Briefly describe what you believe is a major domestic problem confronting the United States - socially, economically or in health care. Indicate how you think this problem should be resolved.
Picture yourself sitting for the new Common Core ELA regents. A poem by Langston Hughes, a difficult passage from the Sherlock Holmes followed by an excerpt from Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan. As you read each abstract and enigmatic piece, you realize the limited time you have left and you sloppily answer the questions that follow. Finally, after reading another 4 long passages, your brain is about to burst into flames as you reach your writing supplements. Yes, this is what the Common Core has done to us.
The Common Core initiative that was released in 2009 became the talk of parents, students, and educational advocates as schools across the country recently adopted this program to, according to corestandards, "ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit bearing entry courses in two or four year college programs or enter the workforce."
The initiative, with its focus on testing, was meant to raise proficiency scores of students in the U.S, undeniably had the opposite reaction. The sudden attack of long passages and wordy, complicated mathematical problems caused the grades of students to suffer. While I believe testing should be a small component to evaluate one's abilities, it does not define the overall intellect of a particular student, which is what the Common Core is attempting to promote. Aspects like class participation and affinity with extracurricular activities in addition to testing should be the overall determining factor of student abilities.
With numerous flaws that has already been put in place because of the nation's poor academic decisions, they should not be risk takers when it comes to education. Even founders of the Common Core admitted that there will be major shifts in subjects like history, science, math, and English Language Arts, each requiring more analysis to each of these subjects. While this may correct decades of incorrect teaching, it is impossible to implement this on students so suddenly.
The failure to properly raise proficiency levels with the new standards proves how unsophisticated the country's educational policies are. With each state needing more money to invest in new teaching materials and teaching development, it will essentially take until 2022 until students grow accustomed to the new standards, leaving the country's proficiency levels to be in detrimental state until then.
In order to sufficiently improve the country's proficiency levels, the country should implement the standards more gradually instead of enforcing them all at once. In order to get high school students to prepare for college level coursework, promotion and encouragement of shadowing professionals in what they want to pursue can be a motivational factor to many students to do well in their courses. Additionally, state and local governments should have the option of adjusting their standards to match the academic level of the state. The one size fits all policy is not going to work in such an academically diverse country.
I'm grateful for any feedback. Do you guys think education can be considered a social issue though?
Picture yourself sitting for the new Common Core ELA regents. A poem by Langston Hughes, a difficult passage from the Sherlock Holmes followed by an excerpt from Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan. As you read each abstract and enigmatic piece, you realize the limited time you have left and you sloppily answer the questions that follow. Finally, after reading another 4 long passages, your brain is about to burst into flames as you reach your writing supplements. Yes, this is what the Common Core has done to us.
The Common Core initiative that was released in 2009 became the talk of parents, students, and educational advocates as schools across the country recently adopted this program to, according to corestandards, "ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit bearing entry courses in two or four year college programs or enter the workforce."
The initiative, with its focus on testing, was meant to raise proficiency scores of students in the U.S, undeniably had the opposite reaction. The sudden attack of long passages and wordy, complicated mathematical problems caused the grades of students to suffer. While I believe testing should be a small component to evaluate one's abilities, it does not define the overall intellect of a particular student, which is what the Common Core is attempting to promote. Aspects like class participation and affinity with extracurricular activities in addition to testing should be the overall determining factor of student abilities.
With numerous flaws that has already been put in place because of the nation's poor academic decisions, they should not be risk takers when it comes to education. Even founders of the Common Core admitted that there will be major shifts in subjects like history, science, math, and English Language Arts, each requiring more analysis to each of these subjects. While this may correct decades of incorrect teaching, it is impossible to implement this on students so suddenly.
The failure to properly raise proficiency levels with the new standards proves how unsophisticated the country's educational policies are. With each state needing more money to invest in new teaching materials and teaching development, it will essentially take until 2022 until students grow accustomed to the new standards, leaving the country's proficiency levels to be in detrimental state until then.
In order to sufficiently improve the country's proficiency levels, the country should implement the standards more gradually instead of enforcing them all at once. In order to get high school students to prepare for college level coursework, promotion and encouragement of shadowing professionals in what they want to pursue can be a motivational factor to many students to do well in their courses. Additionally, state and local governments should have the option of adjusting their standards to match the academic level of the state. The one size fits all policy is not going to work in such an academically diverse country.
I'm grateful for any feedback. Do you guys think education can be considered a social issue though?