The need for the standards and the new approaches to learning math are obvious not just because the U.S. isn’t doing as well as other countries but because employers say workers lack needed skills. Jobs require workers to know math and collaborate to solve practical problems, said Ron Preston, an associate professor at East Carolina University and president of the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “The answers won’t be in the back of the book when you’re out there in the workplace.”

Dana Snapp, a fifth-grade teacher at Fuquay-Varina Elementary School, has students sit in groups of four to talk about multiplying with decimals. The students talk to each other and write out their answers to a problem that demonstrates that multiplying by one-tenth is the same as dividing by 10.

“Before, what we had was algorithms, formulas, ways of computing numbers but not necessarily understanding what you are doing with the numbers,” she said. “I think that made it really difficult when they got to higher-level math, like algebra, for instance, when they had to do abstract math but didn’t understand how the numbers worked. It was difficult for me to learn at first, too. I can see now that the kids get it. When they get it, it’s more solid, and they don’t lose it.”

A state group... called the Academic Standards Review Commission has before it a recommendation – written by one of its work groups – to dump Common Core math. The commission is set to vote on its final report in December.

“Excessive use of so-called models or visual methods of calculation is detrimental to the attainment of speed and accuracy in standard calculations since they are inherently inefficient,” the draft states. They are useful to get the concepts across or for easy mental calculations."

In the upper grades, algebra, geometry, statistics and other disciplines are combined and taught in an integrated fashion over three courses. The commission is considering separating them again. Students would go back to taking two algebra courses and one geometry course.

Scheick, who led the Common Core math review, has refused twice since this summer to talk about how the recommendations were developed. Commission members decided earlier this year to refer questions to the two commission chairmen. Scheick declined to answer questions about the math recommendations after the commission’s public meeting in November, and after the chairmen said he could talk.

“The News & Observer is harassing us with these public records requests,” Scheick said. “This conversation is over.”

Labels: Experiential education

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