Some experts are calling this good news. "It shows we really can influence what kids are learning with curriculum policies," Jane Hannaway, director of Education Policy Research at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., told The New York Times. "We've been doing more of that new math and kids are learning it. We know how to teach basic skills. That's a very easy area to remedy."
By, for example, throwing away those calculators. The report found that fourth-graders who used a calculator every day had the lowest math scores. When kids are tied to calculators, they are not liberated to think higher-order thoughts. Instead, they come to see mathematics as a branch of magic, in which you follow formulas and punch numbers into a little black box, which produces an answer, right or wrong, that you can get partial credit for on the newer sort of math test. The bank will be less forgiving when you try to explain that even though you bounced a check through faulty subtraction, you understood the higher concepts involved.
Higher concepts such as: keeping track of dates. I finally get my 5-year-old settled down and walk into his new classroom: Surprise! It is completely empty. The more competent moms all knew -- kindergarten doesn't start until tomorrow.