Having seen my own grandchildren off to their first day of school this week, I share a bit of the excitement and anxiety that they feel. There is always a promise of new and exciting possibilities. Parents, I am sure you feel it too.
Our regional schools and our kids’ educators are trying their best. I know just how much they care, as I’ve seen it in my wife, who has been a principal for many years.
There are a number of challenges that our schools face, namely unfunded state and federal mandates, which interfere with our schools’ abilities to decide where to invest school dollars and how to teach students. I know one of the biggest concerns of many teachers, parents and students is the Common Core Standards being imposed on kids across the nation.
While I do think it is important to gauge how our students are doing, I question whether a blanketed approach to curriculum and progress is what will work best for our kids. First of all, most kids don’t learn in the same manner. Passionate teachers go out of their way to approach the same subject matter in varied ways to accommodate the learning processes of each of their students.
Additionally, region to region, schools and the populations they serve have different needs and different ways of approaching things. Environment does color the learning experience of our children – rural communities and inner-city communities have different needs and approaches to best serve their kids. Common Core does not take these factors into account.
Worse yet are the pressures that Common Core’s standardized testing put on the students, teachers and schools. When a teacher’s performance is measured by how well uniquely gifted and/or challenged students learn a cookie-cutter curriculum, it is not really an accurate measure of the success or progress of the educator or the student.
As more and more time is devoted to helping students become prepared for these tests, children are afforded fewer opportunities to integrate learning into their everyday lives and make the contextual connections of what they learned as it relates to the world around them.
I am eager to hear your thoughts about the Common Core Standards. I’d like to share our collective thoughts with our federal representatives to start getting this process changed. Please contact me at butlerm@assembly.state.ny.us or call me at my Herkimer Office at (315) 866-1632 or my Johnstown Office at (518) 762-6486.