Common Core Flaws

What determines how well a student is doing in school? Most people would agree that the answer to this question is how good that student’s grades are. However, does making good grades always mean that they are learning the material that is provided? What seems to matter now is making the grades necessary to graduate from high school, get into a good college, graduate again, and from there proceed to get a good job and so on. It is a game that everyone plays in order to be successful in life; how you achieve those grades isn’t important. Schools should be focusing on students actually learning, and not competing to see who can get the best grades.

In the past few years, the education system has made an attempt to expand how students are learning,

One of the main issues with Common Core was how it was and still is being taught. The actual intent is now blurry because every teacher teaches differently and has interpreted it in their own way. This applies especially to those teachers who dislike Common Core and find it unnecessary to try and fit their given standards. Common Core itself has created more standardized tests than our education system has ever provided over the course of a school year (“Psych Today”). The problem with standardized tests is that there is no room for complex thought, can’t account for non-verbal learning, and unable to avoid cultural bias. (“Preparing America’s Students for Success”) Along with the increase of standardized tests, the weight of them towards a student’s education has increased as well. This has created an outburst from the students who are currently going through this newly developed curriculum. Students believe that having a standardized test account for how ready they are for college simply isn’t fair. The most common way that teachers seem to prepare their students for these standardized tests is by repetition which is a form of memorization. They have them take multiple practice tests in order to “prepare” them for what to expect during a test. This is ironic because Common Core was designed to abandon the old emphasis on memorization and

Like mentioned before, everyone has different goals in life, and learns differently. Therefore putting students in one big category pretending that we can force them all to learn the same way just doesn’t make any sense. Basic skill sets should still be required to get a good foundation in place for whatever it may be you want to pursue later on, anything past that should be up to the students and parents’ discretion. By preparing sooner for a future career, this will be a huge advantage once a student reaches college. Rather than them being completely blindsided by the new curriculum to come in college. Expanding how students learn would be a huge benefit to them, and could cause an increase of motivation to go to school (Willingham, Daniel). That is one of the main problems with our education’s structure today, is that students have little to no motivation anymore. Many of them feel that the repetition of going to the same classes, five days a week from kindergarten to twelfth grade gets boring and turns them into somewhat of a robot just trying to get through the day. Students should be excited and ready to proceed in the right direction towards a career that intrigues them. By learning skills that students need in life, they will continue to remember them for times in which they will need them. For example, most students