Florida becomes latest state to eliminate the Common Core

The Florida Department of Education announced in a press release Feb. 7 that it would eradicate the Common Core and implement a new education standard for its schools.

Florida is not the first state to leave the Common Core and it is unlikely that it will be the last.

Texas, Alaska, Nebraska and Virginia do not follow the Common Core. Minnesota only abides by the Common Core for English language arts.

Common Core Standards Adoption by State

The Idaho House Committee voted 10-5 to remove the Idaho Core Standards, or the Common Core Standards according to a tweet from Rep. Brent Crane.

What is the Common Core?

The Common Core is a set of academic standards in mathematics and English language arts to be adopted on a state by state basis. According to the Common Core website, the standards are meant to "ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live."

In 2009, the Obama administration pushed for national education standards and the Common Core standards were created. States are allowed to adopt the standards voluntarily. However, federal funding is often linked to the adoption of these standards, according to this study.

However, there has been much debate as to the true effectiveness of these standards to actually combat the fundamental problems with the United States education system.

As the previous tweet alludes to, there is a responsibility of both parents and teachers to advocate for better solutions to problems in public education.

But the question as to how to resolve deep-rooted problems with structure of public education still remains.

Misconceptions about national standards and testing

The Common Core standards were developed because the United States does not rank well on a global level for education standards. The United States ranks in the middle of the performance distribution globally for Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) according to this study.

Yet, there is not overwhelming proof that national standards could do anything to fix this.

Canada ranks higher than the U.S. in the performance distribution but does not have national education standards.

What is the importance in ranking higher than other countries globally, anyways?

National standards were also implemented as a way of helping parents understand how their child's academic achievement ranks against other children across the country. Instead of creating national standards on relaying information to parents, national policies could just call for states to better publicize essential data, like a school's information on school, teacher and student performance that is already required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

It seems wrong to pit children against each other through testing that plays to a certain set of skills. It leaves students feeling inadequate and discouraged with school.

The Common Core standards do not necessarily combat the problem of power and incentive structures in public education, pushing states to turn to other methods.