Is the Common Core Standard Helping Students?
10 years ago, the United states implemented common core standards, the idea of what each student should achieve in English and math in order to make them college or career ready. It has been ten years since common core has been introduced and the big question is, is it working? I personally grew up in school and watched the common core standard be implemented and grown upon. In my personal experience, common core standards largely hinder a student’s freedom in high school and could potentially hurt their ability to adjust into the real world if they do not go to college. Common core standards have the ability to benefit all students, but improper implementation makes it ineffective for a majority of students, have little impact on non-college bound students and limit students from reaching their full potential during and after high school.
First, I want to note what works about common core standards. “The Development and Design of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics” by Jason Zimba explains how, in mathematics, common core was simply pushed to the side at first (Zimba 8). By “pushed to the side,” he implies that math teachers often times did not follow the standard, instead they simply taught the content they felt was necessary for their class; this is widely true to this day with common core enforcement being left up to the teacher (Zimba 6). What this means is that the implication of the standard is seen as a waste of time to a lot of teachers in states where common core has been adopted, essentially taking the idea of common core and pretty much pretending that it does not exist. Contrary to this, few teachers have begun to actually embrace the standards and change their content common core standards have shown to properly prepare students in higher level math classes like algebra (Zimba 8). Overall, it has appeared that common core from a teacher perspective is a choice (or at least was) and the educators deemed what was worthy to teach in their classroom. The main takeaway is after a few years of common core standards being implemented Zimba says that he was told “teachers seem to realize they need more content knowledge,” (Zimba 9) What this essentially means is that common core is beginning to settle and make a positive impact in the mathematics field for students K-5 (Zimba 8-9).
The problem with this study is that there is little information about a student’s success after high school, it is primarily based in primary/middle schools. While knowing what the teachers decide what to do with these standards is important, school is ultimately about the students and without data about the student’s school life during and after school it is ultimately impossible to find what is the best use of these standards in the math field. One thing to note that is a success is the high school graduation rate since 2010 is the highest it has been, while it only increased by approximately 5 percent, the common core standard does seem to be having a slight effect on American schools.
Even with that victory though, these standards are used to prepare students math and English for the real world. However, are high-level skills needed in everyday life, such as doing taxes or taking out loans, attained by a majority of students? Without necessary life skills students will struggle in the real world so why push for high level maths like calculus when we could be pushing success on our students.
In my high school experience common core standards caused a restriction in my ability to branch out, due to career paths and the push for a well-rounded ACT score, I and many others were unable to pursue new things in high school. For example, when I was a junior, it was impossible to get out of my engineering class because I was two years into a career path. I had completely changed my mind on what I wanted to do because the school had the new focus of “college and career ready,” I was unable to explore a new pathway until my last semester of senior year. I find the entire idea to simply be a waste. Some may argue that the standards have increased test scores, yes that is true at first. While this is true, it is showing signs of not working in some states pushing it the hardest. In an article by Jill Barshay called “Five Years after Common Core, a Mysterious Spike in Failure Rate among NY High School Students,” common core is said to have had some success but as it was more enforced it began to stop working suddenly? New York is one of the top states of common core being one of the earliest adopters but, after all these years students, are not passing the exams required to graduate (Barsahy). It is only a matter of time before these effects begin seeping into many other states that enforce common core. My question is, why are we going to let our students fail? With some schools restricting student choice and ultimately leading to a decline in academic success and states pulling out of the common core program (Kern 1). There needs to be a change on the federal level for how teachers educate students, repeal of Common core standards is the start to a better future for the next generation.
Common core standards do have some impact on every student who goes to a school that uses these standards, but what about life after high school? Does common core prepare students for the real world? No, it does not. The literal definition of common core standards is “a set of educational standards for teaching and testing English and mathematics between kindergarten and 12th grade,” that means that in school math and English are prioritized over everything. Some will argue that since the implementation of common core these two fields have slightly increased in states that have enforced them, according to Loveless the increase is small but relevant “about .04 standard deviations” (Loveless). This increase is great but common core should not just about a student while they are in school. In order to benefit students, we must care about their success after getting a high school degree, without that support we are failing them as people. Generally high school or beyond is where students decide what to do with their life, but common core is this overbearing weight to try and excel and go to college even though plenty jobs today do not require a college degree or math beyond a simple calculation with a calculator. I do agree with the common core pushing of English all the way through high school but it’s the way that it is approached. According to Jane Robbins in the article “The Common Core Standards: Two Views” the way common core has been setup hinders students from studying classic literature and being able to delve deeper into their knowledge about the language itself. Instead, students are inevitably faced with the occasional classic text and informational documents because the school does want to prepare students for the real world; however, my school and many others manage to do neither (Robbins, Bauerlein). My school and many like mine are common core standards schools and teachers naturally have some influence on what they teach and most pick and choose from both sides but what this does is literally just waste a student’s time (Zimba 6).
In conclusion, common core standards have not improved the American education system within the last 10 years. It is very possible soon the retention and ability in student will begin to drop drastically with the case of New York (Barshay). With the only goals being English and mathematics, a majority of students are not able to reap the benefits of emphasizing these two subjects because most students do not use these skills in life after high school unless they pursue college. High level mathematics does not come in handy in everyday life; therefore, it should not be forced into a student’s life and English should include more of the classics so students can begin to think about what they are reading at a higher level. Without reform of the common core standards students will continually decline in their preparedness for the real world, they are not working, and it will not get better in time. It is time to repeal the common core standards from the American education system and actually begin teaching our students for their benefit, not the schools.
Works Cited
Barshay, Jill. “Five Years after Common Core, a Mysterious Spike in Failure Rate among NY High School Students.” The Hechinger Report, 19 Mar. 2019, hechingerreport.org/five-years-after-common-core-a-mysterious-spike-in-failure-rate-among-ny-high-school-students/. Date Accessed 22 April 2019.
Kern, Diane. "Common Core-less?: A Critical Review of the Common Core State Standards Research." New England Reading Association Journal. vol. 50, no. 1, 2014, pp. 75-77. Date Accessed 15 April 2019.
Loveless, Tom. “Measuring Effects of the Common Core.” Brookings, Brookings, 29 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/research/measuring-effects-of-the-common-core/. Date Accessed 12 April 2019.
Polikoff, Morgan S. “Is Common Core ‘Working’? And Where Does Common Core Research Go From Here?” AERA Open, vol. 3, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–6., doi:10.1177/2332858417691749. Date Accessed 06 April 2019.
Robbins, Jane, and Mark Bauerlein. “The Common Core State Standards: Two Views.”National Association of Scholars, 2013, www.nas.org/articles/the_common_core_state_standards_two_views. Date Accessed 07 April 2019.
Zimba, Jason (2014) "The Development and Design of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics," New England Journal of Public Policy: Vol. 26 : Iss. 1 , Article 10. pp. 1-11. Date Accessed 06 April 2019.