Thanksgiving could be the time of year where family members hook onto one or two education news headlines they’ve seen over the course of the past few months and begin spitting out what is so often misinformation about a trend, policy, or event in the education sphere. If this sounds like a familiar situation to you, fear not: This year, In the Zone blog writers Charis Anderson and Alison Segal have some talking points for you to set your relatives straight:
“This whole Common Core thing is ridiculous! Since when is the federal government allowed to tell teachers what to teach?”
- The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were put together by experts and state leaders with input from teachers, parents, and other stakeholders.
- The goal of the standards is to ensure that all students in the U.S. will be taught with the same rigor and under the same high expectations, meaning that when a child moves from Mississippi to Massachusetts, that child has mastered the same skills as students in Massachusetts and is ready to dive in.
- The Common Core is not a curriculum; teachers, principals, and superintendents can still make local decision about how to teach.
- What the Common Core is is a set of “consistent education standards [that] provide a clear set of shared goals and expectations for the knowledge and skills that will help our students succeed.”
- Finally, while the Common Core State Standards are a critical first step, we also need a common assessment (such as PARCC) in order to close the expectations gap between states. If states are able to set their own performance standards (i.e. what is tested), they will still be able to post artificially high proficiency rates while graduating students who are not adequately prepared to be successful in college or career.
- Click here for additional CCSS talking points from ASCD.
“Why all this talk about college readiness? A high school diploma was good enough for me!”
- The economy and the job market have changed a lot and will continue to do so.
- According to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, 65 percent of the jobs created in this country by 2020 will require some post-secondary education. Not only will a lot of jobs be requiring secondary education, but those jobs will pay a lot more money.
- Right now, many high school graduates are not adequately prepared for college. Students who aren’t prepared to handle the academic load in college (among other factors) often end up dropping out before completing their degrees. Across the U.S., the percentage of students who graduate from four-year public colleges and universities within six years is just 56 percent – which means an awful lot of students are starting, but not making it all the way through.
“These teacher salaries are too damn high!”
- There is a great deal of evidence showing that teacher quality is one of the most important variables in driving student success in the classroom. But guess what: for something so important, the salary is not competitive enough to drive field experts into classrooms. That means that, specifically in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms, most talented STEM college graduates are choosing lucrative private sector careers over the classroom.
- Even of the people who do initially choose the classroom, many leave within five years, citing low salaries as one reason. For example, the median starting salary for chemical engineering majors is $67,500 compared to $37,200 for education majors.
Happy Thanksgiving!