The Positive and Negative Effects of Common Core on Social Studies Education

¶ … Common Core will have significant negative and positive impacts on my Social Studies teaching. These impacts can best be seen through a general analysis of Common Core and application of Common Core to a specific Social Studies lesson plan. The goals of Common Core are to align education with the best evidence of college readiness and career readiness, building on each state's best standards and maintaining educational focus on what matters most for readiness, both within the United States and globally. To those ends, Common Core standards are rigorous. Lessons must be focused and coherent, aligned through evidence and research with national and international college and work expectations, building on existing strengths and lessons of current state standards.

The four pillars and advancements provided by Common Core are deliberate emphases on: Reading; Writing; Speaking and Listening; and Language. "Reading" balances literature and informational texts with sufficient but not overwhelming text complexity. "Writing" emphasizes the use of argument and informative/explanatory writing about source materials. "Speaking and Listening" uses formal and informal talk to enhance the lessons. Finally, "Language" stresses general academic and domain-specific vocabulary.

While these four emphases are deemed considerable advances in education, Common Core standards lack some teaching essentials: they do not indicate how a teacher should teach; all that can/should be taught; the nature of advanced work beyond Common Core; required intervention for students performing significantly below grade level; the full range of support for ESL learners and special needs students; or the full gamut of requirements for college readiness and career readiness. Consequently, in their current state, Common Core standards are insufficient and must be partnered with a content-rich curriculum, robust and ongoing assessments and continual honing of the standards and their applications.

A clear example of the negative and positive impacts is illustrated by a lesson plan about President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 speech about Vietnam at John Hopkins University. The lesson plan calls for students to learn what was plainly stated by President Johnson in the subject speech, draw rational inferences from those statements, demonstrate those skills by writing a concise synopsis and finally paraphrase that summary in the student's own words. The positive advancements of the Common Core standards are all focused and evident: reading, writing, speaking and listening and language are all obviously employed in the lesson plan. Simultaneously, the four advancements are insufficient, in and of themselves. They do not indicate how a Social Studies teacher should teach about the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war and all the rhetoric surrounding that turmoil; the standards do not indicate all that can/should be taught in Social Studies about that episode of U.S. History; the standards give no guidepost for advanced Social Studies education about that episode; the standards do not assist with interventions required to educate underperforming Social Studies students about the Vietnam episode; the standards do not provide sufficient support for the education of ESL learners and special needs students about that historical episode; and the standards do not adequately indicate the related requirements for college readiness and career readiness.