NEW YORK – The controversy over Common Core national education standards will gain new vigor as legislatures reconvene – many with larger Republican majorities – and prospective presidential candidates jockey for position.

A top education issue will be re-evaluating Common Core – the one-size-fits-all English and math standards incentivized by the Obama administration through the stimulus and promoted by a few Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee.

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One of the most confounding aspects of Common Core is what the initiative has done to the teaching of math.

Many parents have taken to social media to vent frustration at their inability to assist their children with homework. The problems are not calculus or trigonometry, but rather seemingly straightforward elementary math.

One parent took out his anger on a math worksheet that would have involved several steps and a large amount of time to solve 427-316.

“I have a bachelor of science degree in electronics engineering which included extensive study in differential equations and other higher math applications. Even I cannot explain the Common Core mathematics approach, nor get the answer correct,” the parent wrote on the homework, according to The Blaze.

“In the real world, simplification is valued over complication.”

Despite such frustrations, many promoters, chiefly Jeb Bush, don’t want to hear it.

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Bush has blasted criticism of Common Core as “purely political” and accused opponents of being “comfortable with mediocrity,” according to the Miami Herald.

But Rick Hess, an education analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, predicts that if Bush decides to run for president, “Common Core could be his Romneycare,” the Daily Signal reports.

If that prediction comes true, it will be because of the criticism of those such as 100-year-old Brooklyn math teacher Madeline Scotto, who still works with students at St. Ephrem’s School.

“When I saw the other day what a teacher was doing to get children to add four and four – oh my, God,” Scotto tells Business Insider.

“Tell me, how would you teach them 4+4? And she said, ‘well you add this and subtract this’ – they’re making it more complicated as far as I’m concerned.”

She adds, “If you’re a teacher and you’re having luck doing something one way, don’t ask if it’s the better way. If it’s doing a good job, use that method.”

Maybe the architects of Common Core should have consulted Scotto prior to its roll out nationwide.

“Before you institute a system, be sure that it’s had good fortune. And I don’t think that they waited long enough for Common Core to produce something outstanding so we could say, ‘I think we should do that,'” she concludes.

In fact, Common Core wasn’t field tested anywhere prior to its implementation, according to Carol Burris, a New York school principal.

The simple, yet effective criticisms of Common Core from people like Scotto mean the controversy won’t be going away anytime soon.

It’s one thing for candidates like Jeb Bush to criticize and cast aspersions upon politicians and talking heads over their opposition to Common Core.

That’s more difficult to do against a spry math teacher who has been at it for 60 years.