> Common Core is based on a bunch of studies I'm not an educational researcher and I don't have a thorough understanding of the research methodology or the iss

> Common Core is based on a bunch of studies I'm not an educational researcher and I don't have a thorough understanding of the research methodology or the issues involved in designing those studies. Every Education researcher I've talked to thinks anti-common core people are a bit nuts and/or fundamentally don't understand what common core even is (I think most of them would put you in this second camp, since you're complaining about specific assignments). But as a mathematician, some problems are obviously the sort of problems that anyone with a passable mathematics education should have no problem solving. The common core problems people complain about are decidedly in this set. So when people say "I can't solve this common core problem", I mostly take it as an indication that they've had a really shitty mathematics education rather than an indication that common core is flawed. And yes, even someone who has passed through a calc course at Harvard can be bad at math. > I guess Harvard, MIT, etc. don't count. Harvard, MIT, etc. have excellent Mathematics departments and, following my criteria, any Math major for either of those institutions could have a lengthy conversation about common core. Indeed, among the many mathematicians I know with undergraduate degrees from Harvard College, I've never heard a single one complain that common core problems are obtuse or difficult. The distinction I was drawing is that US-based Calculus for Engineers and ODEs for Engineers courses aren't proof-based except in a small handful of cases. And, those courses are often easy to skate through with little or no mathematical understanding. Yes, even at elite universities. Which goes back to my original observation -- if you really can't add numbers in a novel way or setup and solve for a set of linear equations, then you're apparently not very good at math. Even if you are an intelligent pattern matcher who made it through a few calc courses by applying templates and performing rote calcuations.