America, while a global leader in many areas left behind other countries of the industrialized world in educating its children. Bill Gates, who provided millions of dollars to help develop the common core through his global foundation, wrote the standards of the common core are “inspired by a simple and powerful idea: every American student should leave high school with the knowledge and in the job market.” With this goal in mind, 48 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Common Core Standards. This, however, has not been done without criticism. The common core state standards initiative, known as the common core, is a set of academic standards for mathematics and reading from kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards, which …show more content…
Which means students will learn to read and write more deeply by analyzing kinds of information, and also will have to develop stronger math skills and be able to use more than one strategy to solve the problems. The main focus of the Common Core Standards are preparing America’s students for college and career, preparing students for productive employment and economic self-sufficiency. But Common Core is not just about college and career. It is also focused on preparing students for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. “First states to adopt the standards is Kentucky. In 2009, the graduation rate for Latino students from 58.5 bumped to 80 percent.” (Richardson, 2015) “A separate study of students in Kentucky, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, confirmed that the tools improved student learning. The study found that students in classrooms using the LDC gained, on average, 2.2 months in reading achievement compared with similar students who did not use the tool. And low-income students gained even more. The study also found that students in classrooms using a companion tool in mathematics, the Mathematics Design Collaborative, gained an average of 4.6 months in achievement in that subject.”