/70's, but they called them "tasks". The kids had to explain how they got the answer and defend it basically. I love the critical thinking skills it is teaching the kids. I am a little worried about how tests will be graded, because my son missed a couple of points on a recent test, because the format and layout of the test was misleading, in my opinion. But overall, I am liking it.

Common core is a great idea. It's the implementation that seems problematic. From what I see, CC tries to teach concepts, ideas, and critical thinking. This is great and something this country desperately needs!

The primary problem is the wording of some of the math problems (this is the most common complaint). If they would hire better editors to write the math problems, half of the complaints against CC would go away. (There will always be some complaints from some who are opposed to critical/analytical thinking skills, which completely baffles me.)

----
ETA: Tracy, do you really hate that CC teaches critical thinking? Were you just joking, and it didn't translate to the interwebs? Where would our world be without critical thinking skills? I think that is the single most important thing to teach our kids.

I am beginning to dislike everything about public school--bullying, teaching to the tests, busy work...

If I had to do over again with my children, I would home school until grade 3.

SouthernYankee, I agree with your response, but it is not the educators (teahers) who are experimenting it is the educational administrators (school boards) who make those decisions.

I LOVE common core math. I love that the kids are learning how to play with and use numbers - not just memorize one rote way to do a problem. I love that they can do problems backwards and forwards. I LOVE that they are told to assess whether their answer makes any sense once they are done. I think the word problems are great - it helps them see that math is useful in the world, not just a series of pointless rote tasks. I LOVE that my son is learning multiple strategies to solve problems as well as the basic algorithms we learned in school. He is also learning all the 'tricks' that we were either not taught or told not to use (is a number divisible by 9? - add up all the digits until you have a single digit, is that digit 9? then yes).

I think the reading is also pretty great (although my son's accelerated reading class has been using these same techniques since before cc was officially adopted). He is learning to read critically, find evidence from the text to support an argument - rather than to just have an opinion. Wouldn't our country be so much better off if all the politicians had to base their opinions upon actual evidence rather than what they have simply opted to believe?

Don't know, school has always been the basis I teach from. They can teach whatever they like, I teach the rest

I don't have any concerns so far. The way my district has implemented it has been fine for my kids (elementary grades).

I'm with Tracy M. I think it's fine for reading (although they need to be more selective about when they ask "Why?" ... when the answer is spelled out in the first sentence, my child is going to say "The answer is in the first sentence.") but it's insane for math. This generation is NOT going to be prepared to enter a fast-paced workforce if they're drawing sticks and dots to do basic math. People get fired for making simple things complicated and not meeting deadlines because of it.

As someone else here noted, this is someone's way of making their mark and saying they reformed education. No doubt, something else will be implemented before my kids head off to college.

I am liking it. It is really h*** o* the older kids, making that transition (I work at a 9-12 school). But for my own daughter in second grade, the transition seems much easier, they don't know any other way.

It's just a new way to "teach to the test" in my opinion. Only now the kids are actually going to be tested on how they analyze, synthesize, and explain information they have learned or learn right there on the spot. Rather than just try to remember concepts. Which is much more valuable as far as real world application. The standards are actually not that different, it is just that they will be tested on them differently and now we need to prepare the children for that.

It's a good thing overall.