This article was written by John Avery, a junior at EHS.

The Common Core Standards are causing issues with students under their regulations throughout all years of middle and high school. Teachers are obligated to fulfill all the standards, with no guidelines in place to gauge how much they should give.

According to the Common Core FAQ page, the Common Core is a group of standards made up by a company of the same name, implemented by numerous states that gives out rules and regulations for teachers to follow and that give students guidelines on what they should learn by the end of each year, from kindergarten to senior year of high school. These standards are for the core math and english classes, which students have to take all years of school.

What issues arise with these standards is that they simply overwork students. Kids are constantly inundated with work in many subjects that follow these standards and are pressured to do large amounts of work for the classes. This causes large amounts of stress for the students who don’t understand the work.

Every marking period, teachers have to assign work to follow the Common Core standards; these include anything from worksheets to essays, projects, and tests/quizzes. What these assignments are doing are all following the same criteria that is mandated by Common Core and the state. Whether or not teachers like it doesn’t matter, they still have to follow these standards, as well as make lesson plans that fit accordingly to these standards. 

What issues arise through the work is the sheer amount that they receive on a daily and weekly basis. Students typically receive homework in at least 1-2 classes (at least in our school) a night. This obviously can vary to having homework in all subjects some nights. The reason why the students are getting this much homework is because teachers need to assign the amount of work for students to do that cover each of the standards listed in the Common Core Standards. Students have to handle the stress of homework for ten months out of the year on top of after-school activities and personal issues as well. 

These examples can cause a lot of stress for students obviously just from the sounds of it, but in reality there are legitimate reasons for the stress being caused. According to The Hill, from the 2010 acquisition of the Common Core standards in a school system, report card grades did not improve at all, but instead were on a slow, steady decline. This one example alone shows just how utterly useless the Common Core standards are on improving students’ grades and preparing them for college and the future. The Hill also states, “a member of the Common Core Validation Committee, refused to sign off on the standards because she recognized they “would not prepare students for authentic college-level coursework.” Even members of Common Core are not agreeing with the mandates set because they believe that they will set students up for failure and unnecessary stress. 

To conclude, the Common Core Standards come with issues for students. The students are bombarded with complex work on top of their already busy lives. Specific amounts of homework are demanded to be handed out every day so that teachers are also covering the standards. The worst part about the entire situation is that state governments are getting money from Common Core to implement these rules. The reasoning for this is advertised to prepare students for the future, but what it appears like is another shady government business deal that has no regards for the kids growing up in the United States.