Common Core State Standards: Case Study

RL.9-10.1.1-7 Reading closely informational texts and viewing multimedia to determine how meaning is conveyed and explicit and implicit through language.

Adopted by forty-two out states in 2010, the Common Core State Standard Initiative strives to provide an educational structure which details what English language arts and mathematics should be taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The initiative is the federal government’s attempt to ensure all students who graduate from high school are adequately prepared to enter a two or four year college or the workforce. Despite their intentions, the Common Core has caused much controversy in the education community. The thought behind Common Core is very valid and has the potential to help students, however changes must be made to unrealistic standards and wordy statements. Common Core must first be rewritten so that the language is clear and can be easily understood by the general public. Next ask experts on childhood development and elementary school teachers to review the standards and rewrite standards they see as unneeded or irrelevant as well as unrealistic.

In 2009, states around the country began adopting the Common Core State Standards. These standards were put in place to ensure that each child was on the same academic level by high school graduation. As the global marketplace becomes increasingly more competitive, the United States hopes that Common Core will enable the coming generations to be better prepared. As of right now, my working thesis is Common Core is overall unsuccessful in its effort, and discontinuing or, at the least, replacing it would improve the testing scores /academic progresses, mental health, and attitude towards school of the children in the United States. My two articles, “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys (Yet!): Motivating boys in the age of the Common Core,” by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Michael W. Smith (2014), and “Why Massachusetts Gave Up on Common Core,” by Mary Clare Reim (2015), both provide evidence on Common Core to support my thesis.

requires students to develop higher critical thinking skills. Jobs may be on the line if students do

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

Common Core State Standards is being heard throughout the education world. Many cringe when the words are spoken and many fight to support what the words stand for. Common Core was introduced in 2009 by state leaders. Common Core State Standards were developed to prepare children for the business world or the reality after grade school. “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, also known as ELA” (About the Standards, n.d.). The goals for the standards outline what students should know before leaving his or her current grade level. “The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live” (About the Standards, n.d.). This is an ambitious goal, but with much support can be accomplished. According to Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.) The Common Core has been adopted by forty-two states already and is accompanied by District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity. Common Core was developed to improve the academics in society’s schools. Academics in the past years have not been successful and the United States has fallen behind international education. “One root cause has been an uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what students should know and be able to do at each

Politics and education have been intertwined since the establishment of public education in the United States. In other words, it is a well-known fact that public education is an extension of our political system. This has never been more apparent to the public than over the last three decades, beginning in 1983 with “A Nation at Risk” which is considered a significant event in modern American educational history. For the last few years, it has been the controversial topic of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in the headlines. One can hardly turn on the news or read a newspaper or web site without hearing something about Common Core State Standards (CCCS). People either seem to be adamantly for or against the standards. Educational reform and educational standards are not new and date back much further than many people realize. Furthermore, if the public understood what the standards actually encompass, there may be more support for Common Core State Standards. However, the public is being inundated with a multitude of reasons why states should not adopt Common Core by making it a political issue in order to gain votes. Regardless of what standards are adopted, common standards in education should be implemented in the United States to prepare students for college and career in order to compete and succeed in a global economy.

Within the last couple of years the Education system was introduced to the Common Core Standards. There are many people that still do not really understand what the Common Core Standards are and what they do. I am one of those people. As an education major, I know some about the Common Core, but there are still some things that I do not understand. The Common Core is set up for Educators to use as a plan that will help them teach and assess how their students are doing. The Common Core is set up across the country. All schools have to follow the Common Core. For each grade level, they have different standards that show the teachers what their students should be able to accomplish by that grade level. Each student will all be assessed and graded

In chapter seven of Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman (2012), the authors explain that teachers often dismiss the Common Core writing standards as unrealistically high demands for their students, but clarify that through examination of the standard in a horizontal fashion, the standards are ultimately realistic and attainable. Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman encourage teachers to begin with reading the kindergarten standards (no matter which grade level you teach) and look at the trajectory through next grade levels. The chapter continues by explaining that viewing the standards in this fashion and collaborating with teachers across grade levels will not only create a more realistic view of the standard, but allow students to meet the learning objectives through smaller steps across each grade level (Calkins, Ehrenworth & Lehman, 2012).

A political issue right now being argued over is if Common Core national education standards should be adopted by all states. The majority of Democrats support the adoption of Common Core standards while the vast majority of Republicans are against it. The Common Core State Standards states what K-12 students should know in Math and English at the end of the each grade, and to put in standardized tests. Whether or not these standards are put in place can determine if students succeed. Common Core will not allow teachers to individualize their lessons to help students learn the way they will understand best. These standards should not be adopted by all states.

The Common Core State Standards are a state attempt to create strong educational standards. The standard are created to ensure that students in the country are learning and grasping the information that are given in the classrooms for them to succeed academically. The Common Core plan included governors and education commissioners form forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. They wanted to make sure the standards are relevant, logical and sequential. For content all subjects must have critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Some positive aspects of this policy is that it prepares our students for a competitive global jobs. It can provide national connections in education. Designed to shape the best standards so that all states will be taking a step ahead in education. These standards had been created after extensive research by professional educators for excellence in education. The CCS focus on what students expectations of learning, and achievements. Educators do not need to worry that the standards will make their jobs look redundant because they are in charge of creating lessons to teach their students the content and skills that the CCS demands. The teachers do not feel that the standards are one-size-fits-all. Some negative aspects of the policy are that is a program created by solely the government. The CCS is a program put together on idyllic situations in education by individuals who have subsidy and students ahead of the learning

According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, their curriculum “provide[s] clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career and life” (“Preparing America’s Students for Success”). However, Kim Burke, who owns a tutoring company in North Carolina, states, “‘There’s not a person alive who can read Common Core from page to page and understand it’” (Bonner). The Common Core State Standards are supposed to be clear and understandable, but teachers, students and parents alike can not understand them and what they are ask of the student. Common Core was launched in 2009, in hope to create a common curriculum across the United States and to compete with other nations that have one curriculum. Since 2009, Common

According to Manley & Hawkins (2013) the Common Core State Standards “have been created on the world stage in mind” (Pg. 20, Ch. 1); however, I must humbly disagree with this claim. Although the Common Core State Standards goals are mainly abstract and schematic in structure, they are at its foundation a “one-size-fits-all approach,” which has severely impacted those students identified as having “special needs” or those who have an Individual Education Plan (I.E.P.) – these are the students eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Common Core State Standards were implemented since 2009, and I have been a Special Education teacher since 2007 for the New York City Department of Education, and I have seen

Traditionally, teacher development typically occurs through trial and error in the isolated confinements of each teacher’s classroom with some periodic whole-group professional development (Goddard & Goddard, 2007). Within the past few decades, many schools and districts, including ours, have considered and experimented with Professional Learning Communities (PLC) as an alternative framework in guiding a more efficient development program for their teachers. PLCs are focused on enhancing student learning through developing teacher practices. The concept of PLC relies on using structured collaborative sessions amongst teachers within the school to build internal capacity. Through PLCs, teachers critically reflect on current

In this article, the author discusses the benefits of using technology in the classroom and how the use of technology can increase student tests scores. The objective of the study was to answer the following two questions: How much of a difference would a classroom with technology accessibility affect state-mandated test scores and would student motivation and behavior change if they were able to readily use technology? As the author mentioned in the article, many studies have shown that schools that have created a technology rich atmosphere for their students have been shown positive results. The use of technology has helped teachers as well by making classroom instruction a more individualized experience for the pupils. Legislation in 2001, No Child Left Behind(NCLB 2001) introduced the “Enhancing Education Through Technology Act of 2001” (US Department of Education, 2001) emphasized the implementation of technology in schools with children that came from lower socio-economic households and targeted “at risk” students. Many teachers were interviewed and observed working with their students using technology and it was concluded that the use of computers and other technology was necessary, because not only did it assist teachers by helping them develop better content knowledge, create more interesting lessons, and support them with problem solving, it helped motivate the students to learn, alleviated behavioral issues, and students score higher in state-mandated test.