CCSS-M ... Common Core Crazy exposing a big lie

The Common Core State Standards for Math are defective if strictly applied.  Consider the data and the standards.

A huge observation about CCSS-M. => Implementing Common Core: The Problem of Instructional Time by Tom Loveless.

This talk about CCSS-M being internationally competitive is rubbish, no way is CCSS-M internationally competitive. Compute fluently with multi-digit numbers is a 6th grade Common Core Math Standard.

Using CCSS-M will put students at least two-years behind those students in the A+ countries by the end of grade 7

The USA has been doing better in recent years but take a look at TIMSS 2011 grade 4 and grade 8 results in
"Chapter 1: International Achievement in Mathematics"

East Asian countries continue to lead the world in mathematics achievement.

Singapore, Korea, and Hong Kong SAR, followed by Chinese Taipei and Japan, were the top-performing countries in TIMSS 2011 at the fourth grade.
Similarly, at the eighth grade, Korea, Singapore, and Chinese Taipei outperformed all countries, followed by Hong Kong SAR and Japan.

This would lead me to believe that departing from any  math "Scope and Sequence" aligned to match CCSS-M is an excellent move.

See exhibit 1.1 for USA 4th grade average; exhibit 1.2 for USA 8th grade

Exhibit 1.3 shows only 7 countries rank significantly above USA at grade 4 with Singapore 606 and USA 541

Exhibit 1.4 shows only 6 countries rank significantly above USA at grade 8 with Korea 613 and USA 509 and Massachusetts 561

8th grade score change in average from 1995 to 2011
USA +17 :: Korea +32 :: Japan -11 :: Massachusetts +48 (1999-2011)

If thinking about STEM for students consider this from 2011 TIMSS chapter 2:

The five East Asian countries had the largest percentages of fourth grade students (30–43%) reach the TIMSS 2011 Advanced International Benchmark. Building on this head start, these five countries pulled away from the rest of the world by a considerable margin at the eighth grade, with by far the largest percentages of students reaching this benchmark—nearly half (47–49%) in Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Korea.

While at the Advanced Benchmark the USA 8th grade had 7%
At grade 4 USA had 13%.

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It is really time to find better math leadership in the USA.
The pipeline that promotes Math Ed philosophers into leadership is not cutting it.