The next issue I would like to address within our nation’s education system is common core curriculum. This system is meant to provide a standard for what is included in education throughout the country. However, common curriculum limits both students and teachers alike.
With common core curriculum, students learn to memorize the information for the sole purpose of passing the annual standardized tests. This in itself leads to numerous issues. For one, because most questions are surface-level and often multiple choice, students are not taught critical thinking skills. In addition, everything that is deemed “important” for education has to be organized into a few core subjects. In this manner, anything that does not fit into these subjects is not seen as necessary or prioritized equally. This discourages creativity for both the student and the teacher, who is then forced to teach within these narrow parameters. To simplify, the primary focus of the teachers becomes whatever material is on the test- which surely does not encompass the countless important things there are to learn that don’t fit into the standard curriculum.
The core curriculum teaches students that standardized tests are the most important aspect of school. As I have discussed before, however, the standardized testing system is flawed in itself. In addition to not assessing complex thought, it is biased culturally, and perpetuates the ideal that college is the only natural next step. Moreover, the entire system is tailored to students who are good test takers. Others who do not excel at this one mode of evaluation or can’t keep up with the curriculum may give up or feel discouraged because this is the only way their progress and learning capacity are measured.
All of these factors have led to the growing public recognition of this system’s failure. As a result, support for the common core curriculum is dropping over the years. In 2012 and 2013, there were high public opinions for the common core. However, from 2013 to 2014, this support began to drop. Then, in 2016, the matter reached a turning point wherein more teachers opposed the system rather than supported it. At 51% disapproval versus 41% approval, it was becoming evident that distaste for the system was growing. Among the disapproval results, 32% of the surveyed teachers strongly opposed it, compared to the other 19% who somewhat opposed it.
There is not just one way to learn, nor is there one set way to teach. So why should we support a system that enforces one rigid standard of education?
I honestly feel like the common core curriculum is setting students up to fail. In my opinion, critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity/innovation are the most important skills that a student should develop over the course of their education. Memorization and regurgitation of useless facts is not beneficial to students in the real world. It’s also interesting that you mention the issue of standardized tests. I’m doing my issue brief on that subject, and how tests like the SAT and ACT are a failure of the system and need to be altered to become more useful as they currently just discriminate, rank, and monopolize.
The common core curriculum as a tool to better the education standard is very similar in effectiveness to fitting a square peg in a round hole. Not much can be said for the benefits of common core testing as it is mainly a tool for businesses to get money from schools and as a way for schools to get money from the state or federal government as per the scores of the students. It is not really designed for creative thinking and imaginative design as, unfortunately, it actively punishes those behaviors through the designated testing format of memorization and regurgitation. Hopefully, whatever effectively replaces the common core doesn’t end up making the situation worse. Great Post!
I am definitely in agreement with the fact that common core needs to changed and is not doing very much good for the students. However, I am a little lost as to what we should replace it with. I agree that we should have a goal of teaching our students critical thinking skills and other applicable virtues, but I can’t think of a reasonable way to do that which would not further disparities across the country.