Why Our School System is Failing Us by Vivian Redmond

I fall asleep in class. My head hits the brown tables in our classroom like the table’s a magnet, and I’m metal. This happens at least once a day. Sometimes more than that. It’s not that I stay up until 2 am every night on my computer, it’s just that class is so boring, that there is nothing else to do. Sleeping in class is wrong, I know, but it’s really the only option. The stuff that is being taught to us, has been taught to us for the majority of our lives. It’s getting old, and while reviewing things are good, doing only review is killing our love of learning.The way I see it, Common Core affects three types of people. The people like me, where Common Core is very elementary for us, and we think too critically for it, the people that are fine with it, who are the people that Common Core is targeting, and the people that Common Core are hurting the most -- the people that struggle with school, and are only getting more confused, and more frustrated with the aspect of school. I am very lucky to live with an intellectual family that lets me learn and critically think outside of school. But not all people are so lucky. By this point you might be wondering, “What is Common Core, and why is this person so obsessed with it?” Common Core is the curriculum we learn. It’s a set of standards that the government made, so that there could be more critical thinking in schools, and so that it’s easier to measure progress for students. The standardized tests that we take each year are because of Common Core. It’s potentially a good idea. But while Common Core can seem like a good thing, it’s not, and its standards and goals do the opposite of what they’re supposed to. Common Core, and the way Common Core is being taught, is harming our schools because teachers are leaving, students are being taught the same boring standards each year, it is not fair to all students, and it is making kids hate school and learning.

          The first of many reasons why Common Core is so harmful is that really great teachers are leaving their job because of Common Core’s standards. David Greene, an author and teacher, wrote an article describing the downsides of Common Core. He said that “Good and great teachers leave and are replaced by new and cheap workers more willing to follow fool-proof, factory-like, prescribed lesson plans. In fact, the average teaching tenure has dropped from approximately 15 years of service in 1990 to less than five in 2013” . This fact is showing us that within 23 years, teachers have started teaching for less and less time. If good teachers don’t want to teach anymore, then we can’t properly learn. Students won’t be able to become amazing people in the world who find cures, and fix problems, if we don’t get taught how to do that. Teachers are some of the most important members of society, and all the good ones are leaving, then society will go nowhere.

        

Also, Common Core pretty much teaches students the same thing each year, and restricts students from doing their best work. In David Greene’s article, he also addresses this fact, and tells us about some of his students’ complaints. He says that ¨I once saw an eighth grader who was on the verge of being tossed out of his middle school even though he was one of the brightest kids there. When asked why he was failing, he said, “Why should I be doing the same frickin' thing since I was in third grade?” Another student I heard about could comprehend the whole "Harry Potter" series before she was 11 and read two novels a week, yet thinks she “sucks at English” because she is more nuanced in her thinking than the questions on standardized tests allow. She learned to hate reading¨. That means that great, bright students, are hating school, and doing poorly because the standards are repetitive, and not allowing them to shine. Sometimes, school has to be boring, and there are many parts of school that no matter what, you’ll hate. But if you hate school because you’re learning the same things, and are being restricted because of it, then something is wrong! Schools are supposed to help us learn, and be a positive environment that help you grow and succeed, not a place where you don’t learn, or a place where the standards hold you back. I surveyed and interviewed some kids in my grade, one of Common Core’s tester years. One of my questions was whether or not they liked school, and what we’re being taught, and the way the teachers are teaching us. The majority of them hate school, and they said that what we learn is stupid, because it’s the same thing every year. I actually had a kid come and ask me “How come we don’t learn anything different?”, meaning that a lot of kids hate what we learn, and think it’s very repetitive. Reviewing topics are good, but when you don’t do anything but review, then you can’t learn.

           Additionally, Common Core doesn’t realize that not all kids are the same, or come from the same backgrounds, so they can’t learn, or be tested the same way. Parents For Public Schools made a list of the pros and cons of Common Core. They stated that “Current accountability systems allow for different testing instruments to be used for students with special needs. Common Core State Standards does not have such an assessment, and all children’s results will be reported for accountability purposes”(3).  

            This means that Common Core does not have a way to test students with special needs. They just use the same system as mainstream students. So, if you’re not taught the same, or you can’t learn in the same ways as “normal” students, but made to take the same tests as them, and ranked among them, then how is that fair? How can you ever make progress? The same goes for students of a minority race. There’s an article on what a lot of black leaders in the world think of Common Core. They don’t think very highly of it. Alveda King is a very respected civil rights activist, and her opinions are mentioned many times in this article. ¨In the letter, King quoted a statement from the Chicago Teachers Union that read in part: “We also know that high-stakes standardized testing is designed to rank and sort our children and it contributes significantly to racial discrimination and the achievement gap among students in America’s schools” (Breemer,1)This shows us that Common Core is made to sort students out. But when you factor in race, it leads to a very large achievement gap. The achievement gap is not because students of color are not as smart as white students, but because the tests are made to help white students succeed. This is wrong. Common Core believes in equality, that every student should be the same, and held to the same standards as everyone else. But the fact of the matter is that not all students are the same. Not all students can learn in the same way. Not all students come from a background of good education. Not all students have educated parents at home that can help them with this. We are setting our students up to fail. Especially minority students who fall into many of these categories. This is leading to more and more discrimination and racism in school, workplaces, and communities. Which is so incredibly wrong.

             Finally, Common Core and standardized tests are so harmful to students because they’re stressing students out to incredible measures, and only causes them to hate school more. In my survey/ interviews that I conducted, I talked to 22 kids, and they all gave me great stories and feedback. 19 out of 22 Kids say that school and standardized tests stress them out, and 17 out of 22 kids said they hate school. I asked a few of them to elaborate, and they told me that they’re so stressed out because if they aren’t learning anything now, then they’re afraid that in high school, college, and life, that they’ll fall behind, and won’t be able to succeed.

            One student said that “teachers tell us that we’ll learn something next year, but when we get to the next year they say that we don’t have to review that subject because we learned it that year.” Ok, so that means that students get stressed out. A lot. Not only because of the work load, which all students are stressed about, but they’re stressed out because they don’t ever learn anything! It is ridiculous that students are worried about something that is the school’s and teacher’s responsibility. We should be worried about things that students are normally worried about. If we aren’t, then it makes even more a distraction to learning. We are setting up kids to hate school, and hate life. We can’t have progress without young people making a change, but they can only make change with good education.

          Common Core is one of the most controversial topics in the world today. Lots of people believe that Common Core is good because it helps kids form opinions, the lessons we learn make kids go home and really think about what they learned and form opinions on it. This could work, for students that go home and have nice conversations with their educated parents, where they can go and learn more, and they can have help forming opinions. But this type of household is a very rare type of household in public schools. This is giving the students with educated parents, and more money, a bigger advantage. These households are mainly white households, and is adds to the reasons why Common Core is racist.

            People also believe that Common Core is good because it helps teachers measure progress and it gives a good look at schools, or districts as a whole. Except that it just looks at the big picture, and doesn’t focus on the fact that some students might be struggling more than others, and just looking at the big picture doesn’t help the kids that need individual help. If there’s a school with half high scoring kids, and half low scoring schools, then it’ll be labelled as an average school, ignoring the fact that it is not at all average.

           Additionally, one of the plus sides of Common Core is that if all states do it, then if a student moves states in the middle of the year, then catching up will be easier. This is true, and is one of the few good things about Common Core, but it isn’t a big deal. It does not help with the fact that Common Core is failing our schools. It just kind of puts a band aid on a bullet hole.

             So, we need to get rid of Common Core. We need to get rid of this system that harms our schools because teachers are leaving, students are being taught the same boring standards each year, it is not fair to all students, and it is making our students hate learning. Our world has so many issues that need to be fixed. Like global warming, police brutality, or cancer. Our generation has to be the one to fix these things. But guess what these things need in order to be fixed. An education. Our generation has to actually learn how to fix our world, not let it go to waste because every year we learn how to find the area of a figure.

If you don’t want our schools to fail and our society go down the drain, here’s what you can do;

1.     Get involved. Go to protests, speak out against Common Core, talk to government officials, go out and be a part of the change.

2.     Notice everything, ask questions, and be aware. If you’re wondering why you have to do something irrelevant in class, get answers to your questions. Question everybody and everything you do.

3.     Maybe work on a better system. If you really want to change our education system, then work on a rough draft, no matter how young you are. If you are a student, then go and make a new system, because it’ll be a lot better coming from someone who has first-hand experience.

4.     If you are a government official of some sort, and you have come across this article, do your job, you have power, use it to make laws and actually get Common Core to stop.

No matter who you are, you can help. If people won’t listen to you. MAKE THEM. This is about making sure that our whole country and society has a good future, not just our students of America. We are the future, and we have to ensure that our future is filled with well educated, optimistic people that can help save the world.