This series of posts will use timely, factual, widely-available, non-partisan data to assess popular political platforms. The methods for collecting this data are the same for me as they would be for you, if you would like to check my work for yourself or duplicate my analysis. I will cite sources for each data point presented and my analysis will be as transparent as possible. Data from sources with questionable or obvious affiliations will be discarded (that is, no Fox News, Huffington Post, or data presented by partisan-backed think tanks), as will opinions, disproven studies, and any data sourced from questionable methods (that is, any data published by an author, working from a neutral source, who has well-documented political leanings). Data will be double-checked from at least two reputable sources before being presented here. My own political opinions will be shelved and data will be presented in support of and against both Democrat and Republican positions. I will not, however, even go anywhere near the topics of gun control or abortion, and, for now, immigration/refugees. If these topics interest you, I highly advise you exercise your right as an American to find your own data and draw your own conclusions using the methods I am using today.
For simplicity, only for explanations of generalized concepts or biographical data, I will be using links from Wikipedia. If you object to Wikipedia references on these same grounds, Wikipedia articles cite their own sources for the data presented. If any data is objectionable to you, I urge you to evaluate the sources used in the references section of these articles. Please note: no conclusions will be presented based on information from this source.
I will do my very best to take very complex issues and condense them into the tl;dr version, and to compare apples to apples (or note when this is not possible). For the sake of uniformity and clarity, I will also paste this preface into each post of this political analysis series.
Common Core Education Standards
Unless you are 100 years old, surely you remember the standardized testing days of your school years. Everyone in your grade filed neatly into the gymnasium, filled with rows and rows of desks, each with a tidy packet of test booklets and scrap paper. The silence would be deafening as hundreds of students spent hours carefully filling in the bubbles on their answer sheets with a fresh #2 pencil.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is the United States' largest and most expansive standardized testing program ever implemented. Common Core establishes a baseline of information in the areas of English and Math that students kindergarten through 12th grade must possess. Several countries have similar federal or provincial/statewide education standards. The initiative has been fraught with disagreement and controversy since it was announced in 2009. For a lot of us, our only exposure to Common Core is from pictures like these:
So let's take a closer look.
A historical perspective: In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a federal bill that set testing standards and benchmarks for children in 3rd through 12th grade. In a rare case of everyone on both sides of the aisle agreeing to something, No Child Left Behind was stripped and reworked in 2015, giving the oversight and accountability of student performance back to the individual states. This revised legislation, called Every Student Succeeds Act, included a clause that prevented the federal government from dictating education standards, and allowed each state to determine its own benchmarks for academic progress. This Act serves as the backbone of Common Core, an initiative developed by state governers in tandem with 135 educators designed to prepare American students between kindergarten and 12th grade for secondary education.
While Common Core is implemented on a statewide, opt-in basis (currently, Alaska, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia have opted out), the concept behind Common Core is that students who begin the school year in New York but move to Arizona midway through the school year won't miss a beat. Instruction is designed to have a universal accessibility and is meant to be taught on the same schedule as teachers in other opt-in states. Curriculum under Common Core is designed to change the way students think about traditional subjects like English and Math - rather than simple 2+2 , students are taught to visualize the mathematical process in order to better apply it to real-life situations. Educators are provided English and Math lesson plans by their state government's education department, and each student is tested on the culmination of their yearly studies in accordance with Common Core standards.
Many educators take umbrage with Common Core's universal application, noting that there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to childhood education. David Elkind, a child development expert at Tufts University, states that "children are not standardized." Special education students are not exempt and are held to the same standards as the general education population (but are permitted the use of an Individualized Education Program [IEP], individual instruction, and "support services"). Kindergarten, once the bastion of nap times, snacks, and coloring books, is now time spent learning to "answer "how many?" questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects."
Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an emeritus professor of early-childhood education at Lesley University, stated "When we require specific skills to be learned by every child at the same time, that misses a basic idea in early childhood education, which is that there's a wide range to learning everything in the early years."
A 4th grade teacher interviewed for this post stated the impact of teaching students who, by now, have been taught Common Core standards for the duration of their schooling. "[Kindergarten and 1st grade] teachers don't have time to teach basic social skills, cutting and pasting skills, etc. So kids come into 4th grade unable to problem-solve in social situations and they can't cut a straight line to save their life." (Note: of the 135 teachers involved in the creation of the Common Core Initiative, none were representative of kindergarten through 3rd grade, as these students do not yet participate in state assessments).
In a study conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia, lead by education-policy researcher Daphna Bossok, data was collected and analyzed in the following areas: teachers' beliefs about school readiness, time allocated to academic and nonacademic subjects, classroom organization, pedagogical approach, and assessment practices. American kindergarten teachers were surveyed between 1998 and 2010 to determine shifts in academic methodology and the impact on student performance in these key areas. The study determined that time spent teaching kindergarten and 1st grade students reading, math, and science has increased, while time spent teaching social studies, music, art, theater, and foreign language has decreased significantly (I already know some of you are going to be snarky about the "teaching theater to kindergartners" aspect, but data is data).
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| From "Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?" study by Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham, and Anna Rorem |
The study also posits that "it may be that heightened investments in children's early development, both expanded access to preschool and through changing home environments, have led to children entering school with higher 'readiness' than before." If this statement raises some questions about children from low-income or unstable families, you are not alone.
Title I, Part A schools were first mentioned in the No Child Left Behind Act under the heading of "Improving he Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged." (Either click the link above for the full text of the Act, or click here for the specific text from the U.S. Department of Education). Title I schools were selected for their high population of low-income, minority, disabled, neglected, or delinquent children. These schools receive federal funding in order to provide students with improved or supplemented facilities and materials with the aim of bringing these students to the same academic level as general education students. As student's performance improves, federal Title I funding decreases.
A 2007 study conducted by researchers from the Indiana University asked 81,000 American high school students to fill out a High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE). The survey asked students things like education level, racial or ethnic background, grades, and whether they are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches at their school. (According to the Department of Agriculture, the department responsible for Child Nutrition Programs, a student may receive free school lunches if their family of four earns $31,525 per year or less).
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| Department of Agriculture Income Eligibility Guidelines for Free or Reduced Price school meals, provided by the Government Publishing Office of the United States |
In the Indiana University study, students who did not receive free or reduced-price school lunches reported "higher levels of engagement than students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch." Knowing that correlation does not imply causation, let's dig deeper.
Yale researchers and neurosurgeons Jeremy R. Gray and Paul M. Thompson published a study that analyzed the correlations between nature and nurture on the impact of human intelligence (it is a fascinating study, and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety). The study suggested that intelligence was influenced in equal parts by genetics and environment.
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| From "Neurobiology of Intelligence: Science and Ethics" by Jeremy R. Gray and Paul M. Thompson of Yale University |
This implies that students born to disadvantaged families are not biologically predetermined for academic and social failure, but environmental factors influence their academic success. Children born into poverty have an increased exposure to foods with lower nutritional value, and skip breakfast more often their more affluent peers. This, in turn, negatively impacts cognition and absenteeism. By the age of 3, children from high-income families are exposed to 30 million more words than their low-income counterparts. As the number of low-income students continues to rise in the United States, it becomes critical to evaluate the relationship between economic status and the implementation of Common Core initiatives.
The Common Core Initiative includes the clause, in some states, that students may opt-out of sitting the standardized exams. This requires that the parent or guardian of the student fill out an opt-out form, which varies from state to state. The New York Times reports that in 2015, 20% of New York State students opted out of Common Core standardized exams. Reasoning for and consequences of opting-out of these exams has been debated by both sides.
What do you think of Common Core standards? Leave a comment below and let FEMSHEP know your thoughts.
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