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There are three things you’re never supposed to talk about at the dinner table. One of those things is politics. As much as I try, I’ve never been very good at following that rule.
Over spring break, I used way too much of my free time reading up on politicians, trying to decide who I want to run for president in 2016. As I came across Jeb Bush, one of my favorites, his resounding support for Common Core education standards set me back.
Most Republicans despise Common Core, but maybe there was something beyond all the Republican banter that I couldn’t see. After all, both parties strongly support education reform; it’s just their ideas of how to go about it that differ.
Back at the dinner table, I bounced my thoughts off of my mom, a public school teacher herself, and one of my good friends. They both have vastly different opinions on Common Core Standards, and I needed to come up with an opinion of my own. My final thoughts don’t stray much from the Republican establishment, but nonetheless are somewhat moderate.
From the outside looking in, Common Core Standards make sense. A student who moves from Fairbanks, Alaska to Orlando, Fla. should expect to move into equivalent classes without suffering educational consequences. National common standards would allow this student to pick up where they left off without missing much of a beat.
When I delved deeper, I realized what most right-wingers, including myself, despise about Common Core.
First of all, Common Core is developed to teach straight to a test. Each Common Core subject culminates with a nationally regulated test. Here at Cal Poly, we know that binge-learning followed by splurging all of our knowledge onto a test probably isn’t the best idea. We are constantly building off of previous knowledge while being inundated with projects and research papers that ask us to be creative and think outside the box. This type of critical and analytical thinking needs to begin at younger ages, and more standardized testing doesn’t do that.
The development of Common Core Standards is also troubling. Its development is fairly one-sided, with most support coming from Democrats. However, there is also strong support from other elites, including Bill and Melinda Gates, who poured millions into the development of Common Core.
It’s important to note, however, that when Common Core Standards are adopted by a state (all but six have done so), public schools are required to use these standards. However, private and charter schools may adopt the standards, but are not required to. President Barack Obama’s daughters attend a private school that has not adopted these Common Core Standards while the private school that the Gates’ daughter graduated from also has yet to adopt Common Core.
It’s troubling when government officials create a law, such as Common Core or the Affordable Care Act, which exempts themselves and their families from its use. In this case, they are literally experimenting with education at the expense of the common child’s public education.
Common Core and its standardized testing ultimately lead up to teacher evaluations, which President Obama has supported for years. Teacher evaluations in primary and secondary schools however, are nearly impossible. But just for fun, I’ll run through a few hypothetical scenarios.
The most side-by-side, standardized evaluation would be to compare standardized test scores of each teacher’s classes. However, this method has significant flaws. All teachers are subjected to teaching classes with different backgrounds and demographics, and a teacher that simply has worse students overall would be unjustly punished. This method also relies on the assumption that all students have the same base or background in the given subject. That assumption unfairly requires teachers to rely on their colleagues’ teachings. It’s entirely possible that a student could have low test scores simply because they have a poor background, not because their teacher failed. More importantly, teachers that don’t teach Common Core classes would be exempt from evaluation because there is no standardized test.
Peer evaluations are currently the most common evaluations in education. Whether they come from co-workers or students, these evaluations are completely subjective and require a high amount of maturity and fairness from the evaluator. Plus, is it fair to base a teacher’s “grade” on the results of their students’ evaluations? We know from experience that many students here at Cal Poly don’t even take evaluations seriously.
What needs to happen in terms of education reform is much different than what Common Core Standards provide. While many educators are hailing the standards for their rigor, cookie-cutter students don’t make great college students. It’s time to stop limiting teachers’ innovation and creativity and put our trust back in them. Innovation in academics is what inspires students to learn and builds a drive that propels them into college and beyond.
Lawmakers and educators need to work together to keep these high standards, but allow teachers to creatively teach to them. Allow grades to determine graduation and let the SAT and ACT standardize college readiness. If we want to see the best and brightest students attend Cal Poly and other universities across the country, it’s time to ditch the cookie-cutter mold and use other methods to spark innovation and determination.