Common Core has been around for several years now, but many parents still haven’t been given enough information to get a good grasp of what Common Core is and how it changes things in their children’s schools. Arizona adopted Common Core standards back in June of 2010, and these standards were fully implemented in the 2013/2014 school year. There are many reasons why these federal standards of education are detrimental to the schools in our state. Here are some of the biggest reasons you should be concerned about the standards:
Tests and Data Mining
Children’s right to privacy is blatantly ignored by Common Core. Kids’ behaviors, academic progress, beliefs, attitudes, and test scores are all tracked and recorded under the federal program. What happens to this information isn’t clear, but what is clear is the fact that parents, teachers, and even the state of Arizona will have no control over what is done with those records once the federal government has collected them. They are government records and could be used in a variety of ways that were never intended. With Common Core in place, the federal government will be able to keep an exhaustive record of each person’s school record, from pre-school years all the way to college.
Low-Quality Methods and Material
Math in Common Core textbooks has been made incredibly confusing and frustrating for young students. Tried-and-true traditional methods were abandoned in favor of very complex new methods. Both parents and teachers alike have agreed that the new methods are nonsensical and ridiculous, while the children themselves are left struggling with math problems they don’t understand. English and literature have also suffered under Core standards, with inappropriately graphic and sexually explicit books being recommended while literature in general is less emphasized than ever before.
No State or Local Control
The Constitution does not list education as something the federal government should be involved in. Therefore, schools should be under the control of either the local community or the state. Common Core completely removes state and local control, which means that parents, local school staff, and local and state governments are all unable to set their own standards or customize them as they see fit.
Lowered Standards
The charter school BASIS Scottsdale, which is located here in Arizona, is ranked the second-highest in the nation. Common Core is a threat to this and other charter schools, as well as to other high-performance public schools. Forcing schools nationwide to adapt their standards to the same level means that many will end up lowering their standards and losing hard-won progress in educational excellence.
Making sure our children are well-taught is an extremely important task, and we should all be very well-informed and alert when it comes to their education. Common Core has been proven to fall short of excellence in many ways, and there are many facets of it which should cause us to be very, very concerned. Arizona and the rest of America would do well to realize that putting federal standards in place is neither wise nor beneficial for the coming generations.
