Controversy Over Common Core Standards

CAROLINE REN
Editor in Chief
REBECCA ZENG
Staff Writer

As educators across the country work to implement Common Core Standards (CCS), designed to standardize tests across the nation, certain issues have arisen, notably the opposition to the growing interest performance-based pay, under which teachers’ salaries would be based off their students’ performance on CCS tests.

“There are too many variables that would prevent [performance-based pay] from being a fair system. It creates a competitive atmosphere among teachers who should be collaborating and sharing ideas, and it puts too much importance on test scores,” English teacher Dorothy Burkhart said. “It’s the teaching and learning that matters.”

According to Journal Education Next, 19 percent of teachers support performance-based pay, while 79 percent oppose it and 2 percent remain neutral. Meanwhile, 49 percent of the public supports performance-based pay, 39 percent oppose it, and 12 percent remain neutral.

In addition, with the implementation of CCS, curriculum for grades kindergarten to twelfth grade would be much more challenging, since the standards are set at the highest in the nation. So far, some states, such as Alabama, are considering repealing CCS but have not yet succeeded.

Furthermore, from grades three through eight, only 26 percent of students in New York City passed the English-Language Arts (ELA) test, while 30 percent passed the mathematics test, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In the rest of the state, 31 percent of students passed for each test. The year before, 60 percent of students passed the state mathematics test and 47 percent of student passed the ELA test, according to CBS. A similar occurrence happened in Kentucky, after receiving the scores for the CCS-aligned tests in 2011-2012, when the number of students scoring “proficient” fell by more than a third. However, this was an expected result.

“We expected a decrease, because the standards represent a 13-year progression, and none of our assessed students had experienced more than one-thirteenth of the progression,” Director of the Kentucky Department of Education Division of Program Standards Karen Kidwell said, according to Scholastic. “We view this as an opportunity to understand where we currently are, so we can do what is right to ensure that our students are college-and career-ready when they leave our public schools.”

Additionally, the New York Times states that “students with disadvantages struggled as well. On the English exam, 3 percent of nonnative speakers were deemed proficient, and 6 percent of students with disabilities passed.” With the CCS tests, no equivalent tests would be made for English language learners or students with disabilities; all students must take the same test.