Author: Lucy Feickert
The Common Core, a set of nationwide education standards, is being implemented in the majority of states and aims to offer students equal opportunities and preparedness in education. However, the Common Core’s focus on preparing students for college and careers, as well as the continued use of standardized tests, limits the possibilities of the educational system and discounts the importance of creative thinking and innovation.
The Common Core, sponsored by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, outlines grade specific learning objectives for students in kindergarden through 12th grade. The Common Core does not mandate lesson plans or curricula, but instead establishes what students should be learning in each grade, allowing teachers in different regions to teach to the same standards — as in, the same mathematical operations and level of writing proficiency — without teaching the same exact content. Teachers can emphasize the regional differences across the country in the lesson plans they prepare, while still meeting the same national standards. In this way, the program aims to streamline the educational system and provide students across the country with equal education opportunities, regardless of their location.
Despite the admirable aim of equal opportunities to education expressed in the mission of the Common Core, the existence of the national system limits the possibilities of innovations and changes to the education system itself. Rather than each state or district exploring what works best in instruction, one set of national standards in the Common Core prevails, inhibiting the possibilities of new pedagogical ideas springing from any of the states tackling education in their own way.
In addition, standardized tests will be distributed nationally, which counters the acceptance of regional differences expressed in the design of the program. If all students have to take the same standardized tests, no matter where they are located or what they have been learning, they will not be equally prepared for success. To the further disadvantage of minority students, it is impossible to have standardized tests without a subtle cultural bias in wording or content, which will now affect students across the nation. The perpetuation of the use of standardized testing will undoubtedly continue to disadvantage certain students.
In any educational system in which standardized tests are used, testing is regarded as supremely important and used widely for assessment, despite the known shortcomings. Standardizing testing cannot measure non-verbal learning, nor can it assess creative thinking or problem solving skills, which are critical skills students should be developing in school. Additionally, standardized testing prompts teachers to teach for the test, preparing students not for the life ahead of them but only for a single exam.
The very motto of the Common Core program: “preparing America’s students for college and career,” is problematic in the way it directs American education. The motto gives the impression that the most important element of education is moving to the next level of education, and then on to a job, rather than becoming aware and curious of the world.
Because the Common Core system focuses on simply getting students to the next level in the educational institution, it maintains education as a conveyor belt system, where students are moved along from one station to the next without ever developing intellectual curiosity or gaining preparedness for the unpredictability of life. It is essential that the educational system does more than ensure students meet the entrance requirements for four-year universities when they graduate from high school. The system needs to prepare students to be citizens in a global world and address the challenges of that world.
The shift from state specific standards to national standards presented an opportunity to change the way America schools its children. Unfortunately, the Common Core missed this opportunity. It measures whether or not students know definitions of words or how to do specific mathematical operations, not if they know how to think logically or solve complex problems. The Common Core might prepare students for college or a career, as the motto proclaims, but it will do so at the cost of their intellectual curiosity and critical thinking.
Lucy Feickert is an undeclared sophomore. She can be reached at feickert@oxy.edu or on Twitter at @WklyLFeickert.
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