According to Levin, school curriculum for grades K-12 are highly debated in the United States as the policy and politics for academic learning will eventually serve to shape ideals, values, and even political ideology for the students across the nation. Aside from only focusing on whether or not students are gaining adequate skills and knowledge for core subjects such as math, language arts and reading, the public has continued to show a genuine concern for the fundamental benefits that Common Core standards assert to bring to the academic life of students, but also for the public as a whole. The dilemma presented with the development and implementation of Common Core standards is the determination of who will make the final decisions on what these standards will be (Levin, 2008).
The Common Core State Standards in the state of Florida will be more orientated toward to making sure that grammar and high school students are better prepared for college or for a career. The plan to ensure this preparation stems from placing a deeper focus on literacy levels and equipping the students to be able to effectively defend their positions with evidence (“Your Essential Guide to the Common Core,” n.d.). In applying these Florida State Standards, educators expect an outcome where each student has the ability to demonstrate that they have mastered the curriculum for each grade level as well be able to show that they fully understand the courses that they were taught. Interestingly, Florida has added subjects such as Calculus and Cursive Writing to the state standards while other states have decided to remove those subjects. This supports Levin’s argument that because grade school lessons are so fundamental to the student receiving the education and the public as whole, standards may need to be reevaluated by those in the best positions to gage their effectiveness (Levin, 2008). It is also interesting to note that the ideals and values of politicians heavily influence the outcome of academic curriculum, and therefore the issue of how much political influence should have over the setting of school curriculums and standards should be reexamined (Levin, 2008).
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Levin makes an interesting point as when discussing that a large gap exist between the states’ ability to develop a rational, comprehensive curriculum that correlates with the actual experience that students go through in actual classroom settings (Levin, 2008). The NAEP Data Explorer (NEP) was developed, however, as a tool to measure and evaluate subject-matter assessments for different classifications of students to help determine how common the school curriculum in the state of Florida is, against how much more common it should be. In other words, the NEP tool examines student achievement in different areas of subject matter based for students separated by race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic groups, and gifted program (advanced) students. Further, it should be noted that the NEP for the state of Florida has begun to assess students’ achievement levels in the areas of reading and math for 4th and 8th graders to remain in compliance with the federal legislation No Child Left Behind Act enacted in 2001 (Solodev. 2007).
Identifying the basic fundamental concepts that students need to be effective in college or their chosen career will require a great deal of literacy and the ability to critically think as they solve problems. Under the new Common Core Standards, for example, students will be taught how to arrive at the correct mathematical answers using a set of problems or applicable activities rather than having the formula being provided by the teacher (“Effective teacher training critical to success of Common Core math,” n.d..) This new method of instruction is deemed ‘revolutionary’ as it deviates from traditional styles of learning , but does seem to fall in line with the notion supported by Levin. As more states adopt a set of common standards, however, educators must also be trained and prepared to teach in this manner as it will ultimately determine the success of Common Core for students across the nation.
