Common Core's Effect on American Public Schools

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by Morgan Turner3 views·Updated Mar 11, 2022
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  1. Hello.
  2. My name is paige Turner and I want to talk about something that is very important to me
  3. because it affects myself and just about anyone I
  4. know that goes or have been to a public school
  5. and that is our public education system.
  6. Especially the common core.
  7. Imagine that you are 1/5 grader in 2010.
  8. You are from a poor community and have
  9. lots of friends and classmates from different backgrounds.
  10. The one thing you guys do have in common is
  11. that you all go to with paint Gardner elementary,
  12. it's not fancy but you have
  13. Have a free lunch and recess and have access
  14. to the experience of the typical 5th grader.
  15. Yet a few months into the school year, your first year teacher starts to panic
  16. reviewing everything that you're supposed to know at that point.
  17. Well this is probably why your teacher was panicking. As you can see in this chart.
  18. Pay Gardner has been underperforming compared to
  19. other North Carolina schools since 2004.
  20. And by 2016 the graph is flat.
  21. That is because 2016 is the year pay Gardner closed?
  22. Why? Well it's because of money.
  23. Why keep the school open if it's clearly not working well.
  24. But Pay Gardner is not the only school that has been underperforming
  25. this chart provided by the N. A. A. C. P.
  26. Says that nationally in America students have been underperforming
  27. since the common core initiative was implemented in 2020
  28. 2010
  29. Set of standards initiated in 2009 after the
  30. no child left behind policy was heavily criticized.
  31. America's test scores have remained stagnant since 1976 and only ranks 67 36
  32. in education worldwide.
  33. The US Education Department contributed this to a
  34. lack of a concise standard in the states,
  35. thereby creating an uneven statistic.
  36. But K through 12 students participated and standardized testing.
  37. These standards set goals of each grade level and teachers are
  38. expected to teach these goals in a rigorous and academic approach.
  39. So why are
  40. So why aren't we seeing any improvement 12 years after
  41. it's been implemented too tough for students to achieve?
  42. I have a Tiktok of a teacher explaining how
  43. she is expected to teach under the common core.
  44. Show me the correct answer for 30 take away five
  45. 30 29 28, 27 26 25 25.
  46. But that's not how we do math anymore.
  47. All right.
  48. What?
  49. That's how you do it.
  50. Okay, so that was very confusing for me to watch.
  51. I can only imagine how 1/5 grader feels trying to
  52. use that critical thinking because that's the main point of it
  53. to use that
  54. every day for an hour,
  55. every day learning math because for me as an adult that was confusing.
  56. So
  57. if that is how these students are expected to learn,
  58. I don't find it surprising that these students can't make it.
  59. I also have a Tiktok of a student's experience as an actual fifth grader.
  60. When common core was implemented.
  61. I always thought I was bad at that
  62. up until the fifth grade and I had a nearly
  63. perfect score on every single math test I took.
  64. But by the time I got to middle school,
  65. the common core system was introduced and it carried all the way to
  66. high school
  67. and all my math classes. I averaged about a C. To A. D.
  68. And even had to retake the class because I failed,
  69. I got tutoring and as much help as I possibly could.
  70. But the teacher just told me that math wasn't my subject.
  71. But by the time I got to college I did take
  72. a math course and I passed 98-99 on the final exam.
  73. It's not that I was bad at math.
  74. It's just a common core system is designed to produce a certain type of student,
  75. but reality different people learn and process knowledge in different ways.
  76. Perhaps common core's biggest criticism is its
  77. tendency to discriminate against disadvantaged students,
  78. um such as those of color with learning disabilities
  79. or just come from a poor socioeconomic background in general.
  80. So going back to pay Gardner elementary, we know that it was in Gibson, um,
  81. a more diverse community and a poorer community at that.
  82. When I went there when I was in fifth grade,
  83. I had just moved there from laurel Hill Elementary,
  84. which is a charter school that is still open
  85. and right away.
  86. I noticed a difference paige Gardner did not have the same textbooks,
  87. it had older technology.
  88. It didn't have nearly the same programs and materials and resources
  89. that Laura Hill had
  90. and I noticed the effects of it right away.
  91. So it's not surprising that paige Gardner was not able to
  92. compete against other N. C.
  93. State schools especially by following these common core standards
  94. because they simply didn't have the same resources.
  95. However with the school closing in 2016
  96. it does feel like that it's giving up on its students.
  97. Children are not statistics
  98. they are not test scores.
  99. They are human beings with different needs and interests and learning paces.
  100. The common core does not see them.
  101. So those who fit the mold who do not fit the mold are often left behind.
  102. So should we give up on common core?
  103. That's up to you to think that
  104. some making,
  105. yeah
  106. some say common core has not had its
  107. enough time to actually show improvement that you
  108. actually have to see Common core be used
  109. from kindergarten all the way up to graduation.
  110. But I think that's kind of unfair to those
  111. who was already learning at a different pace.
  112. But what we do know is that the common core has not
  113. reached its goals in the 12 years since it's been implemented.
  114. And I think because of that we need to kind of figure out a different solution.
  115. So what does that leave us well we're the ones who vote
  116. people in and I know a lot of people feel differently,
  117. but if we pay attention
  118. to how we're learning
  119. to what we want in our school systems, to
  120. who is controlling our school systems, who are
  121. superintendents and
  122. ah
  123. principals and teachers are,
  124. I think common core could be useful if we edit it a little bit and we,
  125. the people stand up for our Children.
  126. Okay,
  127. Thank you so much for listening to me. I hope you enjoy it.