Common Sense About the Common Core

Is the Common Core the best thing since sliced bread, or the work of the devil? Is it brand new, or a rehash of old ideas? Is it anything more than a brand name, or is there substance? Can it work, given the implementation challenges in our political and school systems? Opinions about the Common Core are everywhere, but the op-eds I've seen are often short on facts, and equally short on common sense. A mathematician by training, I've worked for nearly 40 years as an education researcher, curriculum materials developer, test developer, standards writer, and teacher. What follows is a Q&A based on that experience. I focus on the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, known as CCSSM, but the issues apply to all standards (descriptions of what students should know and be able to do).What's the CCSSM about?Take a look for yourself - the Common Core documents are available at . If you read the first 8 pages of CCSSM and then sample the rest, you'll get a good sense of what's intended. In brief, CCSSM focuses on two deeply intertwined aspects of mathematics: the content people need to know, and the knowhow that makes for its successful use, called mathematical practices. You can think of the content as a set of tools - the things you do mathematics with. The practices emphasize problem solving, reasoning mathematically, and applying mathematical knowledge to solve real world problems. Without the practices, the tools in the content part of the CCSSM don't do much for you. It's like being taught to use a saw, hammer, screwdriver, lathe, and other woodworking tools without having any sense of what it means to make furniture.At heart, the CCSSM are about thinking mathematically. Here are two visions of a third grade class, both taken from real classrooms. In one, students are practicing addition and subtraction, getting help where needed to make sure they get the right answers. In another, the students have noticed that every time they add two odd numbers, the sum is even. A student asks, "Will it always be true?" Another says "but the odd numbers go on forever, we can't test them all." Pretty smart for a third grader! But later, a student notices that every odd number is made up of a bunch of pairs, with one left over. When you put two odd numbers together, you have all the pairs you had before, and the two left-overs make another pair - so the sum is even. And this will always be the case, no matter which odd numbers you start with. Now that's mathematical thinking - and it's what the core should be about. Of course, kids should do their sums correctly, and, they should be able to think with the mathematics.It's important to understand what the Common Core is not. Most importantly, the Common Core is not a curriculum. CCSSM provides an outline of the mathematics that students should learn - an outline endorsed by 43 states. Equally important, the common core does not prescribe a particular teaching style: effective teachers can have very different styles. To date - and despite what you read or hear - the desired reality of the Common Core has not made its way into even a small minority of American classrooms. What happens in classrooms will depend on the curricula that are developed and adopted, on the high stakes tests that shape instruction (for better or worse), on the capacity of teachers to create classrooms that really teach "to the Core," and on the coherence or incoherence of the whole effort.What do powerful classrooms look like?CCSSM describes what kids should be able to do mathematically, including problem solving, producing and critiquing mathematical arguments, and more. Students won't get good at these things unless they have an opportunity to practice them in the classroom, and get feedback on how they're doing. (Imagine a sports coach who lectured the team on how to play, and then told the team to practice a lot before the big match. …