The Common Core State Standards, an education initiative adopted on a state-by-state basis, were designed to guide what students learn in each year of school across the nation. The standards focus on English and math and require students to master less information more thoroughly. From its inception, the movement had both enthusiastic proponents and wary opposers, and the debate continues today, some attributing never-before-seen academic success to the standards even as a leading conservative voice decries them as way to more government control.
Kentucky was the first state to adopt the standards several years ago. Todd County, a very rural county on the Tennessee border, has seen major improvements in student success and positive transitions in spite of the government's cutting funding. School officials and teachers knew it would be difficult, but knew "at some point the stricter standards would pay off for Todd County, a county that has seen youth poverty on a rampant rise and budget woes for nearly a decade as the local economy has struggled," Editor-Publisher Ryan Craig writes for the weekly Todd County Standard.
Most notably, Todd County High School, which had previously struggled, was in the top 9 percent of all schools in the latest statewide tests. Craig suggests that the standards were a key factor in the success, in spite of the apparently increased difficulty of the Common Core tests. The teachers in the county worked hard to learn the new material and planned ways to help the students catch up, he reports. Now elementary school students cannot as easily make the Principal's List as a result of higher criteria, and in the high school, students are taking more college level courses.
However, state budget cuts are making it difficult to move forward. "If we continue to receive cuts, we will have to look at raising additional local taxes to continue to have current programs and teaching staff," Makka Wheeler, the schools' finance officer, told the Standard. "We need stability of state and federal revenues; however, we have had seven years of cuts." That was the point of Craig's front-page column, which was headlined, "We can't let funding stop education momentum."
On the other side of the debate are those who says the standards kill creativity, ignore the differing educational needs of students and promote more governmental control. Conservative columnist George Will writes for The Washington Post Writers Group that the debate will continue to heat up as people realize the true nature of the standards. While the Department of Education promotes the standards, the 1979 law creating it "forbids it from exercising 'any direction, supervision or control over the curriculum' or 'program of instruction' of any school system," Will notes. He says that is only the beginning of the pressure that will increase for schools to regulate content, and "Washington is already encouraging the alignment of the GED, SAT and ACT with the Common Core."
The government has bought states' agreement with the standards with the promise of federal funding. Although 45 states and the District of Columbia originally accepted the deal, some are reevaluating the decision, and more will do so. The fact is that "Fifty years of increasing Washington inputs in K-12 education has coincided with disappointing cognitive outputs from schools. Is it imprudent to apply to K-12 education the federal touch that has given us HealthCare.gov?" Will writes.
This negative response to the Common Core highlights three healthy aspects of politics today, Will writes: Communication skills and technologies have mobilized information about the debate, communities' uprising against state capitals and Washington shows an unwillingness to conform to the "public agenda" if it's deemed unhelpful and political dishonesty is and will result in the appropriate consequences.
These two opposing points of view on an important topic may indicate an aspect of the Common Core State Standards debate that is true of many other controversies: the Common Core is neither without flaw nor without advantages. What works for one school or district may not work for another.
Kentucky was the first state to adopt the standards several years ago. Todd County, a very rural county on the Tennessee border, has seen major improvements in student success and positive transitions in spite of the government's cutting funding. School officials and teachers knew it would be difficult, but knew "at some point the stricter standards would pay off for Todd County, a county that has seen youth poverty on a rampant rise and budget woes for nearly a decade as the local economy has struggled," Editor-Publisher Ryan Craig writes for the weekly Todd County Standard.
Most notably, Todd County High School, which had previously struggled, was in the top 9 percent of all schools in the latest statewide tests. Craig suggests that the standards were a key factor in the success, in spite of the apparently increased difficulty of the Common Core tests. The teachers in the county worked hard to learn the new material and planned ways to help the students catch up, he reports. Now elementary school students cannot as easily make the Principal's List as a result of higher criteria, and in the high school, students are taking more college level courses.
However, state budget cuts are making it difficult to move forward. "If we continue to receive cuts, we will have to look at raising additional local taxes to continue to have current programs and teaching staff," Makka Wheeler, the schools' finance officer, told the Standard. "We need stability of state and federal revenues; however, we have had seven years of cuts." That was the point of Craig's front-page column, which was headlined, "We can't let funding stop education momentum."
On the other side of the debate are those who says the standards kill creativity, ignore the differing educational needs of students and promote more governmental control. Conservative columnist George Will writes for The Washington Post Writers Group that the debate will continue to heat up as people realize the true nature of the standards. While the Department of Education promotes the standards, the 1979 law creating it "forbids it from exercising 'any direction, supervision or control over the curriculum' or 'program of instruction' of any school system," Will notes. He says that is only the beginning of the pressure that will increase for schools to regulate content, and "Washington is already encouraging the alignment of the GED, SAT and ACT with the Common Core."
The government has bought states' agreement with the standards with the promise of federal funding. Although 45 states and the District of Columbia originally accepted the deal, some are reevaluating the decision, and more will do so. The fact is that "Fifty years of increasing Washington inputs in K-12 education has coincided with disappointing cognitive outputs from schools. Is it imprudent to apply to K-12 education the federal touch that has given us HealthCare.gov?" Will writes.
This negative response to the Common Core highlights three healthy aspects of politics today, Will writes: Communication skills and technologies have mobilized information about the debate, communities' uprising against state capitals and Washington shows an unwillingness to conform to the "public agenda" if it's deemed unhelpful and political dishonesty is and will result in the appropriate consequences.
These two opposing points of view on an important topic may indicate an aspect of the Common Core State Standards debate that is true of many other controversies: the Common Core is neither without flaw nor without advantages. What works for one school or district may not work for another.
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