Mt. Eden Children's Academy (MECA)

The Common Core State Standards are considered to be a high-quality group of academic standards. Before the standards were developed, it seemed as if the progress of the students in the United States was remaining stagnant and that America students were falling behind their international peers. The blame for this setback has fallen on the fact that standards are not consistent and from state-to-state students are required to know different things at different grade levels. As a result students are not graduating with the same set of skills (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2014).

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a voluntary state led initiative that looks to establish clear expectations for learning in grades kindergarten through twelfth that are standard from state to state. The purpose of the standards is to make certain that there is uniformity in student proficiency and high school graduates have the know-how and ability needed for college and a competitive workforce in the twenty-first century. Along with forty-three other states and the District of Columbia, Mississippi adopted CCSS in 2011 in English and mathematics (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010).

The students at Summit Charter Collegiate Academy, also known as SCCA, are bright young students with potential to make their future an outstanding work of art. They are students who are serious about their education and will do anything to get to the highest pinnacle in life. But besides being determined and solemn scholars, they are still only teenagers in high school who just want to have fun. The culture at SCCA lacks fun, excitement, and freedom, and the main reason for that is because of the Burton School District that runs the facility. There needs to be some changes in the Burton School District and in the culture of SCCA.

According to the National Education Association (2017) The common core state standards benefit all students because it provides equal access to the same curriculum as other students across the nation. The standards focus specifically on English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core is designed to encompass a clear set of broad standards to prepare students for post-secondary opportunities. The standards were meant to be more challenging than current set of standards in each state and to provide clarity and consistency about what was expected of students at each grade level.

The goal of the Common Core State Standards is to prepare students for college and work expectations and help them compete and succeed in a global economy and society. Furthermore, this policy has shaped current educational thinking by providing established learning standards with rigorous content and application of higher knowledge through higher order thinking skills.

Structuring on the best of existing state standards, the Common Core State Standards provide a clear and reliable learning goal to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning. From Kindergarten through 8th grade, grade-by-grade standards exist in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. From 9th through 12th grade, the standards are grouped into grade sets of 9th through 10th grade standards and 11th through 12th grade standards. Moreover, the CCSS stress the importance of using primary texts in the classroom to build literacy, along with many other things. While the standards set grade-specific goals, they do not define how the standards should be taught or which materials should be used to support students. States and districts know that there will need to be a range of supports in place to guarantee that all students, including those with special needs and English language learners, can master the standards. It is up to the states to outline the full range of supports appropriate for these students.

The lack of educational benchmarks and standardization in the United States of America, USA is disjointed and subpar leaving students ill prepared to enter the workforce and college. As evidenced by the persistent problem of students graduating and passing required exit exams in high school; yet, they still needed remediation upon entry to college. The Common Core is good because it provides a set of age appropriate learning goals and sets a national high-quality academic standard for Math and English to prepare students for college and career readiness. In essence, the Common Core defines what a student should know and be able to do at different grade levels.

What is Common Core? According to the Common Core organization website, the Common Core is a set of high-quality standards in Math and English. The goals laid in place by the Common Core govern what information a student should know, and what skills they should be able to perform at the end of each grade. With no regard to student background, or where they came from, the standards were constructed to ensure that all students enter the real-world with proper knowledge and skills in which are essential to succeed. In 2009, state school chiefs and governors that recognized the value and need for collaborated and coinciding goals across the nation coordinated a state-led effort to create the Common Core State Standards.

Common Core State Standards is being heard throughout the education world. Many cringe when the words are spoken and many fight to support what the words stand for. Common Core was introduced in 2009 by state leaders. Common Core State Standards were developed to prepare children for the business world or the reality after grade school. “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy, also known as ELA” (About the Standards, n.d.). The goals for the standards outline what students should know before leaving his or her current grade level. “The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live” (About the Standards, n.d.). This is an ambitious goal, but with much support can be accomplished. According to Common Core State Standards Initiative (n.d.) The Common Core has been adopted by forty-two states already and is accompanied by District of Columbia and Department of Defense Education Activity. Common Core was developed to improve the academics in society’s schools. Academics in the past years have not been successful and the United States has fallen behind international education. “One root cause has been an uneven patchwork of academic standards that vary from state to state and do not agree on what students should know and be able to do at each

In 2009, many states adopted a new schooling standard called the Common Core State Standards. These are a set of popular K-12 standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics with future standards in other subjects like Social Studies. They were created for the “poor quality of content” (Polikoff) standards and to ensure that every student will learn the same things at the same pace. Researchers claim that the standards are better than the current state standards, raising the expectations of performance for students. Although Common Core is supposed to be higher quality, there are many challenges it would face such as technology upgrades, content coverage, computer scoring, etc. Before the Common Core State Standards, each state set its own standards similar to one another. With Common Core Standards, every state will have the same standards to base student performance off of. Another reason these new standards were put into place is to ensure that America will be able to

Common Core state standards are a regulation where the federal government requires states and counties to follow a curriculum. These rules are mandatory and if the state does not implement common core, the federal government can withhold educational funding for that state. For example, Janelle Cox, an elementary expert states that common core state standards are a set of learning standards that provide a clear and consistent understanding of what students are expected to learn throughout the school year. The standards are designed to provide teachers with a guideline of what skills and knowledge students need, so that they can prepare students for future success (Cox 2015). In addition, this plans has tried to guarantee some forms of success

From the word ‘core’ reveals that the Common Core State Standards has higher chances of success than other educational initiative where other improvement determinations have failed. The standards characterise one of the most promising developments in the struggles made to improve a nation’s transformation. The Common Core State Standards are not intended to replace any other standards that might be considered as weak or strong. Rather, they seek to reinforce all other standards in use by enhancing an integrated model of literacy in stating the details of content required for students in terms of grade (Drake, 2012).

Since 2010, there were 45 states that have adopted the same educational standards called Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and seeks to establish consistent education standards across the states. The Common Core Standards is initiative state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English and Mathematical standards. These standards help to educate all of the students equally, they help children who move from state to state, as well as they help to prepare students for college and workplace. The common core standard helps to provide a clear understanding

The Common Core State Standards are a state attempt to create strong educational standards. The standard are created to ensure that students in the country are learning and grasping the information that are given in the classrooms for them to succeed academically. The Common Core plan included governors and education commissioners form forty-eight states and the District of Columbia. They wanted to make sure the standards are relevant, logical and sequential. For content all subjects must have critical-thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Some positive aspects of this policy is that it prepares our students for a competitive global jobs. It can provide national connections in education. Designed to shape the best standards so that all states will be taking a step ahead in education. These standards had been created after extensive research by professional educators for excellence in education. The CCS focus on what students expectations of learning, and achievements. Educators do not need to worry that the standards will make their jobs look redundant because they are in charge of creating lessons to teach their students the content and skills that the CCS demands. The teachers do not feel that the standards are one-size-fits-all. Some negative aspects of the policy are that is a program created by solely the government. The CCS is a program put together on idyllic situations in education by individuals who have subsidy and students ahead of the learning

The Common Core is known as the top notch academic guidelines in Arithmetic and English expressions/proficiency (ELA). These learning objectives diagram what a student should know and have the capacity to do toward the end of every evaluation. The guidelines were made to guarantee that all students move on from secondary school with the abilities and learning importance to succeed in school, vocation, and life, paying little respect to where they live. Common Core standards are effective in many students that will lead each and every student to succeed in their selected careers, including, “Forty-three states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have voluntarily adopted and are