That said.. since Common Core is a set of STANDARDS. Not all states/school districts teach it the same way.
I think that this is the essential problem with the Common Core. The list of standards is only a start, with the most important step being making curricular materials. Every single standard is open to a wide interpretation, and given that textbook authors are underpaid and on tight deadlines, it was completely predictable that things wouldn't work out as planned. So the very laudable
teach them that addition means combining things has turned into decomposing numbers and number bonds.
It's a farce.
I've done a lot of grant application review in the education field. People who propose a new way of teaching something without providing concrete examples AND samples of their curriculum tend to get heavy criticism. In the end, the most important thing is the
product, not the
idea.
The CC authors failed by not producing textbooks. Worse, I can't even find a small set of examples for each math standard (maybe I've missed them?). How hard would that have been, to at least give Pearson a starting point? Maybe they saw that as too much or not their job or whatever, but the result is that we end up with a bad stew that looks like Everyday Math on LSD.
I was initially in favor of Common Core math, and now I'm dubious. The K-5 standards are okay (though 6-8 are not, IMO), but that fact was always irrelevant because the plan was always to drop the ball as soon as the game got going.
