Welcome back, readers. On this installment of the Education Station, we will be switching from the area of college education to public education. As I’ve said in the previous post, issues exist in the United States education system on all levels. By diving deeper into many diverse civic issues regarding education, solutions may be found to improve the development of all students.
This week’s civic issue in the field of education centers around problems created by the Common Core Standards. The original goals of the Common Core Standards were to a) create a course outline for which material schools should teach, and b) develop a timetable for when schools should teach the material. These ideas, first put forth in 2007 by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, stressed improving student performance in science and math to better prepare students for the workforce.
By 2009, The Common Core Standards had become mainstream policy for state governments. The above map shows the 45 states that have currently accepted some type of Common Core Standard. While the Common Core Standards required student testing and data from states, the standards allowed states to create their own standards and tests to assess students. This, accompanied by the crumbling of the No Child Left Behind Act, lead states to adopt their own sets of Common Core Standards, now known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
The first experience that I had with the Common Core State Standards was in eighth grade. Part of Pennsylvania’s CCSS involved the Keystone Exams, a set of statewide assessments in the fields of Algebra, English, and Biology. In order for students to graduate from high school, they were required to pass each of the three exams. If students failed an exam for any reason, they were forced to take a remediation course in place of one of their elective courses. If the students failed a second time, they had the option of retaking the remediation course and retaking the exam or completing an additional project in place of the exam.
As an eighth-grade student, I was terrified by the exam. Despite performing well in previous Algebra classes, I had no idea how well I would do on state-mandated exams. I also fearing losing electives like French and Computer Programming in place of remediation courses. I felt that putting this much pressure on such a young group of students was wrong, but the Pennsylvania CCSS did just that.
Many other states implemented similar exams for students, including the Iowa Assessments in Iowa, the MCAS in Massachusetts, and the Regents Exams in New York. These exams varied widely from state to state in the areas of content and academic standards. The entire goal of the CCSS was to create a unified attempt to improve student education, yet what it really created was confusion and frustration in government, schools, and students alike.
As this chart shows, state governments are continuing to struggle with the best way to implement CCSS in their schools. Many states have revised or are currently revising their CCSS, creating further discrepancy between each state’s standards. Some states have even repealed CCSS altogether, and others have still made no attempt to adopt type of CCSS.
These standards, which were designed to better educate students, are now forcing schools to cut programs that fall outside CCSS. In my high school specifically, our band program has been downsized, many art classes were eliminated, and our French program was completely cut. Schools are allocating more resources to the core education areas and neglecting other areas because they need students to perform better on the CCSS assessments. Better scores usually lead to more state funding, so preparing students for exams has become more important than preparing them to be well-rounded citizens.
State governments are still working to improve their Common Core Standards, but there is much more work that needs to be done. It is important for these elected officials to put the well-being of their students first, and their national rankings second. By implementing these CCSS across all public schools, teachers who teach outside of the core subject areas are being cut, and those who teach common core areas are being restricted by state guidelines.
Some of the very best classes that I have ever taken were led by teachers that challenged students to think outside their normal learning practices. These creative teaching techniques teach students much more about the world than any state mandated test could ever hope to accomplish. Under the CCSS system, many amazing teachers are being restricted in their methods. If CCSS is to stand, I fear that future students may not experience the same wonderful learning opportunities that have inspired me so much over the years. It is still important to uphold our teachers to certain standards, but we cannot afford to restrict our students’ learning to a checklist of topics. The best kind of learning engages students in critical thinking and questioning the status quo. Once state officials get this, then education can prosper.
Thank you for reading. Let me know if you have any topics you want me to cover in the future. Stay tuned for next week’s edition of the Education Station!
The original goals of the Common Core Standards sound reasonable. It is sad to see all of the negative repercussions that have come out of them. I remember taking the Keystone Exams and being stressed out much like you. Making them a requirement for graduation was extremely harsh and unnecessary in my opinion. I hope more states start repealing Common Core because I hate seeing elective classes being dropped in schools.
I had always heard about Common Core in high school, usually by my teachers muttering something about it under their breath. I never really understood what it meant for our school, but this post really cleared things up for me, so thanks!