Common Core Standards Essay

Common Core was adopted by many states in hopes that schools would perform better and be able to compete with the rest of the world. With the new Common Core Standards in place some states are not doing as well as they hoped. In April of 2012 at a public school in Brooklyn, a teacher named Trisha Matthew assigned her students to write self-portrait poems. Most of her students compared themselves to LeBron James or a loud piano. One student named Chrispin decided to write about something more meaningful: “I’m a 9 year old who struggles with math” (Hernandez par.6).and Chrispin has every right to be worried. With New York’s state exams two days away, he was still having trouble with some basic math skills, such as dividing and recognizing patterns.
Some of the information in the media is fact while some of it does not have much truth to it. Elaine McArdle, an education journalist, explains that the Common Core standards are “designed to raise student proficiencies” across the country, so they can better compete with the rest of the world (par.2). Joshua Kenna, a professor at Texas Tech University explains a Common Core “promises to alter America’s educational landscape” (par.3). This a lot to promise, which is one reason some parents and teachers do not agree with these standards. More local groups like The Chicago Teachers Union oppose the new standards completely, while the national unions such as the National Educators Association (NEA) support the Core but want delays in implementation (McArdle par 4). “Some parents find the new standards impossibly frustrating, especially the math component” reword (McArdle par .5). So many different people have a stake in these new education reforms if the teachers does not like it they might quit, then you have no teachers. The parents do not like it because they cannot help their child with homework, their child is being taught completely different than the way they were