College Students Say Common Core Math Problem 'Extra Difficult,' 'Confusing'

College students asked to perform a simple math problem the “Common Core” way said it was “extra difficult” and “confusing.”

Caleb Bonham, Editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, asked college students at George Mason University to perform the math problem, “32 – 12,” both the traditional way and with the Common Core method.

“That was extra difficult for no reason,” said one student. “Make it simple, cause that’s confusing,” said another.

Bonham noted that last week, Common Core “architect” and current president of the College Board David Coleman, announced that the SAT would be modified so that it could be aligned with the Common Core standards.

State boards of education from 45 states adopted the untested Common Core standards, a federally promoted education initiative introduced in the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus bill through a competitive grant program called Race to the Top (RTTT). States could apply and compete for federal grant money as long as they adopted the Common Core, a set of uniform standards and aligned curricula and testing that allows for a greater role of government in education, higher levels of social engineering, student data collection, and teacher evaluations based on student performance on assessments aligned with the standards.

The National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and nonprofit progressive education think tank Achieve, Inc. were mainly responsible for the initiative. The NGA and the CCSSO are the publishers and copyright owners of the Common Core State Standards.

The state boards of education, most of them unelected, that signed onto the unproven Common Core standards did so with little, if any, public or media scrutiny, prior to even seeing the standards themselves.

The implementation of Common Core has been privately funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, underscoring the alliance of big government political elites and corporatists in this academic initiative.