Kimberly Emilia

Considering that Mom and I are both educators, it’s no secret that the topic creeps into our conversation fairly regularly. What’s a little less regular is for us to get heated and somewhat upset on an educational issue. We are both pretty tame, docile ladies, who can respectfully discuss a topic without temper getting the better of us. Ok….not quite. Who are we kidding? We’re both Latinas, and I’m a little more screwed than others with that zesty splash of opinionated Ukrainian in me. Needless to say, Mom and I got into it, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, considering what the rest of our country has to resolve.

Mom was venting about a meeting she’d had with one of the teachers she supervises. “They just don’t understand how to integrate the Common Core into their lessons,” she said. She was excited about the Core. She believes it has potential. She believes that the children across this country should be educated by the same standards. If we are a democratic nation, we should offer the same opportunities for growth, education, and success. Regardless of the child’s zip code.

I agree. Kids need opportunities. They need a strong education. They need to be able to compete and follow their dreams. They need the tools to achieve. And perhaps, some of the standards in other states across the country are in need of a facelift. But, I have to disagree that the Common Core are going to get us there. Because I don’t know that they are.

While it’s wonderfully optimistic to believe that a set of standards and curriculum aligned to those standards will boost the American educational system, it’s far from reality.  Because when you have standards set in place, you need a way to assess that those standards are being met. And to do that through a national approach, our country has deemed standardized state tests as the best (perhaps cheapest) way to provide such an assessment.

Everyone needs data. Proof. Evidence. To see if something is working or not, you need some sort of statistical printout, right? Whether or not I believe this to be the case seems irrelevant, because this is how our country feels about it. They need charts and graphs and numbers and dollar signs to correlate on a big chart to show us how the youth of our nation is performing.

Mom loves the idea that the Common Core raises a bar. It doesn’t only ask kids to be accountable for their learning. It forces teachers to become accountable, too. Now, school districts and its administration all plays a role in this assessment. We are all judged and held to a high standard to ensure that the kids are actually learning something. But, here’s the problem. NCLB has been in place for over ten years. That’s a decade people. Half a score, if you want to get a little Lincoln with me. And what has happened? We’ve raised the bar, upped the standards, aligned the curriculum, nationalized learning, and SQUAT.

Kids are miserable. They are not performing any better. Come springtime, they aren’t complaining as much about normal kid stuff– like zits and boys and parties. They’re complaining about the testing. They’re complaining about having to take these long exams. They hate having to sit through hours and hours of tests that take them away from the stuff that’s fun. The time with their teachers when they get to be creative, pensive, innovative, and kid-like.

After our discussion, I did relent and tell Mom that I’m not convinced that the Core is the thing to blame, really.  It’s a framework that can help teachers to align skills development with teaching material. That’s cool. That works. What’s tough is how the Core is causing bigger assessment problems that aren’t going away.

How do we fix this? I honestly have no idea….because most days I just wish I saw more kids playing outside than anything else.

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