Hey, What Happened to Times Tables?
Virginia’s new Mathematics Standards of Learning (SOL) includes a return to memorizing the times tables this school year, like 44 other states and the District of Columbia, following a 6-year absence on ideological grounds.
The prior SOLs’ end goal for basic number facts was Virginia students using cognitively taxing computation strategies (e.g., repeated addition for multiplication), ignoring the cognitive science that, in addition, those facts need to be memorized. The return of Virginia’s evidence-based standards on number facts (the SOL also includes memorizing addition, subtraction, and division facts) are especially important for Virginia’s least advantaged children, who are much less likely to learn such essential skills through outside resources like parents and/or tutors.
But will Virginia school districts follow these standards or instead repeat the same mistake with math that they did with literacy, choosing ideology over science-based instruction?
