Should Curriculum Be Standardized for All? Essay

Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.

One of the biggest problems in the American public education system is the lack of a common standard for what students should be learning, and when they should learn it. In other words, the inequality of curriculums across the nation is affecting the preparedness of students when they venture out beyond the public school system, for the worst. The way to fix this problem, according to many teachers, administrators, and politicians, is by implementing a common curriculum across the nation that will ensure that the quality of a student’s education is not determined by where they happen to live.

Standardization being the ultimate determinant of a student’s path is an injustice to the individual.

This involves, teacher proofing, which minimizes a teacher’s amount of sovereignty. So, teachers have less say in what they will teach in their classroom, and is causing some controversy. Next, the article compares teachers that have a curriculum to those having no curriculum. Teachers that have a curriculum to follow should have the ability to make adjustments in lessons, while being given materials and new ideas. Having no curriculum to follow is more difficult to create, but has it’s advantages because the teacher has compete

Common Core’s supporters and non-supporters can both agree that a change in the United States school system is desperately needed. The United States has fallen behind its peers in the international communities, who participate in the Programme for International Student Assessment, in almost every measurable scholarly subject. Therefore, the United States needs to help its students to become better scholars so they can internationally compete in the business market place. Common Core is also trying to bring a standardization of learning and cohesiveness to all schools across the United States. An argument from non-supporters of the Common Core is that it is removing a teacher’s creative freedom, leaving out student engagement. However, Common Core is not a curriculum and is instead a welcome step in the right direction to help students become adults that are more intelligent.

There are many approaches that can be taken in order to develop a school’s curriculum, or the material that the students will learn. If there were no federal regulation of curriculum, then it would not be possible to compare student achievement across districts or even states. The federal program, Common Core State Standards, assists in equaling education across the nation. The Common Core has reinvented the perception of student learning which, in turn, has caused American education to become a corporate institution. As a result, there has been a threat to states’ rights for education as more rigorous content has been implemented into classrooms by the government, which ultimately changes the role of the teacher.

I believe the American public education system is in some capacity standardized, and that is in the areas of what gets taught and how children are assessed. The only freedom from standardization that teachers have is in deciding how to teach what students are required to learn and show proficiency in on annual assessments. In Myths v. Facts About the Common Core Standards, an objection is made to what is claimed as a myth; that is, that the Common Core Standards tell teachers what to teach. However, the fact following this myth about Common Core Standards, seems to reaffirm the myth as truth. It states, “the best understanding of what works in the classroom comes from the teachers who are in them. That’s why these standards will establish what

Changing the method of learning across a nation is an incredibly large undertaking and it must be thought out impeccably to work. The way the Common Core has been enforced in schools has had some issues, causing it to be unsuccessful. One problem with it is that it was not made to adapt to different students, for example some students that might have learning disabilities cannot learn the same ways as students without that disadvantage and the Common Core can’t be adapted for each individual student. In the article “Common Core: An International Failure,” the author says, “Instead of choosing a one-size-fits-all approach to education, education policy makers should turn to the people who actually know their pupils: parents, teachers, and local school districts” (Asbenson 1). Asbenson is saying that teachers must have some say in what and how they teach. The way the Common Core is now, they do not have the luxury of changing the curriculum if they find it necessary. The fact that the Common Core leaves no room to accommodate different students and the ways they learn, makes it difficult to see why it is a better choice than having curriculum differ across the country.

Another major issue and concern with the Common Core State Standards is the lack of creative freedom and control due to the enforcement of it curriculum. The current common core curriculum focuses so much on its blind faith in standardization of tests and curriculum that it promotes uniformity instead of customization. It doesn’t allow students to synthesize latent creativity, restricting their mindsets to a narrow path. With their performances directly tied to test scores, teachers are now held to a higher standard of academic performance. Karen Lewis, the President of the Chicago Teacher’s Union has said the Common Core to be a “poison pill for learning” because it eliminates the sort of imaginative and critical thinking that teachers need to

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Lastly, standardized tests are designed to examine external curriculum. This purpose takes into account the fact that curriculums differ between schools. The people who make the actual tests take a look and the validity of the results when comparing them with other schools. When challenging the validity of comparing these results, many people believe that educators themselves complain about the information on these tests saying that the information is not worthy of being taught in the classroom. However, the common complaint of educators is that

Currently, instructors are pressured by state education department to adjust school curricula to meet the expectations of the standardized test. Educators alter the curriculum to “match the [standardized] test” (“How Standardized”). Therefore, instructors are limited and classroom instruction is focused around test preparation for the annual standardized test. Teachers are forced to abandon their creative lessons and “teach the test,” or concentrating only on the material that will be evaluated (“How Standardized”). This frequently involves taking multiple choice tests that are formatted identically to the standardized test and only memorizing facts, formulas, and items included only on the standardized tests (“How Standardized”). Even though test scores may improve, students are not learning how to think critically and perform better in other subjects that are not on the test (“How Standardized”). Instructional time is limited in the other subject areas such as science, social studies, music, and art. Instructors feel “handicapped” and plead to state officials abandon these standardized tests for the sake of the “quality of the instruction in American schools” (Zimmerman 206). School curricula are being modified only to prepare students for a single test, not for education the students need in the future.

In theory, this is the same idea that Howard County has for their Social Studies curriculum, but unfortunately the continuity in subject matter mastered is not evident and I fear we could go down the same road with Common Core (CCSS). Therefore, curriculum should support continuity within a school system, but often that does not occur.

To begin with standardized testing creates several critical problems for students and for the education industry. These tests are created to test over particular things. In the end these types of tests are only limited in the amount of knowledge that can be tested toward students. For example, “Standardized exams offer few opportunities to display the attributes of high-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity.” (“Standardized Testing Has Serious Limitations”). Even though these tests are able to attack certain subjects at the core, they still leave out very valuable and critical information that all students should know. In

Current reforms and initiatives based on the national education standards focus on student’s achievement and teacher’s preparation. Educational researchers and curriculum designers continuously find problems with standards and requirements on a state level and how the state and local boards of education focus highly on advanced placement and cultural literacy. A key focus is also accountability for students, schools, and school-districts in regards to academic performance. A new factor that has surfaced is school choice (charter schools and home schooling) and character development. Progressive teachers are able to guide learners to new experiences in every lesson. However; they are sensitive to unique and different learning styles which