Common Core Education Pros And Cons

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There has been a growing momentum in recent years to use common core curriculum as a basis for assessing student performance across the board in the United States. Tensions are high between legislators and citizens as studies conducted in recent years show a steady decline in the progress of the American student population as compared to that of other industrialized nations. These assessments are highly contested in many states and have left many American citizens disgusted with the system of education that has been forming. Although these standardized assessments give a reference point to where the U.S. stands in education as compared to the rest of the world, are these “initiatives” actually preparing our students for their futures or are …show more content…
Influenced by the evolving education system of the 1990’s, which is the decade most associated with the public school movement, the act reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. The NCLB supported common core education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing accomplishable and measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education for all U.S. students. It required states to develop assessments with focus on basic skills including mathematics, reading comprehension, grammar, and writing. To receive federal funding for their schools, states had to assess every student in each grade level. One of the most argued flaws of these assessments is that they do not assess students on their societal engagements or prepare them for these engagements. “Fortunately” the No Child Left Behind Act was stripped away of all its national features by a bipartisan Congress in …show more content…
Most of the entities that were just mentioned agree that public education still accounts for a common core education that focuses on “teaching to the test”. "Teaching to the test" has been observed to raise test scores, but it does not necessarily mean that the students will carry on all the information they learned for the assessment. The argument is that these curriculums that teach to the test feed so much information to the students that they do not know how digest it and preserve it for the future. “NCLB & ESSA have corrupted what it means to teach and what it means to learn.” (NEA President Lily Eskelsen