Common Core is one of the many ill advised government programs that trades complexity for legibility. Essentially, they would rather have something that doesn't work, but is measurable, than something subtle, complex, and successful, but that is difficult to quantify. Common Core is one of the many reasons to be dismayed by Obama and his team. He's W on steroids vis-a-vis education policy.
"They would rather have something that doesn't work, but is measurable" could be the slogan for American education for some time now. The ideas outlined in the NYT article all require a few years to fully bloom and created a significant impact. However, no political candidate can run on a platform of "let's see what happens" which makes radically changing and improving the education system so difficult. I haven't done any extensive research into all of the problems that plague the education system, but I would definitely recommend Diane Ravitch's book Reign of Errors. Ravitch is a former Secretary of Education for George HW Bush who completely changed her views after getting out of office because she saw what was and was not working. Normally, I never look at a problem with a defeated demeanor, but education seems to be impossible to radically change in the US due to the need for numbers and data.
If you are going to change a fundamental core education standard, why not implement a bottom up strategy. Implemented at pre-k or kindergarten level only right now and over the course of the next 20 years it will be fully implemented. This not only helps kids but the adults at home to learn the new standard. I cannot help then kids at home if I don't know this math anymore than they do. It just boggles me that they implement this but do not account for the fact higher grades cannot relearn it affectively.