Dear President Elect,

Common Core is the federal takeover of the nation. People had less trouble with the Education System in the nation, yet the government sparked protests after they brought in Common Core. Many people that are high up in this nation approved the inclusion of Common Core into our education system. I 100% disagree with them; common core introduced more stress into our studying habits by letting us retake tests, they made it so that students would memorize the test answers, not fully understanding the questions according to teaching.about.com. The people in the Department of Education should have at least waited to introduce Common Core to our country, some, if not all standards are very broad and need to be more specific. Mr President, you know that some schools do not have the power and money to get their hands on technology according to teaching.about.com. Common Core makes students take every test on the computer. Therefore many schools have to struggle and come up with ways to make sure they can keep up to their state standards. Too many people have to suffer because of Common Core. It’s just not fair to the people who don’t have the proper resources. 

The ultimate goal of Common Core is just to have the whole nation follow the Common Core Standards even though the old Grade Standards were sufficient. Mr President, what are you going to do to stop this from happening? I think that Common Core is more a struggle less a blessing for me & any other sensible kids. Even parents who wish good education for their kids are against Common Core. As said in a comment from anonymos at FreedomWorks.org, “I just watched a number of sample videos of common core math in action at, I believe, a Cupertino high school in CA. I must confess that it was excruciatingly painful. A simple high school geometry concept was turned into this unbelievable brain-storming, creativity exercise that students were left to ‘persevere’ through and manifested in their ‘convincing’ their fellow students about their ‘conjectures.’’’ This evidently spanned over a whole week of math classes. How could adults educate us like this? Dr. Stotsky from the Dep. of Education claimed that Common Core covers and reinforces the old state standards, however they just made the lessons longer and more complicating. Students in the old state standard would probably breeze through the same subject in less than half a period. “ConcernedParent” said on FreedomWorks.org, “what happened to teaching kids the elegance of mathematics? What makes math, or education for that matter, so powerful is that it makes complicated subjects simple - elegantly and practically, not the other way around!” The kids who understand the concept of Common Core will not have any trouble with their work, but what about the kids who don’t understand? They will keep sinking lower and lower while the other kids who understand it will be going the exact opposite direction. This will create a bigger gap between the 4.0 GPA’s and 2.5 GPA’s and there will be scarce in-between. The average students will be much worse as they now follow a much lower bar. The struggling students might receive the needed help to grasp the concepts better. However, since the bar could be so much lower, I strongly question its overall benefit. Ironically, the reason a particular student, or a school, struggles probably has more to do with factors other than how a certain subject is taught in school; the kids need encouragement to get them back on their feet,or the parents can show that they are interested in their child’s lives. Mr. President I need you to stop all who are involved with Common Core, I plead to you that please, please stop Common Core.

I am not saying that everything in Common Core is negative. One of the things I have enjoyed about Common Core is that it brings a lot of creativity into the classroom; it requires you to think outside the box and check your answers with other students. Another good thing about Common Core is that it is collaborative. Who doesn’t like working with your friends? Even if there are a lot less positive things than negative things about Common Core, it has gave me very enjoyable learning moments.

So Mr President, what will you do? Will you help save us from Common Core or will you let us fall prey to its outstretched talons?

Gage Peckham