3-Amanda Ainsworth- Response to: "The Common Core's Fundamental Trouble"

In her article, "The Common Core's Fundamental Trouble", Valerie Strauss describes several problems with the Common Core State Standards. It is very obvious that she does not agree with them at all. She describes how these are standards that are being made by people that have nothing to do with education, like businessmen or test makers. She also tells about how the tests that come with these new standards will be extremely hard, much harder than those created by the No Child Left Behind Act. She also talks about the problems that schools in New York are having after their trial run. Test scores plummeted and students became very stressed. She even included a quote by a teacher that supports the Common Core for the most part. In this quote, the teacher says that she is not even sure she would be able to pass, despite the various degrees that she has. If a seasoned educator is having problems, then how will students be able to pass? This is the point that Strauss tries to make. She thinks that the Common Core is setting up public schools to fail so that they can be closed down and replaced by privately funded schools.

I do not know much about the Common Core, but I think that Strauss has a point. If educators are forced to abide by these standards that are set up just to prepare students for a test, how much educating can be done? When taking standardized tests and tests with fill in the blank components, they tend to just memorize a bunch of facts that they then regurgitate onto the test. Then they forget everything that they remembered for the test. I feel as if teachers should be able to develop their curriculum, as long as it is age/grade appropriate, without the fear of what will happen if their students don't pass a test that is made by bureaucrats. Setting up students to fail is never a way to solve anything, but that is what will happen if the Common Core has such hard/strict tests and standards.