Letter: Common Core at fault for lack of math skills

Tallahassee Democrat

Recently Professor Paul Cottle wrote about the disastrous decline in middle school math achievement in Florida. He sees the main problem as inadequate teachers, and the solution being to attract better teachers with higher pay.

But I have recently encountered "Common Core" math curriculum up close tutoring primary school kids, and I suspect that Common Core is failing these students in the earlier grades, and they are arriving in middle school without basic math skills.

Just take a look at "lattice multiplication," for example. It is confusing for students to learn, it is tough for teachers to teach, and the parents can't help their kids at home. And we have a train wreck in middle school.

Craig Reeder, Tallahassee