Common Core is Failing Our Education System

Common Core is Failing Our Education System I feel very connected to the issue of national testing and standards. I went to public school K-8 and private school 9-12 so I was able to see the issue and how classroom learning can go on both sides. My audience is Betsy DeVos. My research went well, there were a lot of topics on the issue so I didnt have a hard time finding a plethora of information from both sides. It took a while to find some really good articles though. My purpose is to try and get a state centered hand in standards and testing and to repeal Common Core. My only constraints are a series of mental health issues that popped up last year, (which is why I am writing my quest essay on that) but it isnt an excuse, just some background I suppose. I feel as if it isnt my best work, but I feel that way a lot because I have never really enjoyed my writing or been able to get into the process. My peer editors were Leo and Nils and they were both helpful to me. I was able to also get a lot of help at the writing center. Ryan ConnerCourtney BrognoEnglish 1453/16/2017 Common Core is Failing Our Education System In 2001, when the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, emphasis on standardized testing took the spotlight. No Child Left Behind and its successor, Common Core, created the phrase teaching to test. It implies that educators in K-12 classes are no longer trying to foster learning and critical thinking, but instead making sure their students are able to pass a test, deemed by the nation to be comprehensive of the knowledge they should have. Its intentions may have been to help keep students on a path to success but instead has only hindered the ability of students, myself included, as a whole. I, along with many other millennials, experienced the impact of these standards firsthand. Luckily, from early childhood my family and friends gave me the opportunity grow and develop my mind outside the classroom. I was pushed to excel in all aspects whether it be math, social studies, or art. It is something I deeply cherish and respect, but had it not been for these outside influences I wouldn t be where I am today. Going to public elementary and middle school and later a private high school allowed me to gain insight into the toll the creation of a national standard took on my education. The focus of my early education with standardized testing was heavily influenced by teachers focused on making sure we were prepared solely for the test given to each student at the end of the year. Classes were mundane and cookie cutter, no matter the topic. They all seemed to be teaching similar material in a similar fashion, with no room for students who fell behind. It was as if those who didnt succeed in class were further behind each year, with no way out. My idea of education and classroom dynamic changed when I switched to private high school. There were no national standards imposed on us, no standardized tests to take at the end of the year, and room for individuality when it came to your own education. The school decided where the bar of achievement, for every student, was to be set and helped achieve it by focusing on strengths and weaknesses on a case by case basis, truly allowing us to grow. Those students who were left behind in elementary and middle school were no longer left in a hole impossible to dig out of. These experiences allowed me to see that Common Core is detrimental to the education of students for a plethora of reasons, but primarily because of the students who are behind are in a rut, which is hard to dig out of. Instead, if we repeal Common Core while replacing it with more effective state and locally created standards then we would allow students from all situations and backgrounds to learn and be involved in their own education. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) took away funding from certain programs that had been federally supported and introduced standardized testing for most grades K-12, the scores of these tests to be made public all the way from school to state. Those same scores often determined not only how students were performing based on the standards, but also if instructors and staff would hold their jobs at the end of the year. Although this wasnt the first step towards standardized testing it is arguably the first major stepping stone towards what we have today, Common Core. Common Core can be viewed as a refinement of the NCLB. Common Core takes the issues of unclear and differing standards and boils it down to allow schools to understand where improvement can be made. It sounds great on paper, but in actuality faces many of the same problems NCLB created. It takes the local control and understanding out of the equation and punishes under-performing schools that arent able to teach the material eff ectively due to socio-economic issues in communities across the nation. (Bidwell) In the Sacramento region, 30 percent of economically disadvantaged students met English standards on the latest Common Core tests, compared with 63 percent of wealthier students. About 23 percent of economically disadvantaged students met math standards, compared with 53 percent of wealthier students. (Lambert) Nancy DeVos, I urge you to repeal Common Core, which as you state on your website you are not a supporter-period. Instead of repealing with no replacement, instead, find a new system in which the state governments gain control while the federal system is still involved. You would allow communities to nurture students on an individual level so that they can develop the skills and the mental ability they need to think critically instead of the teaching to the test that Common Core still holds. The article, The Common Core Brake Job And The Need For A National Standards Discussion by Alan Singer, states that Common Core as a whole is failing the nations students by its inability to prepare and teach students in an effective way. Although Singer states that he is an opponent of Common Core, there needs to be an education curriculum in place. Common Core was muddled with corporations and individuals who wanted to profit from education instead of creating, and later refining, a system that would be adopted by 45 of the states. There must be more done before a new system is made to truly try to understand how a childs mind develops and how to create goals that cater towards it. Singer advocates that during his time teaching he was able to learn that Teaching means engaging student interest, not handing out scripted activity sheets with text selected by highly paid consultants using computer algorithms. He believes teaching is successful when you are truthful and cater towards t he real level of your students so that you can challenge them more and they can become invested in their education, not just a score on a test. The idea of replacing Common Core with a different program is thought to be near impossible to supporters. The article, How hard would it be to replace the Common Core with something better? by Valerie Strauss, goes into detail about how changing the standards from Common Core to a different program would not just be possible, but beneficial. She adds a piece to her article by Sandra Stotsky, a professor of academic reform and previous commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education. Massachusetts standards before Common Core had nothing in common with the program in place today. Yet, they were able to create such a strong education system of standards and teaching that Almost all the students at the Advanced level and about 80 percent of the students at the Proficient level who had enrolled in four-year public colleges and universities in the Bay State in 2005 needed no remediation in mathematics or reading. (Stotsky). Their programs, starting back in 1993, were based around bringing students of all backgrounds to the same level. They overhauled school funding and specifically put a majority of it towards districts with low-income children. The money was used to update textbooks, hire and train teachers, and create new classes among the many other aspects they were able to improve. And with these changes, student test scores and graduation rates slowly improved. Today, the district says nearly 90 percent of its high school graduates go on to some form of post-secondary education up from 70 percent before. (Carapezza) Stotsky believes that their programs and standards allowed minorities to excel and that Common Core does the exact opposite. In her experience, the standards they created were, in fact, easy to implement, contrary to opposing beliefs. Her closing suggestion is to ask each Department of Education to send out an anonymous survey to English, math, and science teachers for information on how to revise the states standards. A more recent example is that Missouri recently replaced Common Core standards. The article Missouri education officials replace Common Core standards by Summer Ballentine explains the changes. The State Board of Education passed a new set of goals for K-12 in four areas. The areas covered are English, Math, Science, and Social Studies, the first two were already covered by Common Core but the last two are new additions. They want to have a more comprehensive education goal while allowing the local schools to plan how to reach them. (Ballentine) They are in the process of creating their own tests to match the learning goals set by the state. This initiative is similar to what Massachusetts did in their public school system to reach the level of proficiency and success they are known for today. Although, it differs slightly in that Missouri is taking what Common Core does and is trying to improve upon it, instead of scrapping the idea as a whole. This seems to be the best of both worl ds, having a standard set of goals for the state as a whole while allowing schools to take control of how the students they teach will be able to reach said goals. In Jennifer Marshall and Lindsey Burkes article Why National Standards Wont Fix American Education: Misalignment of Power and Incentives they go into great detail about the root issue behind national standards and testing. A misconception about national standards is the idea that national standards are necessary for parents to be able to gauge the performance of their child compared to others across the country. Found on the Common Core State Standards Initiatives website, the common core state standards will enable participating states to work together to make expectations clear to parents, teachers, and the general public. Their answer as to why national involvement is the better option fails to address why or how national standards and testing is improving the country. The information parents need is already available through programs such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Student and school performance is in existence, and has been since NCLB, but there can be a lack of transparency in some states. Marshall states If access to information has been inadequate, that does not justify a national standards and testing regime. Rather, policies should insist on clear reporting of the essential data to parents and other taxpayers. In the same article the authors created a list of what state policymakers should do. Strengthening state standards and tests would challenge students while also being able to have the control to raise the challenge as the years went on, like Massachusetts. Marshall believes States with outstanding standards and tests have taken great pains to ensure proper and precise learning sequencing. This is appropriate at the state level, where teacher certification and other integrated factors of a quality education system are determined. Allowing states control of their standards would foster a better curriculum and higher achieving students, as seen by Massachusetts. Another initiative to be taken is state publishing of school test scores readily available to parents. This would enable transparency and accountability within the state so that schools would push towards the standards outlined by the state. Common Core is failing our students, but if it were to be repealed and replaced with a state centered curriculum and testing we would prosper, not only as a nation, but as individuals. Teaching the test is detrimental to all students but it especially hurts those who dont have the initial drive, internal or external, and fall behind. The promise from my high school was that each and every one of us were to be ready for the daily rigor higher education fosters upon graduation. I firmly believe getting an education based around an individual set of standards, state-made and locally carried out, will help them reach goals they didnt think was possible, no matter the background they come from. Works Cited Ballentine, Summer. Missouri Education Officials Replace Common Core Standards. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 20 Apr. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. . Bidwell, Allie. The History of Common Core State Standards. U.S. News. U.S. News, 27 Feb. 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 16. . Carapezza, Kirk. How Massachusetts Schools Went From The Middle Of The Pack To First Place. On Campus. WGBH.org, 24 Apr. 2016. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. . Frequently Asked Questions. Common Core State Standards Initiative. Corestandards.org, n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. . Lambert, Diana. Poor Students Lose Ground with Common Core Testing. The Sacramento Bee. Sacbee.com, 22 Sept. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. . Marshall, Jennifer A. Why National Standards Wont Fix American Education: Misalignment of Power and Incentives. The Heritage Foundation. Heritage.org, 21 May 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. . McCluskey, Neal. Behind the Curtain: Assessing the Case for National Curriculum Standards. Cato Institute. Cato.org, 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. . Singer, Alan. The Common Core Brake Job And The Need For A National Standards Discussion. The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 05 Jan. 2017. Web. 6 Mar. 2017. .

Fiction and Literary Works Essay

With that said, it is important to remember that all literary works cannot always be easily classified into a single genre. Moreover, literary works which might be classified as belonging to one genre might possess many qualities more typical of other genres. For example, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is classified as drama, but in many respects takes the form of poetry. In other words, sometimes the differences between categories like drama, poetry, and the short story are not so easily defined. Often a short story might contain poetic or dramatic qualities, or a poem might include narrative and dramatic features. In your post, summarize the major similarities and differences between the forms of drama, poetry, and the short story. Demonstrate your ideas with textual examples from the course readings. In your response, include at least one example of each literary form. If you wish, you may also point to examples which indicate the blurring of literary genres (e.g., the poetic qualities of Macbeth or the dramatic elements of Gift of the Magi). There are so much to say when it comes to similarities with drama, poetry and a short story. Personally I see that all three have some subliminal message for the audience whether it is lessons learn or an experience personal to the writer. In literary perspectives, like mentioned above, sometimes a poem or short story can merge with another genre such as drama. An example of a short story that can be drama is perhaps â€Å"The Necklace† because the story is about a lady who borrows and loses something her friend lent her and went through so much trouble to replace it instead of coming clean with the friend. A drama is meant to have characters that perform and we see this is a short story known as â€Å"I’m Going† where we see the characters clearly speaking and also we get narrative information to help the audience understand the plot and setting. Poetry is written in different formats or rhythms but can also tell a story but does not always have a plot. All have some sort of tone to set the seriousness or relax humor of the literary work. â€Å"My Papa’s Waltz† is a poem which tells a story of a father and son yet there are also dramatic features as the story is told.

Definition and Examples of Juxtaposition in Art

In the  composition  of any artwork, juxtaposition is the placing of elements side by side, leaving it up to the reader to establish connections and discover or  impose a meaning. These elements (words, clauses, or sentences, in written composition) may be drawn from different sources and juxtaposed to form a literary collage. Careful planning and craft  by the writer in choosing what elements to juxtapose can provide layers of meaning, present irony, or paint a scene with a lot of detail and depth, putting the reader right in the middle of it all. Example From H.L. Mencken Watchmen at lonely railroad crossings in Iowa, hoping that theyll be able to get off to hear the United Brethren evangelist preach...Ticket-sellers in the subway, breathing sweat in its gaseous form...Farmers plowing sterile fields behind sad meditative horses, both suffering from the bites of insects...Grocery-clerks trying to make assignations with soapy servant girls...Women confined for the ninth or tenth time, wondering helplessly what it is all about.(H.L. Mencken, Diligence. A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1949) Example From Samuel Beckett We live and learn, that was a true saying. Also, his teeth and jaws had been in heaven, splinters of vanquished toast spraying forth at each gnash. It was like eating glass. His mouth burned and ached with the exploit. Then the food had been further spiced up by the intelligence, transmitted in a low tragic voice across the counter by Oliver the improver, that the Malahide murderer’s petition for mercy, signed by half the land, having been rejected, the man must swing at dawn in Mountjoy and nothing could save him. Ellis the hangman was even now on his way. Belacqua, tearing at the sandwich and swilling the precious stout, pondered on McCabe in his cell.(Samuel Beckett, Dante and the Lobster. Samuel Beckett: Poems, Short Fiction, and Criticism, ed. by Paul Auster. Grove Press, 2006) Ironic Juxtaposition Juxtaposition is not just for comparison of the similar but also to contrast the dissimilar, which can be effective for emphasizing a writers message or illustrating a concept. Ironic juxtaposition is the fancy term for what happens when two disparate things are placed side by side, each commenting on the other...Olivia Judson, a science writer, uses this technique to tweak our interest in what could be a stultifying subject, the female green spoon worm: The green spoon worm has one of the most extreme size differences known to exist between male and female, the male being 200,000 times smaller than his mate. Her lifespan is a couple of years. His is only a couple of months—and he spends his short life inside her reproductive tract, regurgitating sperm through his mouth to fertilize her eggs. More ignominious still, when he was first discovered, he was thought to be a nasty parasitic infestation.(from Seed magazine) The authors point of view is a sly wink, the humiliation of the minuscule male sea creature serving as an emblem for his crude and increasingly miniaturized human counterpart. The juxtaposition is between worm sex and human sex. (Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. Little, Brown and Company, 2006) Haiku Of course, the technique is not limited to prose. Poetry can make fine use of it, even in the smallest of works, to present images next to each other to illustrate, portray  meaning, or even surprise or puzzle the reader, such as in  17th- and 18th-century Japanese haiku: Haiku 1Harvest moon:On the bamboo matPine tree shadows.Haiku 2Wooden gate.Lock firmly bolted:Winter moon. ...In each case, there is only an implicit connection between the elements on either side of the colon. Although it is possible to see a causal relation between a harvest moon and pine tree shadows, the lack of explicit connections forces the reader to make an imaginative leap. The connection between a locked wooden gate and a winter moon demands an even greater imaginative effort. In each poem, there is a basic juxtaposition between a natural image and a human one—a harvest moon and a bamboo mat, a bolted gate and a winter moon—which creates a tension between the first and second part.(Martin Montgomery et al., Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2000) Juxtaposition in Art, Video, and Music But juxtaposition isnt confined  to literature. It can be in paintings, such as in surrealists or other abstract artists works: The Surrealist tradition...is united by the idea of destroying conventional meanings, and creating new meanings or counter-meanings through radical juxtaposition (the collage principle). Beauty, in the words of Lautrà ©amont, is the fortuitous encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table....The Surrealist sensibility aims to shock, through its techniques of radical juxtaposition. (Susan Sontag, Happenings: An Art of Radical Juxtaposition. Against Interpretation, and Other Essays. Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1966) It can appear in pop culture, such as in films and video: Pressed to its limits, artistic  juxtaposition  becomes  what is sometimes termed  pastiche. The goal of this tactic, which has been employed in both high-culture and pop-culture contexts (e.g., MTV videos), is to barrage the viewer with incongruous, even clashing images that call into question any sense of objective meaning. (Stanley James Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism. Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996) And juxtaposition  can be a part of music as well:  Another model for such work, and related to hypertext because of its ability to interconnect a wide variety of ideas and texts, are the DJ samples that comprise a great deal of hip-hop. (Jeff R. Rice, The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media. Southern Illinois University Press, 2007)

The Social Responsibility Of A Social Service - 899 Words

Man is a social animal so he cannot live alone. Society does its best to provide the individual with all the comforts amenities and facilities of life. So it is duty to do service for others. Nowadays more and more organizations are engaging in positive way often referred to as corporate social responsibility. It is important to doing a social service all organizations. CSR aims to embrace responsibility for to reassure a positive effect on the environment and stakeholders containing consumers, employees, investors, communities and others. Firstly how company practices in CSR, how company impact on Society, what activities does CSR. Firstly, most of the companies giving free education to poor people, giving free medical check-up and†¦show more content†¦Corporate social responsibility is not working resolve the world problems. That said CSR is a way for companies to profit themselves while also benefiting societies. They take care of their employees, stakeholders, investors and customers. They give a respect of our staff s and caring for employees, delight everyone in same style, fresh food, labeling, pay suppliers on time, respecting the human rights, friendly behaving and honest. CSR following the law and solved some government issues, business on environment use nature source with care. The CSR focuses broadly on how or whether companies’ sole purpose is to improve and increase the wealth of shareholders and stakeholders and in making different kind of decisions. The debate about CSR has been introduced in every era by different platforms, which was mostly focused on large national and multinational MNC’s NC’s. However are now evolved time by time and considering wide social responsibilities for example? Community rights, environment and employee. CSR activities are directed to the natural environment. . Speculative research display that being environmentally energetic results in cost and risk decrement. Specifically data shows hat being proactive on atmosphere problems can lesser the costs of observing with present and coming environmental rules . lastly CSR activities are directed to the managing community