Let's Talk about the South Dakota K - 12 Proposed Math Standards, Part 4

A November 22, 2025 article in The Dakota Scout talks about the U.S. Mint no longer producing pennies, which led the SD Education Secretary, Dr. Joe Graves, to talk about how money is used in early grades to teach math. In fact, counting pennies and knowing that they are worth 1 cent is a Kindergarten standard in the Current Standards. In the Proposed Standards, there are two standards listed in Kindergarten related to coins and counting.

• K.M.6 Identify pennies and dimes by name and value. 
• K.M.7 Count groups of pennies and groups of dimes by their values. (coins not combined) 

Later in the article, Dr. Graves was critical of our current standards, which are largely based on Common Core Standards, when he said: "...We believe that changing the math standards so that we can get away from a very complicated common core based system to one that is, that treats math like math, will improve that as well. So that's the direction that we're trying to go in and make."

However, a little over a year ago, at a Joint Appropriations Committee meeting of the SD State Legislature, Dr. Graves seemed more positive about Common Core. He talks about how math involves two skill sets: calculation and number sense. He goes on to say that he believes that some people can do calculations but not have number sense; and that people can have number sense but not do calculations. While I disagree with the second part of his statement, he does emphasize that number sense is important and that doing well in math involves both skill sets.

During that meeting, one of the legislators, Taffy Howard, asks, "Have we at least recognized that Common Core does not work?" Graves responds:

    "...Common Core fed deeply into the sense that we need to have number sense and an overall global understanding of what we're doing versus the ability to actually do calculation or decoding and those kinds of things. So, actually to me at least, Common Core is a great example of one side of the equation."

It seems that Dr. Graves thinks that Common Core has helped with improving number sense. I agree with that. Number sense is so important. In fact, a recent opinion piece in the New York Times talks about how the current U.S. administration tends to exaggerate numbers, and they do this because they must believe that Americans won't know enough to critique them. This is why we need people with number sense so that they can look at data and understand enough math to know when something doesn't make sense.

What has happened in the last year to make our Department of Education think that we need to change our math standards? When Shannon Malone gave the rebuttal to the opponents' testimony at the Board of Education hearing on February 23, she said, "This department is committed to replacing Common Core with Common Sense."

If we go back to that Dakota Scout article, it quotes Governor Rhoden echoing Dr. Graves criticism of Common Core when he says, "When I think about where we came from and where we are headed, I've surmised it by saying we're going to trade common core for common sense."

This makes me wonder if Governor Rhoden is the one who wants to get rid of our current math standards. This doesn't make me feel great, especially since this is an election year, and he is in a primary race with three other candidates. Today, the first polls came out and Rhoden is polling in third place.