To my students and their parents:
I think I owe you an apology. See, I already know that most, if not all, of you are going to fail the Florida Standards Assessments math test this year. How can I say such a thing, you ask? It was my job to prepare you for it. Well, I did the best I could, but youāve been set up to fail. We were told this new way of teaching was going to make you better in math. We were all deceived.
This year, I was told to forget everything I have ever learned about teaching. The past eight years of my career and my four years getting my bachelorās degree in elementary education were apparently a waste of time, because this year, the state of Florida told me to do something totally different. Itās called Common Core. Parents, you were probably told that Florida has its own standards. That was a lie. We just gave Common Core a different name.
Hereās what I did to you: I taught you three different ways to divide multidigit numbers except the one way everyone else in the world was taught. I tried my best to teach it to you, but since I was never taught this way, I know I confused you quite a bit. When you went home to your mom and dad confused as to how to solve a division problem with pictures and partial quotients, your parents ā out of desperation ā showed you how they were taught. We call that the standard algorithm, which in Common Core is a dirty word in fifth grade.
The next day, you came back to school so excited because you got it! You werenāt confused anymore. All your answers were correct because you checked them using multiplication.
And then, I did the unthinkable. I gave you a zero because you didnāt do it my way, the Common Core way. I told you to use partial quotients, and you didnāt. I told you to draw a model, and you didnāt. I didnāt care that you got them all right. You got your correct answer the wrong way. I watched your face fall and tears well up in your eyes. I felt terrible, but I had to do it because thatās how youāre going to be tested on division.
And then, I expected you to turn improper fractions into mixed numerators, but I didnāt teach you the standard algorithm for division, which made it that much more difficult for you. How could I have expected you to do that when I didnāt teach you how to divide easily in the first place?
I did this to you with every single math skill I taught. No, you canāt do it your parentās way. You must do it my way. My way is the right way; your way is the wrong way. I donāt care if your answer is right. I donāt care if it doesnāt make any sense. I donāt care if it takes you 20 minutes per problem instead of one. I watched your self-esteem plummet.
And then, to make matters worse, Iām now going to test you using question-and-answer styles youāve never seen before. Instead of multiple choice, you are now going to have to check all that apply. If there are three correct answers and you only pick two of them, youāre entire answer is wrong. Iām going to make you draw diagrams and pictures of how you got your answer instead of letting you show your work using the standard algorithm. And they better be done my way. Iām going to make you answer questions that should only take one minute and make sure it takes you 10 minutes. Youāll never finish the test in the 80 minutes Iām going to give you. Iām going to make you ādrag and dropā and explain your work using words, but Iām not going to give you any practice tests on the computer in this style. Only on paper. Iām saving the computer for the day of testing.
Thereās one more thing I need to apologize for. To you, my students who came to me as A/B students your whole life, I apologize for turning you into a D/F student in math. It was not my intention. Not only are you feeling low, I feel like a failure, too.
I hope my prediction of mass failure on the FSA math test is dead wrong. But Iām a realist, and I know what the state of Florida made me do to you. And for that, I cannot apologize enough.
Jeanelle Wellhoner is a fifth-grade teacher at College Park Elementary School in Ocala.
