Will all students be required to learn based on “Common Core”, as is established as the standardized curriculum for schools in the United States? Common Core is the new curriculum and standardized testing system being applied to schools around the United States.

In New York, as in other states across the country, parents are telling administrators that their children will not learn through this curriculum, as it pressures teachers to instruct students based on the final test’s material, thus further draining the budget, according CNN. The complaints are unanimously about the curriculum that will be taught and the tests that will be given, such as the ELA or English Language Arts test. The tests are not part of the Common Core program, however the curriculum is taught to make sure students are equipped to pass the tests.

The new curriculum states that a student taking the final test must follow a certain series of steps in order to obtain the answer and if not, he or she will not receive full points, even if the answer and the work shown are correct; students will not receive as many points if they use a different method to solve a problem.

According to an infuriated parent of a student attending an Alabama school in which the new curriculum will be applied, the standards were not tested in any way before they were implemented so any claim that they improve education or increase “rigor” is completely unsupported (AL.org). Whether or not Common Core will work is undetermined as of right now; however, the curriculum is being tested and developed to ensure it is efficient, if it ever becomes the nationwide curriculum.