,9 Questions That Show How Common Core Math is Ruining America

1.

What mud-crusted nonsense is this, Daniel? Does this look like Belgium to you? Get that metric profanity out of here, and let Sierra draw her lines in peace.

2.

Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but cake isn’t a number. Cake is a moist brick of carbohydrates that you light on fire to honor the Birth Person.

And what is that green vegetable doing there? I don’t need the government policing my diet. I have apps for that.

3.

Really, Common Core?

3 = 18?

4 = 32?

You might as well say that pancakes = waffles.

I mean, they’re TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Pancakes are flat slabs of circular breakfast. Waffles are soft sugar castles waiting for the syrup to rain.

If Obama’s America is the place where 7 = 98, then I don’t even want to KNOW what 10 equals.

4.

Ah, classic Common Core. Taking a simple concept like “circles” and making an awful, confusing muddle of it.

Green numbers? Black letters? Why do they spell “ME”?

And don’t even get me started on that 13 (could you have picked an unluckier number if you tried?).

Also, maybe you didn’t notice, but the circles are crossing. If I’d drawn circles like that for my teacher when I was a kid, I’d have gotten a zero.

5.

Look at this filthy cube. Plagued by a smaller, parasitic cube.

Just tragic.

6.

What is this question even asking?

I showed this to my cousin who has a PhD in engineering, and she just shook her head and said, “Are you sure that’s a Common Core question? It just looks like a random diagram.”

A random diagram! Exactly! What even is the point of Common Core?

7.

I used to be able to help my kid with her homework.

No longer.

The Common Core drives families apart.

8.

Ugh.

I’ll never understand people who think that this kind of thick bureaucracy is helping our students.

Positively Orwellian.

9.

Why does Common Core think that kids will learn math by confronting this sunken horse-bird?

Its tiny head infuriates me. I gaze upon this feathered meatball and pity mankind.

Thanks a lot, Common Core.

Okay, reality check: NONE OF THESE ARE ACTUAL COMMON CORE QUESTIONS. I just Googled “math problem” and picked some random images. (And then, for the last one, I Googled “ostrich.”)

Why would I pull this mean-spirited prank, this bait-and-switch? Why would I pretend to bash Common Core, when I’m actually defending it?

Because viral critiques of Common Core drive me crazy.

What I love about math is that it’s NOT political. It’s NOT ideological. It’s NOT partisan. Sure, people disagree about how best to teach it. But these disagreements are grounded in lived experience and heartfelt beliefs. They don’t align with the traditional -isms of public discourse. In math education, our debates are fierce, idiosyncratic, and sincere.

But viral Common Core complaints aren’t. They feel to me like prepackaged controversies. Manufactured hysteria. The intrusion of ordinary politics into my favorite non-ideological space.

If you don’t like Common Core math, that’s fine. There are sensible criticisms to be made of it. But if it took until the ostrich for you to notice THESE AREN’T COMMON CORE QUESTIONS, then maybe your criticism of CC needs a re-think.