Common Core Standards Debate

Imagine a world where a child goes to school just to be force-fed a curriculum focused on English and Math, just so they can pass a state test at the end of the year. That is the world that K-12 public students are forced to face with the Common Core Standards (CCS) initiative. The Common Core Standards is a “set of information and skills that students are expected to master at each grade level” (Greenblatt). The initiative should be revoked or dismissed from the United States public school system as teachers are uncomfortable with the teaching curriculum, it does not place emphasis on creativity or other common school subjects, and the teachers just teach the test through the curriculum. Teachers are uncomfortable changing their teaching
styles to fit the CCS. The Common Core initiative “required many teachers to make significant changes in their instructional practices” (Burks 3). A survey was sent out by the Institutional Review Board of Auburn University, where out of the teachers surveyed, 26% of the participants were reported to be “uncomfortable” or “extremely uncomfortable” with the new standards (Burks 3). However, the teachers that are getting the short end of the stick are teachers who have been educators for 10+ years. Included in the survey, thirty-two percent of teachers that have seniority (teaching experience of 7 years or more) were uncomfortable with implementing the CCS (Burks 3). These senior educators have to “to completely revamp their teaching methods” so they are in compliance with the Common Core Standards (Stevenson 3). These older teachers have taught their subject for many years and could go in depth or off topic in their class, if the curriculum calls for it.
However, with the Common Core Standards, these teachers have a time limit, where they can’t go off topic and strictly have to follow the curriculum so they can enable their student to pass the test at the end of the year. It is uncomfortable for the educators to quickly change up their old teaching styles or learn new techniques to accommodate the standards and help their students, overall, at the end of the year.
The Common Core Standards does not promote creativity or other subjects in its tests and curriculum. The curriculum of the Common Core only includes English and Mathematics because those are the subjects that are tested at the end of the school year. There is barely a spot open for teachers to implement creative skills, physical education, social studies, and science. There are no national tests at the end of the year that deals with those subjects so it is not a priority. The United States Department Of Education’s (DOE) surveys show that “Social Studies, the Sciences, Physical Education and the Arts being cut by 32 to 35% to allow for more preparation to be spent on Math and English, the standardized test subjects” (Stevenson 8). These subjects are prevalent in
the real world, after college, at the same level as English and math, but they aren’t treated that way in this initiative. The initiative is based mostly on critical thinking as that will help students in their college education, according to the Common Core. But creativity and the knowledge found in social studies and science all apply to a student’s college education too. It is, however, ironic that creative workers will have the advantage when it comes to competitive careers in the end, rather than the college and career ready workers (Vance 2). With the skills of creativity and the other subjects of physical education, science, and arts under ones belt will expand the students mind and help them in their college and career. Then why doesn’t the Common Core Standards implement these subjects and skills into their curriculum? Finally, the initiative basically makes teachers teach the test, adding pressure onto the educators. “The tests are designed to test students' comprehension about what they read and how they come to solutions for math problems” (Engel). The average student takes eight to 10 hours to complete the test, which mean an educator has to cram 180 days’ worth of information into a test that is a third of the day long (Engel). Michael Benezra, a legislative director for the Massachusetts Senate, says it best: “The reliance on testing pigeonholes the teachers to teach only to the test. So the kids are coming out and what they're learning might not be conventional” (Engel). There is an immense amount of pressure for a teacher to follow the curriculum verbatim to ensure that their students will pass the test at the end of the year. However, that is not the end of it. There is the added pressure of teachers and the school in its entirety being graded by the students’ performance of the standardized tests. If a teacher teaches the curriculum exact and their students excel and pass, the school grade would go up. Plus, the pay of the teacher based on their students’ performance on these exams. It’s not worthwhile if there is so much pressure for a teacher to teach their students just to pass a test. There are so many problems associated with the Common Core Standards initiative.
The negatives of this initiative outweigh the positives of it. It is not understandable by teachers, creativity and other subjects are not tested in the tests, and teachers’ curriculum is based so they can teach the test at the end of the year. If adults wouldn’t want to be force fed information and work just so they can get promoted, then why would they want the children in school to do
that?