Controversy has engulfed school districts across the country since 2010 when states began adopting the newly formed Common Core State Standards Initiative. Naturally, many local districts immediately felt the pressure as they rushed to meet the new standards set by their own states’ school boards.
The Common Core State Standards are a set of curriculum standards that “focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades,” according to www.corestandards.org. The standards are not a curriculum, but simply standards that curricula produced by school districts must adhere to.
Why the uproar? Wouldn’t most states adopting a uniform set of goals aid the nation’s education? For decades, different states have held their students to different standards of education. Common standards would help states that are behind in terms of test scores or are dealing with any matter of educational problems, as the Common Core standards are higher than many states current standards as well.
In this light, the new standards were fully adopted by a majority of states — 45, including New York—and naturally, Massapequa has had to adapt. How have we fared here in our little hamlet? How did our standards match up to these new and terrifying educational augments? The answer seems to be pretty well.
The requirements the Common Core State Standards established “weren’t very different from what we were already doing in our district,” Dr. Barbara Williams said, her main concern being that “testing different types of things has been difficult for colleagues,” rather than the new standards being a large jump in difficulty for students.
These issues are perhaps missing the point of the Common Core Standards. These new standards don’t interfere with what schools are already supposed to be doing—preparing students for the future. Uniform standards not being attached to core subjects could leave some districts behind others, since each could contain very different standards for each core subject. The perceived problem of these standards being “static” could easily be alleviated with time.
“The rush to implement… standards caused the most anxiety among teachers at lower grade levels,” MFT president Mrs. Tomia Smith said.
The suddenness of the new standards have had negative effects in an immediate sense, but now that teachers are voicing their concerns and those concerns are being acknowledged by the state, changes can be made and the standards will become less rigid. The curricula themselves are only affected by the standards in a sense that certain standards must be met; the rest is up to the district.
The last complaint seems to treat the standards like some kind of immovable object that, if put in place, we’ll never be able to change in anyway. This is simply not true, as the standards are more of a guideline than a strict code that school districts must adhere to without deviation. The same nuances of any subject affected by the standards can still be explored if the school district includes it.
“While the state’s new Common Core curriculum is moving in the right direction, testing on it is premature,” Governor Cuomo said in a recent television ad. This ad preceded the March 25 announcement by Cuomo and other top New York lawmakers that there is a plan to institute a moratorium on implementation of the Common Core standards.
This appears to be an odd change in stance on Cuomo’s part. “When you come in with a big change, there’s normally fits and starts, and it’s a little jerky, so that’s to be expected,” Governor Cuomo said in October of last year, “but Common Core curriculum nationwide, that’s where the country’s going, that’s the state of the art.” This shift support to criticism is concerning, making the Common Core and — by extension — the education of thousands, an extremely politicized issue.
In Massapequa, there are genuine concerns that reflect the notion that the Common Core may not be based purely on furthering the education of students. “The teachers of Massapequa are not against raising the bar or challenging our students to reach their full potential,” Mrs. Smith said, “The standards and how they are being implemented lack the research needed to prove effective and ignore what is understood about early childhood development”
Oil and gas giant ExxonMobil’s television ads promoting the standards also raise concerns about the goal of these new standards. It would appear as if these standards are being pushed to align with political agendas or motives other than the desire to see students succeed. “To add angst, the rush to assess based on Common Core is driven by for-profit companies whose only goal is their bottom line,” Mrs. Smith said.
The Common Core State Standards are relatively new, and they’re not going away anytime soon, not that they should go anywhere. Holistically, uniform standards could prove beneficial. They aren’t the rigid, impregnable boundaries that they may appear to be at a glance. They’re a new standard trying to help make the country better.If taken advantage of, such standards will prove effective in the future of education as school districts adapt and succeed under new curricula and systems based on the Common Core State Standards. Much like a house needs a foundation, the Common Core standards were created to aid schools and students in achieving new heights.