A set of national standards for K-12 students sounds like an ingenious idea. These standards outline benchmarks every student needs to meet before matriculating to the next grade.
Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core standards for public K-12 schools. The idea is that American schools have been stagnant in academic progress for too long and to keep up with our international counterparts, we need to make significant changes to our educational system. Common core has some pros, but it is mostly an overly-complex waste of resources, a drain on educators and a barrier to students.
The main benefit of Common Core is its emphasis on critical thinking. Rather than simply selecting the right answer, students must be able to explain how they arrived at their conclusion and defend their answers.
One huge drawback of Common Core, however, is the dreaded high-stakes testing. If Florida students do not pass the Florida Standards Assessments or FSAs, they do not matriculate to the next grade level and high school seniors who do not pass will not graduate.
The Florida Standards Assessments is a suite of reading, writing and math tests designed to measure student performance. The test is tied to Florida’s Common Core-based standards, which outline what students should know at the end of each grade.
Seabreeze High School world history teacher Rebecca Bowman says students dread high-stakes testing and she “can’t really blame them.” The tests are incredibly nitpicky, asking students to analyze esoteric texts that they may have never seen before and for which they are often not prepared.
Many excellent veteran educators have left the teaching field in pursuit of other careers after Common Core was introduced. These educators see it as a barrier and believe it encourages “teaching to the test,” rather than organic learning.
This may be true. Teachers also are losing their jobs when students underperform on the FSAs and passing rates among students are low, particularly among English language learners or ELL students and students with disabilities. There are no modifications or alternate assessments for these students, which is a glaring problem with FSAs.
More and more students are being prepared for a test, rather than college, trade school, or the workforce, which results in students requiring remediation when they do arrive at their post-high school destination. Unfortunately, due to regulations enacted under Florida Gov. Rick Scott, students who fall below those standards are not required to take remedial courses in reading, writing and math, as in the past. It is strictly voluntary. The idea is all students should be prepared for college due to the FSAs, but the reality is all are not.
While it is true that the American education system is flawed, Common Core is merely a band-aid on a bigger problem. What America really needs is more dedicated teachers, smaller class sizes, and better educational funding.