Are you sure about that? I am not in the US but Everyday Math was first published in1988 according to their site and complaints about common core seem alot more recent than that.
Quoting from the website: "
engineered for the Common Core State Standards".
EM4 is the "aligned" version, created/engineered for CCSSM.
EM has been put into widespread use specifically because of common core, hence the recent complaints.
FWIW, here is a brief thumbnail sketch of EM's history, as I understand it (feel free to correct me, disagree, etc.; this is off the top of my head):
EM was written in the 1980s, originally as a collaboration between the mathematics and education departments at U of C. Unfortunately, that collaboration apparently didn't work out and the mathematicians left the project (e.g. Paul Sally).
Circa 1989-1990, NCTM set forth "standards." I will leave a characterization of those standards to google. See also "Math Wars."
In 1992, a guy named Phil Daro authored(?) the California math standards using much of the language from the NCTM.
EM was one of the programs widely adopted in many geographic locations in light of the NCTM standards. Sometimes such programs were referred to as "fuzzy."
In 1997(?), California changed its standards.
Phil Daro is also one of the authors of the CC math standards and again used some of the NCTM language. Accordingly, controversial programs like EM that had fallen out of favor in recent years are coming back around in some places.
