The Controversial Common Core A survey conducted by Megan Map and her colleague Kristin Kennedy, who holds a PhD and is Chair of Mathematics at Bryant University, inquiring whether or not the Common Core interferes with a student’s typical learning experience found that one-hundred percent of teacher respondents said yes. (278) Even with a low sample size, this survey’s findings are not unfounded. A similar survey conducted in 2012 concluded that over “20,000 public school teachers...did not find standardized testing to be valuable in measuring and evaluating student learning” (Kennedy and Map 268). Introduced in 2009, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is an almost nationwide curriculum aimed at standardizing the goals that educational
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While the CCSS pushes for uniformity in an attempt to make test scores easily comparable across regions, the real result is a more intricate and ambiguous education system where students are pushed harder and harder just to meet test goals. Many parents exhibit growing concerns regarding the work their child is being taught to do for these tests, citing it as extraneous or unnecessary. In an article for educating parents on assisting their child in homework, North Carolina State University assistant professor Walkowiak states that “parents need to understand how the Common Core math standards were written with specific attention to the progressions of same-topic standards across grade levels” (64). Simply put, parents of Common Core children should be educated on CCSS math to better help the child. The idea of this is counterintuitive: why should parents need to take lessons or learn new education methods? Isn’t it a teacher's job to appropriately educate the student on what they need to know? If a parent can’t solve an elementary math problem, perhaps the Common Core should revise its …show more content…
Alison DeNisco, reporting on the standardized test scores across the nation, found that “fourth and eighth-grade students in states that spent money on more activities related to Common Core adoption outperformed their peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] between 2009 and 2013” (14). Contradicting this however, DeNisco reports that “between 2013 and 2015, students in non-adoption states made larger NAEP gains than those in Common Core states” (14). This is a major cause for investigation of nationwide standards. Why does it seem the results shift so sporadically? In the state of Kentucky alone, “More than 70 percent of elementary school students scored ‘proficient’ or better in both reading and math on the state’s pre-Common Core standardized tests” (DeNisco 14). But after the introduction of Common Core, student proficiency dropped to lower than 50% in both reading and math, which then shifted to the fifties three years later. (DeNisco) Despite the seemingly sporadic changes, there may be an easily explainable cause for this. John Cronin and Nate Jensen of the Northwest Evaluation Association hypothesize that “These proficiency scores do not reflect a drop in performance but rather a raising of standards to reflect college-and career-readiness in the 21st century” (60). Still, if the Common Core State Standards’ goal is
While the CCSS pushes for uniformity in an attempt to make test scores easily comparable across regions, the real result is a more intricate and ambiguous education system where students are pushed harder and harder just to meet test goals. Many parents exhibit growing concerns regarding the work their child is being taught to do for these tests, citing it as extraneous or unnecessary. In an article for educating parents on assisting their child in homework, North Carolina State University assistant professor Walkowiak states that “parents need to understand how the Common Core math standards were written with specific attention to the progressions of same-topic standards across grade levels” (64). Simply put, parents of Common Core children should be educated on CCSS math to better help the child. The idea of this is counterintuitive: why should parents need to take lessons or learn new education methods? Isn’t it a teacher's job to appropriately educate the student on what they need to know? If a parent can’t solve an elementary math problem, perhaps the Common Core should revise its …show more content…
Alison DeNisco, reporting on the standardized test scores across the nation, found that “fourth and eighth-grade students in states that spent money on more activities related to Common Core adoption outperformed their peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] between 2009 and 2013” (14). Contradicting this however, DeNisco reports that “between 2013 and 2015, students in non-adoption states made larger NAEP gains than those in Common Core states” (14). This is a major cause for investigation of nationwide standards. Why does it seem the results shift so sporadically? In the state of Kentucky alone, “More than 70 percent of elementary school students scored ‘proficient’ or better in both reading and math on the state’s pre-Common Core standardized tests” (DeNisco 14). But after the introduction of Common Core, student proficiency dropped to lower than 50% in both reading and math, which then shifted to the fifties three years later. (DeNisco) Despite the seemingly sporadic changes, there may be an easily explainable cause for this. John Cronin and Nate Jensen of the Northwest Evaluation Association hypothesize that “These proficiency scores do not reflect a drop in performance but rather a raising of standards to reflect college-and career-readiness in the 21st century” (60). Still, if the Common Core State Standards’ goal is