The common core conundrum.

• Author: Arabadjis, Heather
• Position: Education

"The short-term decisions we make for our children can have long-term effects. [By] preparing your children to take demanding, challenging tests from a young age, you are providing them with experience they will need in the future."

FOR MANY parents, the Department of Education's "Common Core" is a source of tremendous anxiety and frustration, second only to their child's reactions to the words "test prep time." Although Common Core (CC) has been in the making since 2007, the exam component was rolled out in 2013. Ever since, CC has been creating waves that have been felt throughout the U.S.

The motivation underlying CC is easy to understand, even praiseworthy. Because high school students were underperforming in postsecondary education, CC was developed to address the gaps in skills and resources they were missing. Identifying those gaps led to a curriculum redesign from kindergarten through 12th grade.

While CC is nice in theory, in practice the "standardized" tests actually are a few grade levels above the child's actual grade. For instance, the 2016 English Language Arts CC exam for third grade included a reading passage that was recommended for students in grades six through eight. Not surprisingly, many students failed. With no alternatives or accommodations in place for students to demonstrate that they had mastered their grade level learning requirements, they failed the grade altogether, or attended summer school to rewrite the exam.

In my experience, the disconnect between the test subject matter and the learner's educational level is most apparent in the English and math exams. Many of the articles students are asked to read and interpret are not compatible with concepts they learn in class. For example, students could be given a non-fiction article about the frontier without ever having been exposed to background information. Traditional math exams have been transformed into reading exams, featuring word problems. New methods of addition and multiplication are taught to students by teachers who are not trained in this methodology.

Outside of the classroom, parents are unable to supplement this new style, as they never learned this kind of math and do not see the value of it. In fact, a flurry of posts on social media from parent claims that CC math problems are "ridiculous" and "ineffective." The underlying message is that mastering math no longer is important.

That said, parents now have the right to opt their children out of...