Is Common Core math the problem?

From The Phantom Tollbooth movie (1970)

Despite declining math scores, many states have stuck with the Common Core, writes Jo Napolitano on The 74. Advocates credit the standards, which rolled out 15 years ago, with teaching conceptual understanding and "building an on-ramp to algebra from arithmetic."

The Common Core emphasize student thinking, says Dave Kung, executive director at Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics. The National Assessment of Educational Progress and state tests often reflect “straightforward procedural stuff,” he told Napolitano. “If a student lost a little bit of that, I’m kind of OK with that if what they gained is a better understanding of what is going on.”

Teachers struggled with the new approach, and parents complained they couldn't help their children with homework, writes Napolitano. "It took years in many cases for schools to create or adopt the curriculum needed to support the standards."

But, even as many states revamp their standards to combat poor student performance, the Common Core's approach has survived, with some modifications, she writes.

Milwaukee Public Schools embraced the Common Core, says Mary Mooney, now a state mathematics education consultant. “Everybody was challenged with these standards to think differently about mathematics,” she said, adding some teachers didn’t realize multiplication was so closely tied to elements of geometry. “That was the power of the Common Core. But you really needed good professional learning to see the beauty and power in those standards.”

Teachers rethought the goal of math fluency, which is related to speed, says Mooney. “When you think about being fast, you tend to have memorization as the only strategy for understanding your facts. We added ‘flexible’ and ‘efficient,’ which helped teachers … to teach the math behind the facts and not simply getting an answer.”

Wisconsin's math scores are above the national average, but the state has the widest racial achievement gap in the country. Test scores in Milwaukee are "alarming," writes Alan Borsuk in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Eight percent of MPS eighth-graders scored proficient or better in math, while 22% scored at the basic level and 70% scored below basic" on the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress.

Wisconsin has largely stuck with the Common Core, writes Napolitano. Other states have moved on.

Archimedes

"Oklahoma and Florida are among those that dropped the standards — Sunshine State leaders were gleeful about abandoning what they called 'crazy math',” she writes.

Louisiana changed a 21% of the standards in 2016. "Fourth graders saw their NAEP scores jump six points between 2022 and 2024 while eighth graders moved a single point. State schools chief Cade Brumley credited the state’s back-to-basics approach for students’ success."

Georgia moved to its own standards two years ago, and credits the change with rising test scores.

Pushing "conceptual understanding at the expense of procedural fluency" is a mistake that leaves students confused, argues Barry Garelick, a middle-school math teacher who literally wrote the book on traditional math.

Common Core math has failed, writes David Randall. "The Archimedes Standards: Model PreK-12 State Mathematics Standards, jointly published by Freedom in Education and the National Association of Scholars, now offers states and school districts a better choice."