News from the Wildcat Lair: Weighing positives, negatives of Common Core Standards

<p class="p1">Many parents seem baffled by the new types of math problems and the level of difficulty in other subjects that seem to have come as a result of the Common Core. It’s left many frustrated parents wondering: what are the pros and cons of the new Common Core standards? Are they really beneficial to my child? In order to answer those questions, it’s necessary to weigh the positives against the negatives of these new standards and consider other information we will provide in our upcoming articles.</p><p class="p1">The positives may not be immediately obvious, but they are present. Because the Common Core standards apply to all states (where they have been adopted), they should make it easier to compare standardized test scores from state to state.  </p><p class="p1">Previous to the Common Core, states developed their own standards resulting in an apples to oranges comparison in scores. Clearly, this is a positive development. Now parents, teachers and administrators will have the opportunity to determine whether or not their students are “measuring up” to students in other parts of the United States.  </p><p class="p1">This is also a benefit to students who are itinerant because regardless of location, the education should be consistent. Additionally, the Common Core standards are meant to be “internationally benchmarked”; therefore, the United States hopes to improve international educational rankings through their implementation. </p><p class="p1">Perhaps the most disturbing negatives about the Common Core standards are their connections to the new teacher evaluation systems and a new and “improved” form of standardized testing (which are best categorized as “high stakes”).  </p><p class="p1">But if we take a minute to look at the standards on their own merit, there are still problems that haven’t been addressed. According to Diane Ravich, educational historian and Research Professor of Education at New York University, the problem with the Common Core standards isn’t that they may not do what they are intended to do, but that they haven’t been field tested.  </p><p class="p1">With absolutely no trial period for the standards whatsoever, individual states were expected to accept the standards to receive any of the $4.3 million in Race to the Top funding (Ravich “Why I Cannot Support the Common Core”). This lack of field testing means that, while the standards are meant to help the United States compete educationally with other countries, they seem to discount much of what we know about child development.  In an essay published in the Washington Post on Jan. 10, 2013, educators Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige argue that the Common Core Standards are actually detrimental to young learners:</p><p class="p1">The K-3 standards will lead to long hours of direct instruction in literacy and math. This kind of ‘drill and grill’ teaching has already pushed active, play-based learning out of many kindergartens… There is little evidence that standards for young children lead to later success. The research is inconclusive; many countries with top-performing high-school students provide rich play-based, nonacademic experiences—not standardized instruction—until age 6 or 7.</p><p class="p1">This long instruction for younger students might be due to the fact that the Common Core standards were developed from the top down for college and career readiness. So while high school standards are arguably developmentally appropriate (without delving into the exemplars), by the time the standards were developed for grade school, there was a disconnect in what a student should be expected to accomplish.</p><p class="p1">Beyond developmental appropriateness, the Common Core standards don’t seem to support any type of innovation.  There is one way to think, and that way will be drilled and tested. Since this country holds creativity in high regard, how does it make sense to support standards that teach our children A + B is the only way to get C?  And should teachers be using that approach to encourage a well-rounded education?</p><p class="p1">Really, though, the most interesting viewpoint (to me) about standards in general comes from educator and writer, Marion Brady in his article “The Standards Juggernaut” published in the Phi Delta Kappan in May 2000:</p><p class="p1">There are other wrongheaded views…that somehow just “raising the bar” increases students’ ability to clear it, that before the standards movement there were no standards, that the talent wasted by one-size fits-all programs isn’t worth developing, that students who will be turned into “failures” by the standards won’t present a serious problem, that standardized tests tell us something really important, that market forces have a magical ability to cure the ills of education, that extrinsic rewards are dependable motivators, and so on.  However, behind the standards juggernaut and impelling it forward is the single, primary, simplistic, and unexamined assumption that what the next generation most needs to know is what this generation knows.</p><p class="p1">For more information about the Common Core Standards, you can visit www.corestandards.org.  For another point of view regarding CCSS, visit http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/11/common_core_...


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