Education Week - November 12, 2014 - S4

EDUCATION WEEK

November 12, 2014

Making Sense of the Math: The Common Core in Practice > www.edweek.org/go/math-report

OVERVIEW

Common Core Redoes the Math
New standards bring
hard questions,
daunting instructional
adjustments

By Liana Heitin

fter a long and frustrating homework session with
his 2nd grade son one day last school year, Jeff
Severt dashed off a letter to the teacher.
"I have a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. ... Even I cannot explain the common-core
mathematics approach, nor get the answer correct."
A word problem about a fictional student named Jack had put
Mr. Severt, of Cary, N.C., over the edge. It asked students to look
at Jack's "notes," including a number line with arcs indicating
he'd skip-counted backward, and figure out where he went wrong
in calculating 427 minus 316. "Write a letter to Jack telling him
what he did right and what he should do to fix his mistake," the
problem said.
Mr. Severt's wife snapped a picture of the "common core" math
problem and the note to the teacher, and put them on Facebook.
The post went viral.
Reactions to the problem ranged from angry aspersions cast at
MORE 'RIGOR'
the federal government (the supposed purveyors of the Common
Core State Standards) to strong defenses of the teacher and the
A University of Arkansas
task. Many people sympathized with Mr. Severt's frustration that
survey asked 191 math
the problem made a simple subtraction task into a complicated,
teachers whether the common
multistep production.
standards are more rigorous
The response from the lead writers of the common standards for
math was perhaps the most interesting: The problem wasn't part
than the standards previously
of the common core, said mathematicians William G. McCallum
used in their states.
and Jason Zimba. It was simply the product of a badly written
curriculum.
The episode serves to illustrate the complex challenges and
competing demands that schools and teachers face as they work
toward implementing the new math standards.
As detailed in this report, part of a series of special reports
by Education Week that identify and explore high-priority issues in schools, the common standards for math
differ from most previous state standards in significant ways. They are fewer in number, connect more
broadly across grade levels, and emphasize conceptual understanding along with the procedural skills
that schools have traditionally taught.
A recent survey by a research team at the University
of Arkansas, in Fayettville, led by education professors
STRONGLY AGREE
Jason Endacott and Chris Goering found that 62 percent of the 191 math teachers who responded said they
"agree" or "strongly agree" that the common-core
standards are "more rigorous" than their
state's previous standards. An additional 19 percent said they "tend
to agree." (The survey was not
nationally representative,
though it drew on responses
from teachers in all but one
state that adopted the common core.)

TEND TO AGREE

AGREE

Curriculum Confusion

SOURCE: Jason Endacott
and Chris Goering,
University of Arkansas, 2013

NEITHER
DISAGREE
NOR AGREE

TEND TO
DISAGREE

The new standards include
more granular changes as
well. Students learn fractions
by the use of number lines, a way of
emphasizing their relation to whole numbers. They learn proportions as the relationships between two varying quantities,
not as problems to be solved through
cross-multiplication. And they're
STRONGLY
asked to explain and justify their soDISAGREE
lutions, which involves increased use
of academic language-a particular
challenge for English-learners and students with below-grade-level literacy skills.
In addition to the content expectations, the
common core includes eight Standards for
Mathematical Practice. Those expectations
DISAGREE
describe the habits and methods exhibited
by proficient math students, including perseverance, attendance to precision, and the

ability to critique others' reasoning.
Some of the changes can be hard to tease out of the standards themselves, so it's understandable that many people
have relied on social media and word-of-mouth accounts
about what's happening in math classrooms. Unfortunately,
that tendency has led to what some see as critical misunderstandings about the common core-perhaps the most fundamental and widespread of which is that the standards are a
"curriculum." The standards are intended to be benchmarks
for what students should know and be able to do. Curriculum, on the other hand, as Tom Loveless, a nonresident senior
fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution's Brown
Center on Education Policy, wrote in a recent blog post, "is the
'stuff' of learning, the content of what is taught in school-especially as embodied in the materials used in instruction."
But the distinction between what students should know by
the end of the year (standards) and the specifics of how they
should learn it (curriculum), can be blurry. For example, the
common core doesn't say 3rd grade students have to draw pictures when solving word problems involving multiplication. But
it does require them to "use multiplication and division within
100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups,
arrays, and measurement quantities, e.g., by using drawings."
Many teachers and textbook-writers will inevitably interpret
picture-drawing as a key element, and some may go on to require it with every problem-even though a separate 3rd grade
standard states that students are also expected to memorize
their multiplication tables.
Not surprisingly, as this report details, math-education experts
see the development of more tailored and authoritative curriculum resources, along with improved professional-development
opportunities for teachers, as critical to making the new standards work in classrooms.

Political Pushback
On top of the confusion about what's in the new standards,
the common core has been the subject of heated political battles
across the country. When the new standards were introduced in
June 2010, they were adopted in rapid succession by nearly all
of the states. In many states, however, the standards have since
encountered significant opposition. In the past year, Oklahoma
and Indiana have bowed to political pressure and repealed their
adoption of the framework.
The political debates have often been less about the content of
the standards than the process by which the common core was
adopted. Case in point: Indiana has since adopted standards that
are very similar, if not identical, to the common core in many areas.
Some opponents of the common core continue to regard the standards as an unprecedented federal intrusion into schools. In fact,
the federal government was not involved in writing the standards,
but it did provide financial incentives for states to adopt them.
The common-core-aligned tests, scheduled to debut this spring
in many states, have also heightened anxieties about the standards. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College
and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
received a total of about $360 million from the federal government
to develop the new computer-based tests. Those assessments are
expected to be more difficult than previous state tests, with the
math sections including complex performance tasks. That has
raised concerns for many teachers, especially those in states that
plan to link educators' evaluations to students' scores.
Mr. Severt, of Facebook renown, eventually replied to the barrage
of comments on his son's math problem. He explained that his son,
who has autism spectrum disorder, "knew the math answer immediately in his head. But this problem required a narrative answer utilizing a number line. While he knew the math, he balked at
the answer being a writing assignment-his greatest anxiety." Mr.
Severt decried the focus on "next-level critical thinking" over basic
operations with such young students. At the same time, he defended
the assignment to a point, calling it "creatively valid."
Indeed, the new math landscape in schools is marked by hard
questions and daunting instructional shifts. This report aims to
shed some light on the terrain by looking closely at the standards
themselves and how they are changing math classrooms. The articles explore how schools and teachers are adjusting their practices
to the new math standards and, perhaps more importantly, where
there are gaps in support and understanding. n

http://www.edweek.org/go/math-report

Education Week - November 12, 2014

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