Abolish Common Core State Standards Research Paper

Halley Fritz

Mr. Spanos

Language Arts 8

12 April 2017

Abolish Common Core

In 2009, the Common Core Standards were implemented throughout the United States. Although the Common Core only affects how the Math and Language Arts standards are taught, there still have been many flaws pointed out and heavily criticized by many parents and professionals alike. Mostly criticized is the fact the cursive handwriting is not taught anymore, how different the standards are then what they were like before, no creativity is encouraged,

“One of the most widely cited criticisms of the Common Core State Standards is that they don’t require teaching students to write in cursive.” (Heitin). This has been one of its biggest problems from the day Common Core was

introduced. Since technology has been used more often in classrooms, it was seen as more of a priority to teach rather than teaching students how to write in cursive. This is a problem because how will students know how to sign a check or any other important documents in the future? Cursive handwriting should be reintroduced because it allows students to write with an overall quicker speed.
Another major issue Common Core has created for itself is “Common Core is a one-size-fits-all education policy that assumes every student learns exactly the same.”(Borowski). Throughout the United States each state that uses the Common Core standards has to teach each grade in the same way so that each student learns the same information. This should not be implemented because all students learn at different paces and in different ways. A problem like this can result in a lack of creativity because they are being told how to think and how to complete their school work. Also the standards make very simple math problems a lot more complicated and confusing than they have to be. Since these standards are new and are very different than before, not very many parents know how to help their children working on their homework if they do need help.
If you look at the Constitution there is nothing mentioned about how education should be set up. The tenth Amendment says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, whatever the problem happens to be, the states or the people get to decide how to work out the problem that they are presented with.Well, that is not what happened in the case of Common Core. Instead of the states or the people being in control, the government ended up as the ones in charge of creating the standards. As a result of what the Constitution infers that Common Core is unconstitutional.
Some people on the other side of this argument may say that Common Core is a better standard than any other previous standards before Common Core, but this is not true.

Take the math standards for example. When our parents were in school, and for many generations before that, math was very black and white. Math was taught using straightforward algorithms and rote memorization of accepted “facts”. The introduction of Common Core Math Standards brought about a whole new world of accepted instructional techniques and “facts” were thrown out the window. A “problem” was renamed a “math sentence”, and two plus two no longer absolutely equaled four, but was more of a journey than a final destination. Facts were no longer learned by rote memorization, but by exploring with little rainbow-colored bears that looked like erasers. You were supposed to somehow discover the relationship of two blue bears playing with two yellow bears becoming a happy group of four bears as the equivalent of two plus two equals four. Some students found this to be a little too abstract, and never memorized simple math facts, which left them without the necessary building blocks for successful growth in learning

math.
As a result of the new and extremely complicated standards, many children can not receive the help they may need while working on their homework from their parents since the new standards are completely different than what they were before.

This can be extremely difficult in a situation where the child has missed a day of school. When a student misses a day of school they are required to have all of their work done for the next day. If the student has missed a lesson then more than likely their parent will have to teach them the lesson if their parent does not help them then they will have to teach themselves the lesson that they had missed out on the day before. Majority of the time the parent might not even know how to teach the lesson to their child since the standards are so different compared to what they had learned in school. This can then lead to the parents, also the child, to be very confused with the

lesson.
Another flaw that Common Core has is that children find school less enjoyable. Several schools have started to get rid of recess for younger grades. School becomes less enjoyable because the lessons that are taught are more confusing than they have ever been. Also classes are boring because the children are not engaged with the lesson that they are being taught. From being bored in class the students may not be taking in all of the information that they are learning about. There is also not a lot of room for the students to think in creative or different ways. Neither is there much room for students to be themselves. Someone also mentioned “Common Core focuses heavily on “busywork,” says Hurley, writing and rewriting words and sentences and filling out repetitive packets. “Creativity is dead,” she says; there’s no encouragement for free thinking.” (Wilson).
Although there are many bad qualities Common Core has, many people think that Common Core should stay. One reason why Common Core should stay is because it challenges students to a whole new level. A person who supports Common Core may say this “One of the broad goals is that the increased rigor of the Common Core will help everyone become college and/or career ready,” says Peter Mili.” (Long). Something someone probably would not say, but is important, is that the standards do not affect Science or any Social Studies standards.
There are many reasons why Common Core should be abolished. These reasons include cursive handwriting is not being taught in classrooms anymore, how different the standards are then what they were like before and very little creativity learning is encouraged.
Works Cited Page
Borowski, Julie. "Top 10 Reasons to Oppose Common Core." N.p., 26 July 2013. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
Heitin, Liana . "Why don’t the common-core standards include cursive writing?" PBS Newshour. N.p., 17 Oct. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
Long, Cindy. "Six Ways the Common Core is Good For Students." N.p., 10 May 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.
Wilson, Julie. "Why Common Core is bad for children’s health: unnecessary stress, unhealthy eating habits and more ." Education News. N.p., 13 Aug. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.