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So before we take the plunge to homeschool or put dd (3rd grade) in private school we are trying to work with her current school to improve her math instruction.

Right now her class is using Ten Marks and Project M3 Mathematics. In theory I like Project M3 but it seems to be moving very slowly, ie they spent about 2 1/2 months on area and perimeter and now have been measuring volume for about a month and a half. It seems that the Ten Marks is being used to cover the rest of the 3rd/4th grade math skills that Project M3 doesn't touch on. The problem is dd doesn't like Ten Marks, says it's boring, that sometimes her answers are marked wrong incorrectly, and that it's too much reading. The issues I see with it is the amount of reading, the answers are sometime convoluted, and relying on multiple choice answers. Often times it seems she gets problems wrong because she misreads them. For instance there was one question about how there are 26 people wanting to play tennis but only 4 people can play on a court. How many tennis courts are needed so everyone can play? Dd selected the answer that they would need 6 tennis courts and 2 people can't play. I wonder if she misread the part about "so everyone can play" or if in her mind if you don't have a total of 4 people you can't fill a court and thus they can't play.

Another problem she missed is:

"Select all of the questions that can be answered by multiplying 6x3."

Dd selected the 2 right answers which were "6x3" problems but because she also selected "There are 3 table tennis balls in each package. Travis bought 6 packages of table tennis balls. How many table tennis balls did Travis buy?" Ten Marks said that that answer is incorrect. But in dd's mind she doesn't see the difference between 6x3 and 3x6 and is frustrated.

I tried talking to the teacher and she wasn't very understanding. We met with the principal and she seemed much more receptive to the idea that perhaps since dd's weaker verbal abilities are impacting her ability to be successful on a math program that requires a lot of reading comprehension. However, the principal and the teacher still feel that dd should just work harder in that area to improve it. FWIW they both think dd is doing well on Ten Marks, personally I feel like she's unable to progress to the higher level math she is capable because of the types of mistakes I gave in the examples.

I also take issue that they are putting such an emphasis on a student being able to show math knowledge by their ability to successfully read the questions and the answers. Am I wrong in my thinking? I also get the feeling that Ten Marks is geared towards Common Core standards and the wording is in such a way to prepare for the state standardized testing. The teacher once marked a problem wrong (despite the fact the answer was correct) because it wasn't solved by the method the teacher said it should be solved. When confronted the teacher said that while the answer is right, they need to use the method the teacher wants because that's how the state tests will want it. Why are we teaching to a test?

ETA: dd wasn't happy with Everyday Math last year, but this year she wishes she could go back to Everyday Math instead of using Ten Marks.