Common Core is going to make my autistic child unemployable

[Anonymous]

Yes, I'm being dramatic. The area of academics where my child with autism is gifted is math. While he needed every kind of therapy from toddlerhood, he fell in love with numbers and math before he could hold a conversation and he can handle complex calculations without explaining how. We are working hard to make sure he develops the social skills he needs to hopefully one day contribute to society and live independently. He has an IEP and private services to help him reach benchmark in the areas where he struggles. Sadly, the common core math is sucking the love, confidence and motivation right out of him. Sure we can get accommodations for the endless writing involved, but this one size fits all crap is moronic. I'll be lucky if I can get him through highschool if something doesn't change and this kid is in the top 1 percentile for math abilities and non-verbal reasoning.

How do I protest this? Most of America is furious and it seems complaining to the school board goes nowhere. I think a congressman or senator is suing. Should we all get signs and protest outside the department of education? What will it take?

[Anonymous]

OP, sadly, 'most of America' is not gifted at math, so endless repetition is the only way to ensure kids graduate from school knowing multiplication tables. The fact that your child is 'gifted' does not negate the fact that public schools cater to the average.
Get him in private if you need accelerated math.

[Anonymous]

Common Core is not being implemented as one size fits all in our school. They continue to differentiate as they always have. My math lover still loves math and still works at his high achieving level (beginning of the year review stuff aside, which is a necessary evil). He is still on track to start 6th grade with Algebra I. Talk to your son's teacher; your issue is not with the Common Core.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, sadly, 'most of America' is not gifted at math, so endless repetition is the only way to ensure kids graduate from school knowing multiplication tables. The fact that your child is 'gifted' does not negate the fact that public schools cater to the average.
Get him in private if you need accelerated math.

A private school that is going to welcome a child with autism who has some academic weaknesses is likely going to have plenty of kids with social skills issues which is not a great idea when your child needs social role models. Have you seen how math is taught with CC? The repetition is a small part of the problem. They are teaching ridiculously involved ways to do simple math problems. Kids should be allowed to figure out what style works best for them. One size fits all is insane. Plus, every public school has math groups, but ALL the math groups have to use CC.

[Anonymous]

We have the same problem and managed to amend his IEP to skip the written/explanatory assignments. We added a broad "adapted assignments" section and work individually with the teacher to decide which assignments he can skip or answer verbally.

[Anonymous]

NP here.

Your issue is not with common core. They are just standards. You seem to have a problem with how they are being implemented in your one school. Deal with this by amending your IEP and working with your school for better differentiation.

[Anonymous]

I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

You could start by looking at the Common Core standards for math, here:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Do you see anything you disagree with? For example, here is a fourth-grade standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1
Interpret a multiplication equation as a comparison, e.g., interpret 35 = 5 × 7 as a statement that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and 7 times as many as 5. Represent verbal statements of multiplicative comparisons as multiplication equations.

Is there something bad about this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

You could start by looking at the Common Core standards for math, here:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Do you see anything you disagree with? For example, here is a fourth-grade standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1
Interpret a multiplication equation as a comparison, e.g., interpret 35 = 5 × 7 as a statement that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and 7 times as many as 5. Represent verbal statements of multiplicative comparisons as multiplication equations.

Is there something bad about this?

Honestly, that sounds torturous. I'd want kids to quickly know what 7x5 is, what 35/5 is, to recognize that multiplying a number by 5 always ends with a 0 or a 5. I'd want them to enjoy playing with numbers and number facts, not have to write out long explanations about how they got there. I think current math education puts the cart before the horse - prioritizing the ability to use words to explain numbers over the idea of making numbers and number play (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) second nature and instantly accessible.

[Anonymous]

I'm no expert in this stuff, but the reliance on language seems like a HUGE problem in common core math, one which will disadvantage any kid who does not have good language skills for whatever reason. I'm not sure why the common core throws out a perfectly good system of symbols that has been developed over time to do math ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

excellent point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm no expert on the subject (my kids are not yet school-age), but the first thing I said when I saw my niece's homework was that it was done by and for people who don't like math. As someone who liked math in school (ended up with an engineering degree), that made me sad.

You could start by looking at the Common Core standards for math, here:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math/

Do you see anything you disagree with? For example, here is a fourth-grade standard:

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1
Interpret a multiplication equation as a comparison, e.g., interpret 35 = 5 × 7 as a statement that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and 7 times as many as 5. Represent verbal statements of multiplicative comparisons as multiplication equations.

Is there something bad about this?

Honestly, that sounds torturous. I'd want kids to quickly know what 7x5 is, what 35/5 is, to recognize that multiplying a number by 5 always ends with a 0 or a 5. I'd want them to enjoy playing with numbers and number facts, not have to write out long explanations about how they got there. I think current math education puts the cart before the horse - prioritizing the ability to use words to explain numbers over the idea of making numbers and number play (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) second nature and instantly accessible.

CCSS.Math.Content.4.OA.A.1 says that a fourth-grader should know that 35 is 5 times as many as 7 and that if you get a story problem asking how many miles Alfred walked altogether if he walked five miles a day for 7 miles a day, you solve the problem by writing 5 x 7 = 35. You don't want your fourth-grader to know these things? What part of this is using words to explain numbers?

Keeping in mind that this is only one of many math standards, and that one of the math standards for third graders are:

CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.C.7
Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division (e.g., knowing that 8 × 5 = 40, one knows 40 ÷ 5 = 8) or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.

So in fact your fourth-grader would already have learned to quickly know what 7x5 is and what 35/5 is, the year before, just as you'd like.

Please do take a careful look at the actual Common Core math standards. Not the various curricula, not the many and varied complaints, not the stuff that people have written about them who have never looked at them. The actual Common Core math standards.

[Anonymous]

^^^5 miles a day for 7 days

[Anonymous]

Amazing how "experts" can cause so much confusion. The verbage alone in these standards is ridiculous. Simpler is almost always better.

[Anonymous]

Agree OP. Loved math as a kid/student. Hate DS' elem. school math right now.