There is no question that our country is lacking when it comes to public education. In 2009, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reported that out of 34 countries, the United States ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and an abysmal 25th in math, with scores dropping in the following years (Frye). The Common Core Standards Initiative, simply known as Common Core, hopes to resolve this issue. Common Core is a set of standards for public education adopted by 45 states. The main goal of Common Core is to create a level playing field for all students by implementing a common curriculum, and common standards for grades K-12. Having gone through public school in Connecticut, a state that adopted Common Core in 2010, I witnessed the ineffectiveness of Common Core firsthand, and experienced the forced implementation of it into my school district. Ultimately, Common Core is not the best solution to the education problems facing America because it is a ‘utopian’ solution, that holds all students to the same standard regardless of their upbringing, teachers’ abilities, district budgets and financial shortcomings, and because of its avid use of standardized testing as a means of measuring success.
The biggest issue that plagues the Common Core Standards Initiative is that it holds every student to the same standard. The program does not account for natural learning ability, nor does it consider the family life and upbringing of students. Common Core assumes that every student is naturally capable of achieving at a high standard, every student values their education, and every parent values their child’s education. They believe that by changing the standards and curriculum, students who have no interest in school are going to suddenly start putting in the effort they could have been putting in all along. The fact of the matter is, a student’s value of his or her education is derived from his or her upbringing, and how their parents view education, and it is a value that would not so easily be changed.
Stephen Donahue, a high school math teacher, from whom I took classes for three of my four years of high school, has spent more than two decades teaching in the Connecticut school systems. He has been affected by Common Core in many ways, and has looked into the effect of family life on a student’s education. An email interview was conducted with Mr. Donahue, where he shared some insights he has picked up throughout his career. On the topic of student ability, he started off by saying “…there are students that for various reasons do not do well in school. Maybe they are not as smart, maybe they are not as motivated, maybe their parents do not hold education as a valuable commodity. I call these students learning resistant.”. Donahue claims that these ‘learning resistant’ students do in fact exist, and will continue to exist whether Common Core is in place or not. He claims that what makes these students ‘learning resistant’ is set deep within them, brought about by their upbringing or family life. He says “…in the turbulent times of adolescence they are simply not buying what school is selling,” it’s all about “…what they are holding as important at that time in their lives.”. He is making the claim that ‘learning resistant’ students simply do not hold education as important to them at this point in their lives, and for that reason they will not make a change in their effort once Common Core is in place. This goes directly against a claim made by Kristopher Frye in his article “Can the Common Core Counter Educational Inequity? International Legal Lessons on Closing the Achievement Gap.” In the article, Frye condemns the current philosophy of the American Education system, claiming that “…the United States acts in accordance with a belief that not all children can achieve at high levels.” He specifically mentions the idea that poorer areas “lack the capacity to achieve at high levels.” Frye counters this by making the claim that every student does indeed have the potential to achieve high levels of education. Donahue’s argument brings about the idea that although Frye may be correct in his belief that all children can achieve at a high level, it does not mean all children are willing to achieve at that level. There is no question that there is untapped intellectual potential in our nation’s youth, but Donahue does not argue against that thought, nor is the country’s education system modeled against it. Donahue’s claim is simply grounded in realism, while Frye’s is theoretical.
Donahue even takes it a step further, and discusses the parental role in a child’s educational success. He claims that some of the ‘learning resistant’ students are the way they are because of their parents, particularly in low income areas. He compares parents in the lower income districts to parents in wealthy districts. The wealthy parents “…demand a level of results that the parents of poorer communities don’t seem to have time to care about. If you are a parent that is working two or three jobs just to make ends meet you are not as likely to be concerned about the local education system.” He makes a valid point, that in general more financially stable parents have the time to worry about how their child is performing, while lower income parents tend to be more caught up in simply putting food on the table and paying bills. They generally have less time to worry about their child’s education, which evidently has a direct effect on the child.
Much like their students, not all teachers are equally effective in their teaching, whether it be due to varying abilities, levels of effort, or available resources. These factors all influence the students’ education experience, regardless of the curriculum. This idea alone discredits the Common Core’s entire premise of giving every child the same classroom experience. Donahue touched on this in his interview, saying “Like any profession there are good teachers and there are bad teachers. Sometimes the teachers are bad because they are new and do not have the skills yet to be good teachers, sometimes the teachers are bad because they have been teaching too long and have stopped caring about their craft.” He makes the claim that regardless of Common Core’s intent to create a level playing field for students, there will always be good and bad teachers. Again, Donahue’s beliefs here are grounded in reality, based on what he has seen during his time as an educator.
He mentions teachers that have been ‘in the game’ for too long, who don’t adapt their teaching methods. Donahue credits this to the idea of tenure and holding a position of life regardless of performance. These teachers have very high job security, and many of them do not feel the need to adapt their methods to the new Common Core system. The changes these professors would be required to make are not insignificant, so it is no surprise that they are resistant. In an article written by Joshua Kenna and William Russell III, titled “Implications of Common Core State Standards on the Social Studies”, they discuss some of the changes Common Core pushes for. They say “…the new social studies standards are focused on skill acquisition and the cognitive processes of students,” and “…the new Common Core State Standards will require social studies teachers to update their current teaching practices from traditional methods, which are often “passive” in nature, to nontraditional methods, which more frequently create an “active” learning environment for students.” Per the article, Common Core is attempting to provide students with a more active learning experience, moving away from lectures and fact-learning, and towards the acquisition of critical skills. There is nothing wrong with this goal, in fact, it would certainly prepare students for the real world more effectively than social studies classes do now, teaching them important life skills such as literacy and critical thinking rather than facts they are going to forget within a year. Again, the issue lays within the assumption that teachers who have been using a lecture setting for their entire careers are going to willingly change.
Even teachers who are not stuck in a ‘rut’ of sorts are not likely to adapt and stick with it, because it is not a small undertaking by any means. Donahue’s colleague, Ryan Fitzsimmons describes Common Core as “…having good intent,” but also as “…a rigorous and bumpy road for teachers.” He goes on to say “…it will take a few years before we begin to see a change in students.” So, teachers are expected to make in some cases drastic changes to their teaching methods, all to work towards improvements that will not become apparent for multiple generations of students. Even if they do make changes, how long are they supposed to wait before improvements are evident? Common Core considers this shift a small price to pay for future success, but again, it is not realistic to ask so much from teachers with nothing for them in return. They need to be provided some sort of compensation, which not all schools, even districts are capable of providing.
This gap in available resources between school districts is another contributing factor in Common Core’s failure to create a level playing field for all students. Even with Common Core in place, more wealthy school districts are going to have more resources available to them, both inside and outside of the classroom. Donahue discussed this gap in his interview. He says, “In the state of Connecticut we have some of the richest and some of the most underfunded school districts in the country. In places like Greenwich and Darien where the budgets are essentially unlimited the students have the advantage of every perk that money can buy. They have the best equipment and learning tools as well as possibly the best educators. At least they have the best paid educators.” This quote brings about two different aspects of this issue that are worth discussing further.
First is the enormous gap in the wealth of districts within each state, even one as small as Connecticut. Since Common Core is state mandated, these low-income districts do not have the choice as to whether they are going to adopt the standards, even if they do not have the funds to properly implement them. Common Core itself does not directly provide any financial benefits to states and in turn, districts that adopt it. Instead, the federal government gives ‘incentive’ to states that choose to adopt Common Core. However, this incentive is not necessarily money, rather it is the chance to get federal funding. “States earn the equivalent of extra points in the competition for grants from Race to the Top, Obama’s signature education program, if they had adopted standards to prepare students for college and work. They didn’t have to adopt Common Core, but they were better positioned for federal money if they did.” (Kertscher). Even if states like Connecticut were to get a federal grant, there is no guarantee that money will go to the struggling districts. Chances are, they will be continued to be neglected by the state government as they have in the past, and thus those districts will continue to struggle.
Second, the endless resources of some districts are going to continue to give those districts an edge, regardless of what they are teaching in the classrooms. As Donahue said, these districts “…have the advantage of every perk that money can buy.” They have the newest technology, like smartboards and tablets, they have countless tutoring opportunities for students who are struggling, and just as many extracurricular activities to keep students involved in the school system and out of trouble. On the other hand, some of the struggling districts cannot even afford to provide necessities for their students. “Imagine a school district that had not paper or pencils for students to use. Think of what that would do to the motivation of the students.” (Donahue). How are students who barely have notebooks and pencils available to them supposed to be on a ‘level playing field’ with student who have smartboards, tablets, graphing calculators and tutors? There comes a point where it does not matter what is being taught in the classrooms, because two different students from each of these districts are going to have a widely different classroom experience anyway.
The last, and possibly the largest issue facing Common Core is its utilization of standardized testing as a means of measuring success. For years, there has been a debate over the effectiveness and accuracy of standardized testing. Megan Map and Kristin Kennedy authored an article titled “A Review of Standardized Testing in Mathematics a Case Study Regarding the State of Connecticut” which sheds light on this issue. According to the article, the United States spends approximately $1.7 billion on standardized testing each year. With such high testing costs, some states have been forced to opt out of the Common Core assessment because they could not afford to administer it. The affected schools that could not afford to conduct testing were those of extremely low income, which are supposed to be the ones benefitting most from Common Core.
Another issue concerning the test is that it is computer based. This raises issues in the lower income school districts discussed earlier, where computers are not as widely available. Taking the test could require the purchase of more computers, or even transportation to a local high school that could accommodate them. Even in schools that have a sufficient number of computers, it can be difficult to accommodate the testing. Fitzsimmons says “…in younger grades it is much more intrusive to find computer time and other challenges of testing multiple content areas.” Another concern the article raises is unfamiliarity with computer testing in those same districts. Students who are not used to an electronic format for a test may not perform optimally, causing their scores to be lower. This would prove the test as an inaccurate way of judging the success of Common Core in these districts.
The second major concern with standardized testing addressed by the article is the amount of stress and anxiety it can instill in a student. Map and Kennedy touch on the significance of the grade level that takes the Common Core test- eleventh grade. This is possibly the worst time for the test to be administered in a student’s career because of the other standardized tests students take during that time. In the eleventh grade, students are already preoccupied with ACT’s, SAT’s, and even AP testing. The last thing they need is another test thrown onto the pile. Since these students would already be so preoccupied with these other tests, they are not likely to be as prepared for the assessment as they should be, which would result in lower, less accurate test scores.
The last argument against standardized testing addresses the validity of the test results as a form of measuring success. According to Common Core, the standardized test results are supposed to reflect directly upon the effectiveness of the teacher. Over time, good teachers will consistently produce students who score above average on these tests. While this may seem true at first glance, this philosophy ignores all the factors previously discussed. It does not consider ‘learning resistant’ students, nor does it consider the resources that teacher had at hand. Donahue says “So what will a test show about those students? It will show that they are not growing intellectually and therefore they must be a victim of bad teaching. While this can be true in some cases, the truth is that the teacher cannot always be held accountable for student achievement. Education is a two-way event. The best teachers in the world can only present material. The learning and the internalization of the material is the responsibility of the student. So, while the idea of the test is fundamentally good, you have to consider the mindset and the effort put out by the recipient of the instruction.” He is making the argument that the teacher is not always to blame for poor test scores, and they should share the responsibility with the students. Donahue goes further to say the best way to determine the success of a program such as Common Core is “through observation and discussion” rather than standardized testing. At the end of the day, standardized tests only tell that there is a problem, but it does not give any information on the root of the problem, which has no way of leading to a solution.
Overall, there are simply too many variables for Common Core to be effective on a national level. When considering everything discussed, it should be clear that Common Core has failed entirely in its mission to create a level playing field for students across the country. In fact, it even failed to create a level playing field in each individual state. The fact of the matter is, there will always be ‘learning resistant’ students, whether Common Core wants to acknowledge their existence or not, and there will always be teachers and schools that will resist the change until they are given some form of incentive. The only way to create a level playing field for students is to focus on districts that can barely afford the necessities of running a school, and to bring them up to the same level as schools that are already performing well. There is no sense in wasting resources on ‘fixing’ what is not broken.
Works Cited
Frye, Kristopher. “Can the Common Core Counter Educational Inequity? International Legal Lessons on Closing the Achievement Gap.” Indiana International & Comparative Law Review 25.3 (2015): 493-540. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Kendall, John S. Understanding Common Core State Standards. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2011. Print.
Kenna, Joshua L., and William B. Russell, III. “Implications of Common Core State Standards on the Social Studies.” Clearing House 87.2 (2014): 75-82. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Kertscher, Tom. “Federal Government Required States to Adopt Common Core School Standards, Congressional Hopeful Says.” Politifact. Journal Sentinel, 25 July 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Map, Megan, and Kristen Kennedy. “A Review of Standardized Testing in Mathematics A Case Study Regarding the State of Connecticut.” Insights to a Changing World Journal 2016.1 (2016): 266-83. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.