Rotting to the Core – Common Core Standards

Where are Common Core Standards Taking Education?
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Where are Common Core Standards Taking Education?In June 2014, I wrote Let’s Improve Reading…Again which touched upon the topic of the Common Core standards not achieving its goals of improving the math and reading scores of our students. Since that time, many parents have decided that home-schooling is a better choice than submitting their children to the Common Core standards.

 

Parents are stating many reasons for opting out of public school for their children. Some believe that the Common Core is pushing a left –wing political agenda since it is a Washington backed curriculum. Others feel that parental input has been denied in favor of the goals set by the creators of the Common Core. Additionally, it has become clear to many that the quality and content of the Common Core standards are aimed at theoretically preparing students for the workforce instead of giving them a well-rounded, superior education.

 

Not only do many teachers feel that they are ill-equipped and lack proper training to give over the Common Core curriculum, but also both teachers and parents believe that the program is developmentally inappropriate. In fact, five hundred early childhood psychologists have joined a hash tag movement stating #repealcommoncore for its unrealistic expectations!

 

As if this weren’t enough, parents in Pennsylvania have demanded a stop on the collection of personal data on students which is being collected in a federal database. Developed by the Department of Labor, delicate information is now stored on every U.S. citizen under the age of 26. The gathered information tracks everything from grades to personality traits, behavioral patterns, values, beliefs, psychological profile and even fingerprints. Called a “womb to workplace” information system, the fear is that this sensitive information will come back to haunt students when applying for college and future jobs.

 

It is already known that vendors have access to this information in order to sell various tools aimed at “helping the student in their weaknesses”. Parents might not be aware that the FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] regulations now allow their children’s personally identifiable information to be given to outside third party vendors. This data is collected and placed on a system that is also shared with the feds.

 

The following about the Common Core is noteworthy:

  1. It was created with less than a year of research
  2. It was created in secrecy
  3. Few if any classroom teachers were involved in the drafting of the standards
  4. As mentioned, it is often age inappropriate
  5. It doesn’t leave an opening for late bloomers to catch up and ignores individual development
  6. It only stresses math and English forcing the arts to become almost non-existent and limiting the study of science, history and physical education. (Check out Creativity in the Classroom: Bring the Arts Back!)

 

Is home schooling really the answer? North Carolina has already seen a 14% rise in children being homeschooled last year. According to Heartlander Magazine, similar increases have been seen in Virginia, California and New York making for a total of nearly 2 million homeschooled students nationwide.

 

Some have stated that they believe that within the next 10 years the only students that will be college ready will be the homeschooled and private school students.

 

What have your experiences been with the Common Core? Where do you see education moving in the next five to ten years? We’d like to hear from you.

 

2 Responses to Rotting to the Core – Common Core Standards

  1. Ric Seager says:

    I think this may be good for playing on hyperbolic – and perhaps unfounded – fears, but does little to advance the debate about what is best for public education. While it is true that corporate reformers – not liberal government – are the real driving force behind Common Core and other initiatives, it does not follow that “only home schooled and private school students” will be college ready in the “next 10 years”. Such hyperbole is just silly!

    I also agree with the author’s acknowledgement that educators have been cut out of the loop for nearly 20 years in working to improve public education for its new mission of truly preparing ALL students for post-secondary education (a task that was most definitely NOT part of the public education mandate in generations-past). Moreover, this obstruction of professional educators from the school improvement process has persisted through both the Bush AND Obama administrations. So finally, we are seeing the results of corporatist over-reach in the form of Race-to-the Top and the testing consortia that are driving these profit-driven, curriculum-narrowing reforms, about which the author is justly indignant.

    Nevertheless, the author would do better to decry true villains of these problems; the zealous-lobbying, open bribery, and profit-driven motives that pass for policy-making under our current governance.

    Before we can truly reform education – we need first to reform the political system that allows the so-called reformers to make their bank by undermining our childrens’ future.

    • Tsivya Fox says:

      Thanks for sharing your well thought out ideas. I don’t think I’ll take on the political system at this time.But, hey, ya never know;-)

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