Reply to No doing well with Common Core, but we'll with Singapore math

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
That should be exactly what she knows and has learned in school.  Once you know the terminology, it is very simple.  Doubles are 4+4, 5+5, etc., which most children learn easily and before other math facts.  Counting on, or count plus one, is 4+1, 5+1, etc., which is simply counting one more number.  So a double plus one is another way of adding 4+5, by breaking it up into 4+4+1, which is easier for some children.   [/quote]

But why make kids memorize doubles?  Why fill their heads with unnecessary terms and strategies?  What exactly this whole "double" concept is for? It's useless for additions and useless for multiplication.  In multiplication are you going to say to your kids "Doubles times three?"

I came a very strong school of math.  And anything that wasn't the shortest, most elegant solution was not accepted in  my math classes.[/quote]

If your math skills were that strong, you would have no trouble understanding the value of learning these strategies, especially for kids who don't immediately comprehend it. Also, the "shortest, most elegant solution" is an appropriate approach once you understand the fundamentals (which is not the same thing as memorizing a bunch of facts and equations. [b]The point of math right now isn't to get to the answer to 3+4 as quickly as possible, it's to understand why 3+4=7, and to understand multiple ways of thinking about the solution so that, when you get more advanced, you're more capable of arriving at the "shortest, most elegant solution.[/b]"[/quote]
I think this right here is what most adults have a problem with.  Some parents want their kids to get to the most advanced level as quickly as possible, so they don't like it when kids have to spend weeks understanding what should be an easy math concept.

Also, too many adults have the mentality of "this is how I learned it, and it was good enough for me to take calculus in 11th/12th grade so why can't my kids learn it the same way".  Well, because even though *you* may have learned it one way and did well doesn't mean many others did.  Americans just generally suck at math, including adults, and even our teens these days don't do as well in the critical thinking section of standardized tests compared to other countries:

http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/top-us-students-fare-poorly-international-pisa-test-scores-shanghai-tops-world-finland-slips_693/

"* Stagnation. U.S. scores on PISA exams haven’t improved over the past decade. See here. That’s a bit of a contrast from the NAEP exam where American students have been showing modest improvement.[u] I believe the NAEP exam plays to U.S. strengths of simple equation solving.[/u][u] It has fewer word problems where students have to apply their knowledge to a new circumstance and write their own equations and models.[/u]"[/quote]

Common Core "standards" are making the math illiteracy in this country much much worse.

And now we have the test results to show it.[/quote]
I don't know how you can know that.  Most of the states have only recently implemented CC standards, and the article was for the 2012 PISA, and states that in the past decade, math achievement has been stagnant -- from 2002 to 2012 pre-CC.  So, that tells me that whatever math standards we had in the past 15 yrs hasn't made those kids who took the 2012 pisa test do any better in math.  These kids would be in their early 20's now.  So, young adults in the US do more poorly than young adults in a lot of the other countries.

You say CC will make it worse.  We don't have the results yet.  And no, PARCC results would be comparing apples to oranges since the results in the article are from the PISA test, not PARCC.

In any case, I see my 2nd grader doing basic algebra under CC standards.  I don't think I was doing that in 2nd grade.  Seems pretty advanced to me.[/quote]

Why do you think they are hiding PARCC scores for so long? Because they are fucking stellar?

Look at states who have done "Common Core" for a while, like NY and Kentucky. Marginal improvement that has likely topped out. And falling NAEP scores for the first time ever.

[/quote]
Every single change in a curriculum causes standardized test scores to drop.  This happened when VA implemented SOL standards, and it is happening with CC standards.  That really isn't a surprise.  Is there a problem with the curriculum?  Probably.  Is the issue CC standards? No.  Yes, they need to better train the teachers and fix some of the curriculum.  To be honest, I think some of the younger grade teachers aren't very strong in their math understanding, either, and this is coming across when they teach CC based standards math.

I don't really care about PARCC scores, especially for ES kids.  And your 1st grader isn't even taking PARCC.  My 2nd grader just got the MAP scores. 99%Ile.  Not bad for learning CC based math.  [/quote]

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