hafsiop

The Common Core: Bad For Education
If you ask a teacher how the school year is going this year, you will quickly get the impression that students and teachers are burning out. They are the victims of the newly active common core standards. Young students are specifically impacted by the common core because it is developmentally inappropriate. Teachers are also overstressed by the common core because they have little control over their classrooms. This is due to modules which script their lessons completely, restraining them from adapting to different classroom environments’. Students are not robots and should be treated as individuals each with their specific needs. However, the common core does not allow this to happen. While standards may be good, the system has proven it is already failing. Change needs to come, because the common core is not trustworthy, and is not working and is forcing teachers and students into learning modules they are not comfortable with.
The Common Core is a set of internationally benchmarked education English Language Arts and Math standards for students in grades kindergarten to twelve. One of the goals of the common Core is to align the curriculum between states. Therefore, what students are learning in one state at a particular grade level is the same as what students are learning nationwide. Consequently, Children that move from state to state would not be behind or have gaps in their education due to a variety of state standards. Another goal of the Common Core Standards is to create students that are college and career ready (NGA et al. 1) In 2010 the Obama administration made the adoption of the Common Core a requirement for states to obtain Race to the Top Grant money. States that chose to participate became eligible to receive a share of 4.3 billion in Race to the Top money. Forty-five states have adopted these new standards. Alaska, Nebraska, Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia are the only states that chose not to participate (NGA et al. 1). The goal of having internationally benchmarked standards is respectable. As a nation we want to produce students that are among the top in the world academically. America’s students should be leaving the twelfth grade college and/or career ready. However, the development and implementation of the Common Core standards has had many flaws.
Dr. John Metallo is a retired teacher, administrator and adjunct instructor at the University of Albany and SUNY Plattsburgh. In Metallo’s article Common Core vs. Common Sense: Which Will Win he states, “It is time to admit that the Common Core is more about politics and money than it is about improving education” (Metallo 1). The states have been coerced with over 4.3 billion dollars to follow the standards; including New York which has a share equaling over 700 million dollars. These states adopted the national standards before the final draft was even published.
There are three federal laws that prohibit the Department of Education from controlling any national assessments, standards or curriculum. However, the federal government got around the laws by using private trade associations and claiming that they were state-led because state-level bureaucrats were involved (Fulton 3). Furthermore, “Unelected bureaucrats, not Congress, changed federal privacy law (FERPA) to remove the requirement for parental consent before the release of any personal data about their child and to include mandates for storing, sharing, and tracking data” (Fulton 3). This means that third parties are able to view a student’s confidential information.
The Common Core puts a great deal of emphasis on standardized testing. This focus on assessments could potentially have powerful consequences in New York State. Last year, Gov. Cuomo developed a new teacher evaluation system. This evaluation system uses student performance on standardized testing to measure a teacher’s effectiveness. Ken Sider, an elementary school teacher in New York State, was invited to speak at Hartwick College’s panel titled, A Report from the Trenches How the High Stakes Reform Agenda Impacts Stakeholders. Sider stated, “Student data and test scores are being misused in a system of teacher accountability that intimidates and threatens teachers and principals alike, while earning unimaginable profits for corporations. A teacher evaluation system based largely on test scores is an abuse of data which intends to fire teachers for low test scores without regard for tenure, the historic legal practice of protecting teachers from capricious decisions and shifting political winds” (Sider 3).
You would expect that a team of people designing curriculum and standards for education would be professionals in education. However, in the case of the Common Core, this is far from the truth. There was a massive lack of education professionals on the board that created the curriculum along with a lack of public engagement. The curriculum was not based on educational research. “The Common Core standards were adopted without any field test. They were imposed on students all around the nation with no concept of how they would affect students, teachers or schools. This is just one more example of politicos trying to mess with something they do not understand – the education system” (Metallo 2).
Since Common Core standards are not research based and were not written by child development experts many of its objectives are developmentally inappropriate. “Modules force children to endure tiresome repetition, a single instructional approach that assumes all children work at the same pace, and very long periods of sitting with no mental and physical breaks” (Sider 2). This is specifically a problem in young students such as kindergarteners who need time to develop socially before being engaged in serious education. For example, Kindergarteners are being asked to sit through a long math session daily along with a 120 minute English Language Arts lesson. First graders have a one hour E.L.A. skills lesson, a sixty minute listening session, and a math lesson which takes an hour and a half to complete (Sider 2). These young students are then expected to go home and sit in order to complete homework that is inclusive of the modules.
The Common Core modules are resulting in many changes in our classrooms. “Kindergarteners are not making apple sauce and reading about Johnny Appleseed, instead they are studying life in colonial towns. First graders are not learning about Oneonta and our neighborhoods, instead they are studying Ancient Egypt and Ancient South American culture. Second graders are not visiting City Hall or tapping maple trees, instead they are learning about Mesopotamia, Ancient Chinese civilization, and the War of 1812” (Sider 3). Social and Science modules are on their way, and when they do arrive the whole school day will be scripted. School districts will be forced to do away with recess, special events and the arts.
Teachers are overstressed by the Common Core because they have little control over their classrooms due to the classroom modules that are being imposed on them. “A module is a day-by-day, minute-by-minute, step-by-step direction manual that actually forces teachers to teach with a stop watch” (Sider 1). The majority of the lessons in these modules are taught to the whole group without any concern for the needs of individual students. This approach teaches to the students with average ability. Students working below grade level become frustrated and begin to tune out instruction. Advance students become bored and lose focus. Teachers deserve to have the authority to make changes to content and procedures according to students’ passions, desires, and individual needs. “These automated teaching methods eliminate the possibility for wonder, curiosity and self-direction” (Sider 1).
I am left wondering why teachers have worked hard to earn a Masters degree; shouldn’t they be respected as professionals? This is what they went to school for so they deserve respect and trust in their abilities. Teachers are reporting stress in themselves and their students because of the modules that the Common Core imposes. The completely scripted lessons, which even included a predicted script for the students’ response, are restraining teachers from adapting to different classroom environments and student needs. Students are not robots and should be treated as individuals.
Now that the Common Core standards are active, we can look at how they are already beginning to fail. In New York alone, just 31 percent of students passed tests linked to Common Core. What is the reason for this? “The tests which were administered to the students were not linked to the curriculum they were taught. Thus, any expectation of success is sheer folly.” (Metallo 2). Teachers, who are evaluated on their ability to teach a developmentally inappropriate curriculum, are being looked towards for the blame. However, they should not be blamed due to the scripted modules that the Common Core requires them to follow. (Metallo 2).
The Common Core was published with a lack of educational professionals on the board, a lack of time, and a lack of planning in general. While the standards may be good, the system has proven it is already failing, and our students and teachers deserve better than this. We need an aligned curriculum that treats our teachers as professionals. It needs to allow teachers the freedom to adjust lessons to their own teaching style as well as to the needs of their students. Good teachers do not need a script. They use the students’ feedback and curiosity to determine the dialog in a lesson. It is imperative new learning standards are based on research. The curriculum needs to be written by experts in child development along with professionals in the field of education. Educational standards also need to allow time in the school day for students to develop their creativity and discover their unique gifts and talents. Improving American education should not be for political gain or seen as a business adventure. American children need to be the ones that profit from such an endeavor.