Education Reform Fighting Partisan Backlash

The increasing kickback against efforts to improve America's education system is a terrible mistake.

Since 2009, 45 states have agreed to adopt the Common Core State Standards, a set of guidelines that lay out in broad strokes what children should have learned by a certain grade. The Common Core was quickly embraced by the Obama administration, which promised states that adopted the standards extra funds from the Department of Education.

Now states are starting to reconsider. Conservatives argue that a single set of standards further increases the power of the federal government over education, which is the responsibility of the states. They see the extra funds as bribes to state legislators, somehow defiling the process of creating better curriculums.

Last year, the Republican National Committee unanimously voted to denounce the Common Core as part of its official election platform. At the moment, 12 states are reconsidering the program, and legislation to that effect has been passed in several other states.

California will begin integrating the new standards next year. I hope the other states do so as well.

All of these criticisms are patently ridiculous. The Common Core is nothing more than a good-faith effort to fix gaping holes in our education system. It was developed by the National Governors Association, the bipartisan body of all 50 U.S. governors, in consultation with teachers, parents and experts.
The standards themselves are broad enough that states still retain the ability to individually decide what and how information is taught. The Common Core merely provides goals for students to achieve, such as the ability to analyze a primary document.

There is nothing wrong with the DOE trying to encourage states to sign on to the Common Core by promising additional funds. This is a normal practice by the federal government to encourage programs while leaving the final decision up to the states. This approach is often used specifically to avoid the risk of seeming to extend federal authority. Any assertion that the federal government will have more control over education is absurd.

It is certainly better than nothing.

The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, focused on student performance, rather than the actual material. As a result, it created a loophole in which states lowered their standards to the point where almost anyone could pass the standardized tests.

Over the past decade, reports from Georgia, Illinois and countless other places have shown that the number one goal of school districts has been to "teach to the test," with no incentive to keep the tests academically challenging. The result has been a fragmented education system where children from one state are significantly less prepared for college and a career than in others.

The Common Core is not perfect. It sets goals without examining the difficulties of implementation and other fundamental problems with our nation's education system.

However, it's a step in the right direction. It's not about the Obama administration; it's about the future of education for our little brothers and sisters, and someday, our children. If states object to the DOE giving out extra funds, they should simply implement the Common Core without taking any government funding.

Jonathan Tomczak is a junior political science and history double major.