On his website andertoons.com, illustrator Mark Anderson has a cartoon in which a boy is handing his teacher an assignment. “To show how well I understand fractions,” he says, “I only did half of my ...

Over the past year, since I took over the common-core math beat, I’ve been thinking a lot about fractions. As I wrote in November, the Common Core State Standards for mathematics emphasize fractions ...

Fractions are the basis for most higher-level mathematics. Students need to master the numerical values in earlier grades to tackle topics like algebra later. There’s only one hitch: Fractions can ...

Many children never master fractions. When asked whether 12/13 + 7/8 was closest to 1, 2, 19, or 21, only 24% of a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 US 8th graders answered ...

Remember the days when working a math problem resulted in a right or wrong answer, and parents had a basic grasp of how to help their children with math homework? Those days predated the Common Core ...