North Carolina Common Core Essay

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Common Core in North Carolina
The State of North Carolina has gone through many educational changes over the years. These changes include the adoption of Common Core State Standards, the implementation of benchmark assessments, and teacher based standards that ensure that teachers are being held accountable in their classrooms. All of these standards were put into place to ensure that students are getting the best education possible so that they can succeed in their future endeavors. The purpose of this essay is to walk you through North Carolina’s implementation of Common Core State Standards, reactions to the standards, and the assessments that are set in place to level student mastery in each standard.
On June 3, 2010, Common Core state …show more content…

The Benchmark Assessment is done at the end of the first quarter in English Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies in order to examine the mastery of state based standards.

There are two variation of the benchmark assessment, one named Study-Island, a teacher created assessment, and the other named NC Check-ins, a state created assessment. Assessment scores range between levels of mastery, near mastery, and remediation. Those ranges shift in percentage from grade to grade and are compared throughout the district to see if schools and teachers are teaching in sync with one another.

Parent gave a great deal of push back with all the new tests that were aligned to measure Common Core’s mastery, however, teacher’s also shared similar grievances. Educators noticed a significant drop in math test scores and proficiency since implementing Common Core State Standards. “In 2012, 89.7 percent of white students in third through eighth grade were proficient in math, while 70 percent of black students were proficient in the subject, a gap of 19.7 percentage points. In 2016, the gap was 31.8 points, with white student proficiency at 58.9 percent and black student proficiency at 27.1 percent (2017).” Because of the significant drops in numbers over the years, North Carolina has created new standard guidelines to better assist math teacher and to grow student proficiency