Obama's Common Core: Math Scores Hit 20-Year Low, Continue to Plummet

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The Common Core teaching methods pushed by the Obama Administration are continuing to show failure as math scores hit a record 20-year low and show no signs of improving.

Former President Obama forced schools in the US to adopt the controversial teaching method, yet teachers are reporting a significant decline in students' learning in comparison with traditional practices.

After nine years of Common Core, parents are teachers are urging schools to drop Obama's toxic methods, arguing that it intentionally dumbs-down children by creating unnecessary and complicated techniques for working out relatively straightforward problems.

Records show that students are now recording lower results than was previously thought possible, with teachers warning that “if we do nothing” about Common Core the scores “will keep on declining.”

According to the latest batch of ACT data, scores show “dangerous long-term declines in performance.”

The results, which were released last month, indicate that students’ math achievement has now reached a new 20-year low.

For the graduating class of 2018, the average math score was 20.5, marking a steady decline from 20.9 five years ago, making virtually no progress since 1998, when it was 20.6.

Each of the four sections of the college-entrance exam is graded on a 36-point scale.

“We’re at a very dangerous point. And if we do nothing, it will keep on declining,” Marten Roorda, ACT’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

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According to Education Weeks, the pattern in math scores is particularly worrisome at a time when strong math skills are important for the science, engineering, and technology jobs that play powerful roles in the U.S. economy, he said.

Matt Larson, the immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said the math scores “are extremely disappointing, but not entirely unexpected.”

Concerns About College Readiness

While the trends in ACT math were worrisome, the scores in English didn’t offer much cause for celebration, either.

The average score for the class of 2018 was 20.2, the same as five years ago, and down half a point from the English-score high in 2007.

On the science section of the ACT, students in the class of 2018 averaged 20.7, down from 21 in 2017, and about the same as five years ago.

The national average composite score for the class of 2018 was 20.8, down from 21 in 2017 and about the same as in 2016.

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Math and English scores drew the attention of the ACT by another measure, too: readiness for college-level work.

The ACT’s score benchmarks are correlated with the likelihood of earning Bs or Cs in credit-bearing coursework.

And increasing numbers of students are falling short.

Only 4 in 10 met the math benchmark, the lowest level since 2004, and down from 46 percent in 2012.

Six in 10 met the English benchmark, the lowest level since the benchmarks were introduced in 2002.

Common Core Chaos

The Bill Gates/Obama hijacking of the country's curriculum is having a deep and lasting impact in the nations' education.

As parents, teachers, and students fight to return to traditional teaching methods, how long will it before the chaos caused by Common Core's failure can be rectified?