Do America’s Common Core standards know better than the students themselves? Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and english language arts/literacy (ELA) that are set by the Federal government. These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each graduation. In the U.S., curriculum is outlined in detail on how students should be taught. These guidelines are set into place by the state government to schools that receive federal funds. Pennsylvania, a Common Core state, is one of 43 states to adopt this education ideal. The other seven states that have not adopted common core have been given the ultimatum to adopt the Common Core program in their public schools or risk losing the government federal funding.

Common Core, like most things, has both advantages and drawbacks. Some parents believe the word “common” describes the shared success that they’d like students to have. If you take under-performing schools and less-demanding curriculum in some states and raise them to a level where they compare to higher-performing schools in states with more demanding curriculum, you give students a “common” experience. For those in disadvantaged areas, this is a good initiative.

For those parents who are happy with the education system and content with the way it runs now, the word “common” can be terrifying. They may worry about a one-size-fits-all process that holds back high achievers so all students in different schools and states get the same level of education, even if the results students have in common are mediocre.

In short, Common Core would help those slipping behind, but with the cost of leaving the advanced standing still. Easier isn’t always better in a sense. Math for example, may contain a small set of three difficult concepts to solve a problem. In order to make this easier, the same math problem may be simplified with twice the amount of steps. This way of thinking can leave faster and perhaps better ways of doing things to be sacrificed for easier techniques.

“Making a problem easier with more steps is not always the best solution,” Sophomore Chance Jerry said.

This makes it easy for parents to hate Common Core for their advanced child, and others love it for their less advanced. It is the same reason Common Core is such a controversial topic amongst Americans today. In a collective way, how another student is doing, even a student from another state, can affect education at Freedom.

Common Core is a way for governments to find out how students learn, improving the curriculum by their standards. Teachers are taught what to teach and in some cases how to teach it, which may eventually leave intuitive teachers struggling to find a way to reach students.

In addition, some skeptics warn that not only may the information be unintuitive, but perhaps intentionally rewritten. In other words, they believe if the government has the power to put what they please in text books, they could literally rewrite history. The best teachers make subjects enjoyable to learn about, and Common Core may soon trade teacher innovation and advanced techniques for the less intelligent. In short, Common Core has both it’s advantages and disadvantages, depending on how a student learns.