Common Core Standards and Their Implementation

Marin Mommies presents a guest article by Scott Rubin of Mill Valley Mathnasium on the new Common Core Standards now being used in many Marin schools.

Central to any discussion of the Common Core is the distinction between the standards established by Common Core and the process of implementing those standards within School Districts.

The Standards are the “what” and “when.”

• Students will master times tables by the end of 3rd grade.

The Implementation is the “how.”

• Students will memorize the times tables, says one textbook publisher.
• Students will construct their own approach, says another publisher.

It appears from various discussions about the Common Core that many people who are concerned about the Common Core are not clear that making this distinction is crucial to having a meaningful dialogue that in the end will help students to raise their achievement level in mathematics. It is important that we remember this distinction, as we investigate strategies to help the students who are encountering the Common Core in their classrooms.

Because implementation of Common Core is being done at the local level, there will be little “common” about it. As always, we are seeing a huge divide in strategies, methods, levels of teaching competency, testing methodologies, textbooks, and grades. We are also seeing things that are just “wrong.” If you read the standards, Common Core specifically states:

“These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.”

The challenge that is presented to us, is that parents don’t distinguish (or care to distinguish) between standards and implementation. What they care about is helping their child be successful in class, in school, and in life. So Mathnasium’s message to parents doesn’t really change from what it was before Common Core. We teach math the way it makes sense to kids. We understand the Common Core Standards, and are neither “for” nor “against” them. The standards attempt to closely integrate number sense and critical thinking skills and, as such, have even more in “common” with the Mathnasium approach than previous state standards.

Our program has always both complemented, and more importantly, supplemented existing math programs used in public and private schools.  Our support for the Common Core will be no different. While it is not our intention to be “aligned” with the standards, our support for those Mathnasium students in Common Core classrooms is unwavering.

With panicky parents waiving homework papers they don’t understand, or a normally straight A student failing a test poorly aligned to the homework that they completed with little difficulty, it can be easy to feel that this is a new world, and that we must reinvent ourselves to deal with this crisis.  We need to remember that these challenges were present before Common Core, will be there throughout Common Core, and will likely be there long after Common Core.  Many of us have lived through similar battles on a smaller scale; Every Day Math with its lattice multiplication haunts kids to this day. This is just the first time in recent memory that such a large portion of the country is affected by this type of change simultaneously. However, it really is not the first time this has happened on a large scale.

Since August 2012, Mathnasium of Mill Valley has helped over 150 students in Marin County and San Francisco from both private and public schools achieve greater success in their math classes. Email MillValley@Mathnasium.com or call (415) 384-8272 for more information.

Disclosure: Mathnasium of Mill Valley is a Marin Mommies advertiser.