> Math education in the US is pitiful. Yeah, no disagreement there. > The last attempt to fix it (common core) mostly emphasized memorizing arithmetic facts.

> Math education in the US is pitiful. Yeah, no disagreement there. > The last attempt to fix it (common core) mostly emphasized memorizing arithmetic facts. In fact, just the opposite. The old math system was rote memorization. Then common core came along and made all those parents and their limited math skills obsolete. It didn't help that teachers who also learned the old math couldn't or didn't understand common core methodology. BTW, I'm a parent of one those school kids who was trying to learn common core. I got it right away and don't consider myself particularly brilliant. But the grumbling from so many parents who just thought they knew more than the educators was deafening. In the end, the state dropped common core and they are still complaining about it years later. The right made it into a boogeyman and now that and trans kids are all they can fixate on.