Common Core Debate

The common core, two simple words we all know and have heard quite often in the past few years with the attempts at education reform. It’s either something people accept or fervently despise. They form these opinions mostly based on the initial layer of information that they get, but with a few simple questions we can attempt to inform any and all who read the following article on the common core and then a true opinion can be formed. By asking the following trivial questions we can show the facts, “What does the common core try to do?”, while this may seem to be something mind-bogglingly simply, it opens up a new door for answering information and builds up to the inquiries given next. “Why do people not like it” or “Why people don’t believe
it isn’t working”, these questions brings in the mass public, vocalizing those who haven’t been working with this system for years and have adjusted their very work around it. The final question to be asked is “what is considered good about it” this adds another layer of information onto the facts, showing the truth from a standpoint of someone who is associated with the common core itself, a teacher, someone who has worked with this system for years and will give accurate statements on it. The basis that must be covered first is wondering what the common core tries to accomplish, throughout the system it attempts to centralize the capacity for learning in order to become on par with the rest of the world by standardizing the entire school system for every state.
As before the common core was instated each and every state was different, causing some states to be on entirely different planes of education than others. Concerning the status of mathematic standards in the initial grades it tries to teach students to associate how the numbers add up, by using the simple number 10, when doing a problem such as 9+6, it tells to take a one from the 6 and bring it to the 9, moving it to a 10, then they’d have 10+5, explaining to them how that makes 15. Then they can build off of this simple trick into more advanced mathematics. For the reading standards it gives the students samples of texts to read, allowing them to read them and then questions are given to the students on what the text says. Allowing for the students to comprehend the text rather than just absorb the information rather than just regurgitate the facts that they gained throughout and not actually learn
anything. Now onto point of what Is considered to be good about this system. It is widely said to be bringing students up to a both national and international standard, each lesson being a step and then the time they take learning that being a flat part of the step, giving them as long as they need to learn what is required. It is said to bring in new, creative ways of thinking by showing each way a math problem can be solved and then allowing the student to choose their way of solving it, along with this new way of thinking the system is said to be bringing more of a collaborative mindset, rather than just be making people who can do it all on their own. By the time the student is done with their time in high school, their standards will have a reached a point that they are ready to go into college with a relatively smooth transition, as the learning should not be too different than what they had.
Now that we have learned what it tries to do we can learn about what it fails to do, at least in the eyes of most people.
Referring back to the explanation on mathematics, it tells to make everything to 10, the problem with this is, it over-convolutes everything, causing for unnecessary confusion in a simple problem that could be solved in one step. One statement that the common core commonly makes is that people say they are getting college ready, when the standards have shown that in high school it is giving them the knowledge for community colleges rather than the prestigious colleges across the country. Parents see the common core as something that, rather than give the parents the ability to assist their children in the attempt to gain knowledge, it makes them feel unable to help due to the standards changing from what they once had, not knowing how to do these overly complex problems, and the students can’t tell their parents how to do it as they are learning it themselves. It is considered something that eliminates the ability to see the efficient methods of doing things and instead learning every single way and having them do the most unfathomably complex methods of solving a problem. The final gripe people have with this system is the fact that it is turning children into just another statistic on a graph rather than students, every single test score they give is put into a national average when that test meant nothing to further their
education. As this paper comes to a close we hope that this has broadened your horizons on the common core and its standards. Along with the basis that it attempts to bring all students into a national standard for each and every one to be on an equal level when in college. However, each system cannot be without its flaws, just some of which have been covered here today. So, have a wonderful day and thank you for taking time to learn about this very important part of American life.