From a young age, we have had it hammered into our heads that a quality education will be a valuable key in being successful. A great education starts with a very special individual that we know as our teacher. A teacher is responsible for teaching his or her students all that they need to know to move on to the next grade. 

To make sure that teachers are doing their job correctly the government came out with a written document called the Common Core. In this document, there is a list of standards that need to be accomplished in order for their teaching to be considered successful. Also, the standards are geared toward preparing students for a higher level of education. It is supposed to help our education program on a global competitive level.

The basis of the Common Core is a good idea; it gives teachers a list of benchmarks that need to be met to fully prepare their students for the grade ahead. Also, it serves as a reference when it comes to questions about what or how to teach a subject. The Common Core gives clear-cut expectations regarding classroom outcomes.

If the Common Core stopped at that there would be no problem, but it has come to the point where the Common Core is overstepping individual and local decision-making and taking away teacher autonomy and classroom management.

The Common Core is meant to have the same academic standards taught in every school across the country. Standardization in teaching is the government’s attempt to advance classroom learning. Unfortunately, society is too rich in diversity for a centralized government to dictate teaching methods and techniques. America is a melting pot of many different people with many different talents and abilities. Setting a national standard is one thing, but to impose methods of teaching those standards is another thing and places all students in the same box as to how they learn it.

Some students may take more time on certain standards than others. If there is a deadline for when the standard needs to be completed, students may not have a firm grasp on the concept and are being set up to fail. If teachers are allowed to move at whatever pace is correct for his or her class, the students may not be able to get through all of the standards required to move on to the next grade level. This can leave students confused the next year.

It should be up to the teacher what to teach, how to teach it and when to teach it. After all those teachers all went to college and have to do continuing education classes to keep their license. By setting up a national Common Core, it is taking away teachers’ freedoms to do the job that that they went to school for. Are they not professionals in their field that should be trusted to make the right decisions?

Yes, the Common Core was written with the help of teachers, but that is too narrow of a group to decide the national standards for our schools. Each person involved in the writing of the core did not visit every single school in the nation to study how each school operated. Every school is different from the students to the faculty and they cannot be lumped into a pile with every other school in America.

States are already beginning to reject the Common Core because it is so generalized. Indiana is the first state to do so. Indiana Governor Mike Pence believes that, “Our students are best served when decisions about education are made at the state and local level.” This is completely true. Only a state knows how to best handle their education system, not the national government.

Just because all students will be on the same page of learning the skills need to be successful in life does not mean that the program will be successful. The Common Core is taking away the freedom that should come with being a teacher. Having standards are not bad, but they need to be left up to the state not the national government.