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The Shortcoming of Common Core

Blake Pope
27 October 2014

Prepared for
Dr. Karen C. Holt
Brigham Young University-Idaho

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A Shift in Pedagogical Focus
Numerous external factors influenced my academic performance before the start of my
post-secondary career. I come from a family that places education as an extremely high priority.
My experience while in high school was filled with positives experiences and great educators. I
felt like I was attending an institution that was concerned with my future and making sure I had a
grasp of the concepts needed to personally develop on my own.
Much has changed within the realm of public education in the United States over the past
five years. The American people of today are very concerned with the future of their country and
how things will be administered. In an era where technology is more powerful and relevant than
ever, many people question the future condition of the United States economy. Some might be
concerned with how the average American student performs in school compared to those of other
countries. All of these speculations about the future rely on the actions of the students who are
more than likely still in the public education system. In order to address these concerns, many
states adopted versions of The Common Core State Standards Initiative. This initiative has
changed the face of pedagogy for many states and is extremely controversial. The Common Core
State Standards arent founded on sound research with empirical data that truly supports their
claims resulting in neglect of students from most areas of the social strata in the United States.

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A Lack of Focus on Empirical Data and Individuals
According to the frequently asked questions page of the Common Core State Standards
Initiative website, Common Core is defined as a set of clear college- and career-ready standards
for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics
(corestandards.org). Most parents probably wouldnt mind a clear set of goals for their children
in notoriously hard subjects like Math and English. The Common Core State Standards claims
that forty-three states have adopted the standards (see figure 1).

Fig. 1. Standards in Your State. Digital image. Common Core State Standards Initiative:
Preparing America's Students for College & Career. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
The overall objective of Common Core isnt regularly regarded as the source of
controversy in the matter; however, defining the purpose of education is highly subjective. The
realm of educational philosophy is immense. Is the purpose of an education simply to prepare
one to enter into a university and career force, or is education to be regarded as a process of
obtaining and applying knowledge?

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Alice Wexler, professor at State University of New York New Paltz states in her article
Reaching Higher? The Impact of the Common Core State Standards on the Visual Arts, Poverty,
and Disabilities:
One might ask, however, whose standards are these? Who decides what parents and
teachers need to know? What do we mean by help students to learn, and who decides
what they should learn? Even with a cursory glance at the recommended exemplary
texts, the reader might wonder, whose real world are these standards supposed to be
applicable to? For example, the real world for children with disabilities is quite different
than the world that children without disabilities inhabit. And among both groups, the
world is quite different depending on the child's economic status. (54)
Through Wexlers critical questioning, the subjectivity of the standards is manifested while also
presenting issues of inequality for students who may not fit the social or cultural norm.
The public education system of the United States is a highly complex organism. Due to
the highly stratified nature of the United States, the problem in our education might not be in
the content that is delivered. Dr. Stephen Krashen, an emeritus professor from the University of
Southern California and world renown linguist and educational researcher, states in his article
The Common Core, Food insecurity, lack of health care, and lack of access to books, among
other aspects of poverty, all have devastating effects on students ability to learn (38). Krashen
continues on to cites Dr. David C. Berliner of Arizona State University, another infamous
educational researcher, by stating, High-poverty families are more likely to lack medical
insurance or have high copayments, circumstances that result in less medical care, and more
childhood illness and absenteeism, which of course, negatively impact school achievement (38).

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The best teacher in the world cant immediately fix the problems in a students life that are
caused by poverty.
Those affected by poverty arent the only ones that CCSS might completely overlook. Dr.
Gary A. Troia, associate professor of special education at Michigan State University, and Dr.
Natalie G. Olinghouse, associate professor in the department of Educational Psychology at the
University of Connecticut, coauthored an article entitled The Common Core State Standards and
Evidence-Based Educational Practices: The Case of Writing which provides a very balanced
look at what CCSSI demands of writing in the classroom and how that may affect the student. In
this article, the authors argue that that students who are considered at risk or identified with
disabilities may struggle with the changes in the class due to CCSSI for the fundamental shift
in the sophistication of written language expectations for all students (348). Ultimately,
students cognitive capacity is being overlooked by complex standards when individualized
expectations would have a far greater impact. Rather, students who struggle with a disability,
poverty, or an educational atmosphere are being compared to others through benchmarks that
arent appropriate for them.

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A Focus on Comparisons
Proponents of the CCSSI argue that the United States is falling behind in the realm of
public education when compared to other countries. The comparison of the United States
education system to other countries isnt a new argument. A Nation at Risk, an attempted expos
on the failings of the American education system written during the Reagan administration,
could be considered a landmark piece that inspired the continual educational reform that lead to
the CCSSI. Jennifer Wallender of The University of North Dakota, author of The Common Core
State Standards in American Public Education: Historical Underpinnings and Justifications,
argues that Common Core is a result of numerous educational reforms starting as early as 1892
(8). She then discusses virtually every landmark in educational policy with the notion that these
standards were building on historical underpinnings (11). Proponents are just as interested in
implementation as they are history.
Vick Giourokakis and Audrey Cohan, authors of Common Core, Common
Language: Reformation Instructional Questioning, bring up the fact that Common Core State
Standards are based on Blooms Taxonomy of differentiated levels of understanding (14).
Common Core focuses on a different pedagogical approach through instructor based questioning.
The pursuit for an increase in teacher performance isnt bad; however, does this require an
initiative?

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A Focus on Actuality
Those who argue that the Common Core State Standards force students to learn a set
amount of required material in order for the United States to be more competitive in the realm of
education to other world powers clearly overlook matters such as sociopolitical and sociocultural
context. Dr. Stephen Krashen argues, There never has been a need for the Common Core State
Standards, and there is no evidence that it will do students any good (37). Krashen makes a very
fair point; the CCSSI website actually cites no empirical data, focus groups, or case studies of
students who have went from kindergarten to high school graduation under the pedagogical
approach the CCSSI provides. Krashen says, We should, at a minimum, demand that
experiments and descriptive studies of groups of students be carried out so that the standards and
measures can be evaluated. Instead, states whose departments of education and legislatures have
jumped on the Common Core bandwagon are using nearly their entire student populations as
experimental subjects (44).
Shift for Proven Pedagogy
Ultimately, the Common Core State Standards Initiatives sound like a great idea in
theory, but in pedagogical application, these standards blatantly ignore the sociopolitical and
sociocultural context of many students lives furthering problems seen within the United States.
The education level for disabled students and those who come from backgrounds of poverty is
overlooked by over-arching approaches. The public education system of the United States is a
complex organism and its problems cannot be fixed with approaches that arent supported by
empirical data or application. Reform isnt a bad thing; however, the society we live in demands
more research before something is blindly adopted.

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Works Cited
"English Language Arts Standards." Corestandards.org. Common Core State Standards
Initiative. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
Giouroukakis, Vicky, and Audrey Cohan. "Common Core, Common Language: Reforming
Instructional Questioning." Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin 80.4 (2014): 12-18. Ebsco
Host. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
Krashen, Stephen. "The Common Core." Knowledge Quest 42.3 (2014): 36-45. Ebsco Host.
Web. 3 Oct. 2014.
Troia, Gary A. "The Common Core State Standards and Evidence-Based Educational Practices:
The Case of Writing." School Psychology Review 42.3 (2013): 343-57. Ebsco Host.
Web. 3 Oct. 2014.
Wallender, Jennifer. "The Common Core State Standards in American Public Education:
Historical Underpinnings and Justifications." Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin 80.4 (2014):
7-11. Ebsco Host. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
Wexler, Alice. "Reaching Higher? The Impact of the Common Core State Standards on the
Visual Arts, Poverty, and Disabilities." Arts Education Policy Review 115.2 (2014): 5261. Ebsco Host. Web. 4 Oct. 2014.

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