Make America Great Again? Start By Dumping Common Core Standards

If Trump wants to make America great again, he should start with dumping Common Core Standards in our schools.

Make America Great Again? Start By Dumping Common Core Standards

President Trump has promised to make America great again. His liberal critics like to respond with “when was America ever great?”

That blows my mind. How can a U.S. citizen, an American, even think that? This country was founded on greatness. By great men who rose up to overthrow tyranny and oppressive rule. And since then, America’s greatness was never in doubt – until recently.

The U.S. was responsible for putting a man on the moon for the first time in history in 1969. I’d call that pretty great.

How about the internet? That’s an American concept which changed the world in amazing new ways. I would say that’s the definition of great.

And on the technology front, it was Motorola, an American company, who developed the world’s first cell phone bringing us all closer together. Also great.

We’ve accomplished feats of engineering, building wonders such as the Panama Canal. Or the submarine, an American invention dating back to 1900.

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The list goes on. The world’s first trans-Atlantic electronic communication was a direct result of American engineering in 1858.  The world’s first nuclear reactor in 1942. Or Henry Ford and his Model T Ford, which forever changed the world as we know it in 1908. And while every country in the world dreamed of flying, it was the Wright Brothers, from America, who turned that dream into a reality.

America has always been defined by its greatness. It’s only the last few decades that America has begun to slip behind other countries in terms of achievements and the economy. So it should come as no surprise that it’s only the last few decades that American education has begun to slip behind other countries in world rankings.

And that is just unacceptable.

If Donald Trump truly wants to make this country great again, he needs to reform education. And the best way to do that is to eliminate Common Core Standards.

Dumping Common Core Standards

If you’re not familiar with Common Core Standards (CCS), the term describes a set of clear college and career ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts (literacy) and math. The CCS creates a consistent curriculum across the country in regards to textbooks, teaching materials, and testing.

And while that sounds completely reasonable, it’s hurting our country’s future more than helping.

CCS means that there’s only one right way to teach something, regardless of if kids understand it or not.

All we’re doing right now is teaching kids how to memorize things. We need to be teaching them how to think.

We’re preparing our kids to take a test so they can get into college. Then MAYBE college teaches them something about how to think in order to prepare them for the real world. Except that by the time they get to the real world, they’ve already developed such bad study and work habits that the majority can only memorize how to do simple tasks and don’t know how to innovate or think for themselves.

By putting all kids in the same exact curriculum to take the same exact test, we are ignoring the skills of particular students, such as brilliant potential scientists, artists, or musicians, and focusing on memorizing facts to pass a college admissions test.

We’re also forcing everyone to learn at the same pace, which just isn’t practical. Advanced students have to slow down, thus not maximizing their learning potential, while slow learners must go at a faster rate than they’re comfortable with, thus missing a lot of the material covered and falling further behind.

The CCS states its goals are to prepare students for “the twenty first century global economy” and to make students “college and career ready”. But all it’s doing is shoveling trivia down their throats.

Common Core Standards force a one-size-fits-all learning cap on our kids. It hurts how English and math are taught, and because CCS dictates exactly what must be taught, parents have no say in their children’s primary education.

To make our America’s future generations great again, we must eliminate Common Core Standards.

Up Next: Further Insight Into The Convention Of States | A Continued Discussion

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