ANOTHER impossibly stupid Common Core worksheet sure to make your kid a moron

[happyg]

Here is the latest in a long line of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets to bubble up courtesy of Twitter, according to Twitchy.


This one is being inflicted on America’s third graders.


As Twitchy notes, this flawed “front-end estimation” method wasn’t invented by the people behind Common Core. The concept — which refers to the correct answer to an addition problem as merely “reasonable” and allows students to be off by over 22 percent in their estimation — has been around for decades.

At the same time, the methodology is aligned with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which attempts to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country.

This math lesson is just one more in the constantly burgeoning inventory of hideous Common Core math problems.

This particular math problem is strangely reminiscent of the video The Daily Caller exposed over the summer showing a curriculum coordinator in suburban Chicago perkily explaining that Common Core allows students to be totally right if they say 3 x 4 = 11 as long as they spout something about the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer.
Earlier this month, a group of Common Core-aligned math — math — lessons oozed out of the woodwork which require teachers to ask students if the 2000 presidential election was fair and which refer to Lincoln’s religion as either “liberal” or nothing. (RELATED: Common Core MATH lesson plans attack Reagan, list Lincoln’s religion as ‘liberal’)


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/12/another-impossibly-stupid-common-core-worksheet-sure-to-make-your-kid-a-moron/#ixzz2tEAsOET0

[Luis Gonzalez]

I like that.

I like it so much in fact, that I'll use the same (albeit reversed) logic when I do my taxes next week.

If I owe the IRS $645, I'll send them $500 because it's reasonable.

[mountaineer]

Reasonable, schmeasonable. Who knows what's reasonable? I think I'd like the answer to be 357, and if you don't like it you're racist.

[ABX]

Their answer is incorrect for front-end estimation (which in algebra isn't supposed to give you a 'right answer' but is used simply as a means for checking your calculations to ensure you haven't gone off the tracks somewhere). In front-end estimation, you do start with the first digit, but you always go to the second digit. A 22% variance isn't a 'reasonable estimation'. The textbook way to solve this would be .
354+291
300+200=500
50+90=140
500+140=640

That way when you look for the correct true answer of 645, you can compare it to the front-end estimation of 640 and know you are most likely correct.

It really is somewhat useless with small numbers like this but you get the point. This lesson's biggest flaw is it allows for such a large variance as being correct. If you were adding two numbers and saw a 22% difference in your reasonable estimate and the answer you came up with, you would assume one is wrong.

[happyg]