That previous conceptions of math’s relevance and use
are inscribed onto the standards is to be expected. But the
rhetoric of the Common Core standards in 2009–2010
centered not on accumulated wisdom, but on advertising
them as a new response to ‘‘years’’ of ‘‘stagnation.’’ The
standards promised to be uniquely and precisely formu-
lated for the problems of the twenty-first century, making
today’s students ‘‘college- and career-ready.’’ Mathematics’
current usefulness is often subsumed within the
larger claim that training in the so-called STEM
fields—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—
is essential for getting a good job and ensuring
a more prosperous nation. Though the overemphasis on
these fields has come under increasing criticism as a way
of further disadvantaging certain students or of keeping
labor costs artificially low, the standards make a case for
the crucial role mathematics can play in preparing a
student for life after high school.16 Like its predecessors,
the Common Core recycled the ancient claim that math-
ematics is generally useful for intellectual discipline,
even while suggesting that this way of teaching was
precisely suited to the problems of contemporary society.
Shackelford and Lamoreaux are entwined in a long history
of complaints about the way math class teaches
children to arrive at certain and reliable knowledge.
But as long as learning math is presumed to discipline
the mind generally, debates about math in classrooms
will ultimately turn on the question of how students
should learn to reason. And there is little hope that
question will be resolved anytime soon.