Why Some Oppose Common Core Standards

Common Core Standards Opponents of Common Core Standards have their points to make, and proponents have their key points to make as well. Which point-of-view will prevail in the long run? That question is impossible to answer but presenting both sides is what this paper sets out to do. Both sides of the issue have quality points to make, and they will be reflected here.

Point: The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) insists that these standards are created to build upon the "most advanced current thinking about preparing all students for success in college, career, and life." Right now there are many inconsistencies in the tests as they vary from one state to another, and allowing states to share practices and experiences will be beneficial to all areas of the country, according to the Public School Review (2010).

Counterpoint: There is no evidence that establishing national standards for K-12 public schools will greatly improve public education, according to William J. Mathis, director of the Education and Public Interest Center in Boulder, Colorado, at the University of Colorado. Moreover, the problem with the Common Core Standards is that it assumes parents will be anxious to measure the progress of not just their children who are students, but also will want to evaluate teachers -- and to have the best teachers rewarded.

That particular issue is part of the reason the teachers unions object to Common Core Standards -- that evaluating the effectiveness of teachers based on how students do, and rewarding the best teachers, is wrong (Washington Post). Point: By adopting common standards for the whole country, that will mean "bringing all states' standards down to the lowest common denominator," which will mean states with the highest standards "…are actually taking a step backwards" when they agree to adopt Common Core standards (CCSSI "Myths vs.

Facts") Counterpoint: The standards will result in bringing even the best standards in the best states for education "to the next level…[and in fact] there is "an explicit agreement" that not one state will be in a position to lower its standards once the Common Core standards are in place. Moreover, the standards were "informed by the best in the country," and by the highest level of international standards as well (CCSSI "Myths vs. Facts").

Point: By adopting Common Core standards schools and their administrators and teachers will basically be agreeing to a federal takeover of how schools should be run. The federal government already has over-reached its authority in a number of areas of the country and it is not appropriate to have the government interfering with how teachers teach and how schools are run (Resmovits, 2014).

Counterpoint: Bill Gates (with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) spoke to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' Teaching and Learning Conference in March and said it is a false argument to say that the Common Core standards is a "federal takeover"; he insisted that the U.S. system of public education does not prepare students "adequately for college, because it is not asking enough of them" (Resmovits, p. 2).

In fact a teacher recently told Gates (whose foundation has kicked in about $75 million to promote the Common Core) that even the best-performing students today "aren't prepared for college" (Resmovits, p. 2). Point: The standards will dominate public education because they will be telling teachers what and how to teach. Counterpoint: Teachers are the best source of information as to what strategies are effective in their classrooms. The standards do establish what students.