For generations, American students were taught math in a straightforward, structured way: learn the rules, master the steps, practice until it sticks. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. Students learned that two plus two equaled four not just as a memorized phrase, but as a cornerstone of logic — a small piece of order in a world governed by rules.
Somewhere along the way, that confidence was dismantled.
Beginning in the 1990s and accelerating with the Common Core State Standards in the 2010s, American education policymakers sought to “modernize” math instruction. The stated goal was reasonable: help students understand why math works, not just how. But the result has been a system so abstract and bureaucratic that many parents — and even teachers — struggle to follow it. Vermont remains part of that experiment, still aligning its math curriculum with Common Core as of 2024 despite years of flat test scores and growing classroom frustration.
The numbers tell the story.
Falling Behind by Standing Still
Data from international assessments like PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) show a sobering picture. Over the last 20 years, U.S. math scores have stagnated or declined, while countries such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Finland remain consistently at the top.
What’s striking is that these top performers didn’t overhaul their systems every decade. They didn’t chase pedagogical fads or politicized reforms. They refined what worked.
Singapore still teaches arithmetic the traditional way: clear structure, cumulative mastery, and rigorous repetition before moving on to abstract concepts. Japan’s “lesson study” approach has teachers collaborating to refine lessons for clarity and logic, not to follow federal rubrics. Finland — often held up as the model of progressive education — doesn’t even rely on standardized testing. Instead, it hires highly trained teachers and gives them freedom to teach fundamentals well.
By contrast, the U.S. has changed math instruction repeatedly in pursuit of silver bullets — New Math, Everyday Math, Common Core, and a revolving door of “reforms” that emphasize process over performance.
The Logic of Confusion
Common Core math, in particular, aimed to promote “number sense” — the idea that students should deeply understand numbers instead of memorizing procedures. It sounds good on paper. In practice, it buried simple arithmetic under layers of over-explanation and jargon.
Instead of teaching:
23
+17
----
40
Students were told to “decompose numbers” and “make tens”:
23 + 7 = 30; 30 + 10 = 40.
Mathematically sound? Sure. Necessary for a third grader? Not really.
Parents quickly found themselves re-teaching math at home because they couldn’t follow the new methods. The emphasis on “showing your work” in a prescribed way often meant that quick, correct answers earned lower grades than long, convoluted ones. Students who thought efficiently were penalized for not thinking creatively enough.
It’s no surprise that frustration grew. The old system — learn the basics, apply them confidently — had produced decades of competent engineers, scientists, accountants, and builders. The new one produced anxiety, resentment, and confusion.
From Mastery to Methodology
The deeper problem isn’t just the method; it’s the mindset behind it.
For decades, American education theory has been influenced by constructivism — the belief that knowledge isn’t transmitted, but individually “constructed” by each learner. In math, that means the focus shifts from accuracy to process. A wrong answer is tolerated if the reasoning is “valid.”
But math doesn’t bend that way. Two plus two doesn’t equal five because the student “tried their best.” It equals four, period. And every working system of logic, from algebra to engineering, depends on that consistency.
By turning math into a form of personal expression, Common Core and similar reforms blurred the line between understanding math and feeling good about math. The result: students who can talk about how they thought through a problem — but can’t reliably solve one.
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The Bureaucratic Trap
Much of this confusion stems from how Common Core was implemented. The standards themselves were developed by committees and testing organizations, not by the nation’s best mathematicians or classroom teachers. Publishers rushed to create “aligned” textbooks and software, often filled with convoluted diagrams and step-by-step “scripts” that teachers were required to follow.
Instead of empowering teachers to teach math well, Common Core standardized mediocrity. The people who were supposed to gain freedom — students and educators — lost it to rigid checklists and testing rubrics.
Meanwhile, test results flatlined, and morale plummeted.
If It Ain’t Broke
The irony is that America once led the world in producing engineers, inventors, and scientists without any of these modern frameworks. The system wasn’t perfect, but it worked. It produced people who could do math, not just talk about how they feel about it.
Other countries didn’t catch up because they invented “new math.” They caught up — or passed us — because we started fixing what wasn’t broken.
The difference comes down to philosophy:
- They teach math as math — structured, logical, hierarchical.
- We teach math as therapy — exploratory, subjective, endlessly “reimagined.”
Until American education returns to the basics — mastery before theory, clarity before creativity — we’ll keep churning out students who can’t balance a checkbook but can write a paragraph about why that’s okay.
The Bottom Line
Math isn’t a cultural construct or a political tool. It’s a language for describing reality — one that doesn’t care about ideology, self-esteem, or bureaucratic fashion.
And when a nation loses fluency in that language, it loses something fundamental: its ability to build, to reason, and to trust in the stability of truth itself.
Maybe it’s time to stop reinventing the wheel — and start teaching kids how to count again — at least in Vermont.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
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