The Importance Of The Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a voluntary state led initiative that looks to establish clear expectations for learning in grades kindergarten through twelfth that are standard from state to state. The purpose of the standards is to make certain that there is uniformity in student proficiency and high school graduates have the know-how and ability needed for college and a competitive workforce in the twenty-first century. Along with forty-three other states and the District of Columbia, Mississippi adopted CCSS in 2011 in English and mathematics (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010).

According to the National Education Association (2017) The common core state standards benefit all students because it provides equal access to the same curriculum as other students across the nation. The standards focus specifically on English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core is designed to encompass a clear set of broad standards to prepare students for post-secondary opportunities. The standards were meant to be more challenging than current set of standards in each state and to provide clarity and consistency about what was expected of students at each grade level.

The goal of the Common Core State Standards is to prepare students for college and work expectations and help them compete and succeed in a global economy and society. Furthermore, this policy has shaped current educational thinking by providing established learning standards with rigorous content and application of higher knowledge through higher order thinking skills.

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.

The lack of educational benchmarks and standardization in the United States of America, USA is disjointed and subpar leaving students ill prepared to enter the workforce and college. As evidenced by the persistent problem of students graduating and passing required exit exams in high school; yet, they still needed remediation upon entry to college. The Common Core is good because it provides a set of age appropriate learning goals and sets a national high-quality academic standard for Math and English to prepare students for college and career readiness. In essence, the Common Core defines what a student should know and be able to do at different grade levels.

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

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of national standards that were created with the intention that students would be college and career ready by graduation. In the early 1990’s states realized that there needed to be a better system for assessing students in the education system. States individually began to outline what they thought was important for each grade level for students to be proficient at before moving on to the next grade or graduating. This meant that each state was responsible for creating, using, and assessing their own standards, which lead to each state defining what they thought was proficient for grade levels and graduating seniors. With this the National Governors Association and The Council of Chief School State

Common Core is built as an infective for education to all schools, but what it is, is a policy that all students learn the same. Common Core has been adopted in forty-three states around the nation. Common Core is designed to get students ready for college and career ready from grades Kindergarten through twelfth grade. “The basic definition of what Common Core is, a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy.” (Board)“The college- and career-readiness standards were developed first and then incoporated into the K-12 standards in the final cersion of the Common Core we have today.” (Practices) The construction of Common Core was by seeing which state standards were already the best, using experienced teachers, leading-thinkers, content experts, and also public feedback about their child’s education. Common Core is currently being endorsed by the White House. “Common Core is currently costing the United States eighty billion dollars.” (Board) Common Core was created by state educational chiefs and governors from forty-eight states. Common Core states that it will get students ready for their futures, but has only hurt them by not truly completing the goals set. Common Core is developmentally inappropriate for students because the cost of Common Core, it is pushed by the government for competition between states, and the strong implantation of standardized testing.

Since 2010, there were 45 states that have adopted the same educational standards called Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and seeks to establish consistent education standards across the states. The Common Core Standards is initiative state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English and Mathematical standards. These standards help to educate all of the students equally, they help children who move from state to state, as well as they help to prepare students for college and workplace. The common core standard helps to provide a clear understanding

The Common Core State Standards outline what a kindergarten through high school student must be taught in English and Math. Many educators, professors, and presidential candidates hold different opinions on the standards. Today, I will explain the historical timeline and give a brief overview of the two main positions on Common Core.

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

The word curriculum can mean something different to different people, even to different teachers who use the term almost daily (Manning & Butcher, 2012). However, it boils down to curriculum being what a student learns, both in terms of core subject content, as well as though social activity and elective/activity courses. However, there has often been a disconnect between different states and districts over what exactly should be in the curriculum for various grades and what is needed to prepare students for life beyond school, as well as providing little basis for comparing the US to other countries. That’s where Common Core State Standards (CCSS) come in. According to Teaching in the Middle School (2012), the Common Core standards were created in an attempt to provide curriculum standards that are “rigorous, internationally benchmarked, and aligned with college and work expectations”. Since its implementation in 2009, 42 US states and the District of Columbia have integrated the standards into their curriculums. (Core Standards, 2015)

In 2009 an initiative was set in place with the purpose of developing a standard for education that could be shared among all 50 states if the individual states chose to adopt it. From this initiative, the Common Core State Standards were developed. The standards lay out a plan for students within the K-12 education system that includes benchmarks that all students should meet by the time they finish a given grade. The standards mainly focus on mathematics and english language arts with the goal of preparing all students for college and their future careers by the time they finish high school. Teachers, parents, governments officials, and school administrators all played a part in the development of Common Core (Common Core). It is this