Yong Zhao

How to Reduce the Damages of the Common Core

Posted by Yong Zhao, Sep 12, 2012 2 comments


Yong Zhao

Yong Zhao

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Specifically, the Common Core claims to cure the ills that have long plagued America’s education: inequality and inefficiency. “Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high-quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students.”

While the Common Core may help address some of the challenges we face in education, but must not forget that the side effects that come with it.

There is no free lunch…

All medicine has side effects. When it cures, it can harm the body as well. Put it another way, there is no free lunch. Everything comes at a cost. Education cannot escape this simple common sense law of nature for a number of reasons.

First, time is a constant. When one spends it on one thing, it cannot be spent on others. Thus when all time is spent on studying and preparing for exams, it cannot be spent on visiting museums. By the same token, when time is spent on activities not necessarily related to academic subjects, less time is available for studying the school subjects and preparing for exams.

Second, certain human qualities may be antithetical to each other. When one is taught to conform, it will be difficult for him to be creative. When one is punished for making mistakes, it will be hard for her to take risks. When one is told to be wrong or inadequate all the time, it will be difficult for her to maintain confidence. In contrast, when the students are allowed freedom to explore, they may question what they are asked to learn, and may decide not to comply.

Finally, resources are a finite as well. When a school or society devotes all resources to certain things, they don’t have them for others. For example, when all resources are devoted to teaching math and language, schools will have to cut out other programs. When more money is spent on testing students, less will be available for actually helping them grow.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has led to a narrowing of curriculum, demoralization of teachers, explosion of cheating scandals, reduction of teaching to test-preparation, weakening of public education, and deprivation of the disadvantaged children of a meaningful education experience.

The national standards movement in the U.S. has coincided with a significant decline in creativity over the last few decades. Of course, another side (or intended) effect is the increased wealth of publishing companies, tutoring services, and for-profit education ventures.

The Common Core, however dressed, shares the fundamental spirit with NCLB: standardization of curriculum enforced with high-stakes testing. In fact, the Common Core comes with more force on a larger scale. The side effects will be even more significant.

How to Minimize the Damages?

As it stands now, America has passed the point of no return. The Common Core will reach our classrooms soon. Our children’s education experience will be altered by the Common Core and assessed by the Common Assessment because our schools and teachers will be held accountable for teaching to the Common Assessment, currently being developed by two consortia.

The Common Core is unstoppable now. But there are a few things we, as parents, educators, and taxpayers, can do to minimize its damages on our children:

1.    Don’t be fooled

Don’t be fooled by the claims of the Common Core advocates. The Common Core will not make your children ready for college or career. The future needs passionate, creative, collaborative innovators and entrepreneurs, not compliant, uniform test takers. The Common Core will not help the disadvantaged children do better either because the real problem is poverty, not standards in the classrooms.

Don’t be fooled by the tiny improvement you see in the standards themselves. Yes, some teachers may find the Common Core contain certain things that are better than other curriculum or standards, in which case, learn from it, but that does not justify the imposition of the entire standards upon all children across the whole nation.

Don’t be fooled by the flashy charts, dancing graphs, or other colorful interactive displays of student data you are sure to be shown by some companies who claim to help you align your curriculum with the Common Core, improve your teaching effectiveness, and enhance your students learning.

The best way to know your children is to look into their eyes, talk with them, and work with them. The best way to help your children is to believe in them, care about them, support them, and value them as individual human beings rather than professional test takers.

2.    Don’t narrow your curriculum

Don’t cut arts, music, sports, recess, field trips, debate teams, or other programs in order to align with the Common Core. Nothing is more core than a child’s interest and passion. A well-balanced, broad curriculum that meets the needs of each child is a much better bet for your children’s future than one devoted to two subjects standardized and prescribed by people who have no knowledge of your community or your children.

3.    Don’t standardize the teachers

Don’t force the teachers to become Common Core machines. Don’t make them standardized knowledge transmitters. The most powerful and effective teachers are those who inspire and motivate their students, who are personable and enthusiastic about their work, and who trust and believe in their students. The best teachers are not those who can dispense knowledge or provide explanation as good as YouTube videos, Wikipedia articles, or Google searches. They are those who give students a reason to watch the YouTube video, read the Wikipedia article, and search for information on Google.

4.    Don’t waste your money

Don’t waste your precious dollars on the numerous Common Core products and services purport to help with your children’s college and career readiness. A better bet is on the people in your schools—spend the money on teachers and school leaders—excite them with opportunities and support for their innovation, inspire them with high quality professional development programs, minimize the bureaucratic burden placed on them, reduce their class sizes, and give them time to learn and collaborate with their colleagues.

5.    Don’t judge your students or teachers based on test scores

Finally, don’t judge the worth and value of your children based on their test scores. No matter how wonderful a standardized test in math or reading is, it cannot measure your children’s character, interest, passion, friendship, wisdom, creativity, or mental health. It cannot predict your children’s future either. Instead, look for their strength, support their interest, and help them explore and experiment. Behind what they cannot do may well be something they are great at!

Don’t judge teachers by their students’ scores. Test scores are a poor measure of a child’s quality and an even worse measure of the quality of teaching. Moreover students’ performance on tests is the result of many factors, many of which are beyond the control the teacher. Thus it is not only unfair to judge a teacher based on test scores, but also ineffective—research has shown that test-based incentive programs do not lead to improvement of student achievement.

(Editor's Note: This post was adapted from Common Core vs. Common Sense, originally posted at ZhaoLearning.com.)

2 responses for How to Reduce the Damages of the Common Core

Comments

September 13, 2012 at 2:05 pm

Yong Zhou, this is one hellava blog, and I am sending it out to my colleagues...thanks for the clarity and truth telling, and with some of the ideas put forth by Mark, there may be a way to make it through the you-can[-count-on-it fog!

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July 25, 2014 at 6:33 am

I fully concur with Dr. Zhao's essay. World class learning experience is about bringing forth those unique capacities that are genetically endowed in each and every one of us. The whole idea of educational standards...that you can put into the mind...without considering the individual's consent, receptivity and desire to pursue their own learning pathways, is an antiquated concept from 1911 and based on an authoritarian approach to education. We know who is behind the CCSS. Follow the money.

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