The National Pulse: How States Can Fix Math Education Post-Common Core

Here are some recommendations from Dr. Effrem’s latest post at The National Pulse about how states can fix math education after the Common Core debacle based on the National Expert recommendations that were developed by Dr. Ted Rebarber, Ze’ev Wurman, J.R. Wilson and based on the writings of Dr. James Milgram:

1) Math standards should promote the actual performance of math problems in a much higher percentage than understanding, thinking about, or communicating about mathematical concepts, especially in the earlier grades.

2) Ensure that new standards provide a reasonable progression of skill and knowledge attainment to the completion of a full Algebra 1 course by the end of 8th grade, as is done in other high-performing countries. This should be universally available to allow all students to pursue a STEM degree who want to, but not universally required for those that do not want this college focus.

3) To be of high quality, math standards must include necessary math content standards that Common Core fails to include.

4) There should be no requirement for specific instructional strategies, especially for some of the experimental ones used in geometry, with the exception of the standard algorithms for the basic operations in the early grades, which are generally the most efficient and universally practiced.

5) As discussed in our Pioneer Institute White paper and in the FSCCC recommendations, there is little to no research basis for social emotional learning parameters like “grit” and a “growth mindset,” and these should not be included in new math standards.

Read the whole article here. Listen to the excellent podcast by Dr. Lawrence Gray, professor emeritus of the University of Minnesota, who helped develop Minnesota’s excellent math standards and saved that state’s students from suffering under Common Core math here.