Wayne Bishop PhD. who taught at Cal State LA and worked with Jaime "Stand and Deliver" Escalante's high school kids, puts forth these thoughts.
“Youngsters who struggle with math simply
need their teachers to show them how to do the math and then practice
themselves how to do it—a lot! Why is such instruction so hard for them
to come by?”
The question may have been rhetorical but the answer is obvious and,
regrettably, endorsed nationally by Common Core-Math. The
“professional” math ed industry has had a love affair with Constructivism
for decades so teachers are taught and centrally-approved math curricula
reflects heavy emphasis on small learning groups using manipulatives with
everybody - even the “facilitator” (as opposed to knowledgeable teacher
teaching) - discovering heretofore unknown mathematics including a
variety of equally-valued computational algorithms. A naïve
mathematician can read the chapter, that is an immediate preamble to all
actual math content specifications, Standards for Mathematical Practice,
and exclaim, “Right on!” Having first worked with its primary
author and one of the three primary authors of the entire CCSS-M almost
30 years ago, Phil Daro, my immediate reaction was, “We’re dead.
From here on, everything is rearranging deck chairs.” That is, in
spite of the language, it will be interpreted exactly as he intended that
it be interpreted, a national endorsement for Constructivism.
Tom
Loveless of the Brookings Institute recently nailed it in his
“Implementing CCSS-M”:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/07/09-chalkboard-common-core-the-bad-loveless
From the Conclusion
In the study of numbers, a coherent K-12 math curriculum, similar to
that of the previous California and Massachusetts frameworks, can be
sketched in a few short sentences. Addition with whole numbers
(including the standard algorithm) is taught in first grade, subtraction
in second grade, multiplication in third grade, and division in fourth
grade. Thus, the study of whole number arithmetic is completed by the
end of fourth grade. Grades five through seven focus on rational
numbers (fractions, decimals, percentages), and grades eight through
twelve study advanced mathematics. Proficiency is sought along three
dimensions: 1) fluency with calculations, 2) conceptual understanding,
3) ability to solve problems.
‘It is true that standards, any standards, cannot control implementation,
especially the twists and turns in how they are interpreted by educators
and brought to life in classroom instruction. But in this case, the
standards themselves are responsible for the myriad approaches, many
unproductive, that we are sure to see as schools teach various algorithms
under the Common Core.”
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