Matt+G’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=The Ride Never Ends!=

Hello, my name is Matt Gonzales, and today I'm going to talk to you about an issue which will affect future students at Foothill as well as students throughout the nation. Due to the fact that this is a history class, I thought I would give my speech on history in the making. As some of you might know, our school will be adapting the Common Core language arts and math curriculum, which will be implemented next school year. The goal of Common Core is to become the framework for education in the US, effectively providing us a national standard for learning, so that there are no "good schools" or "bad schools", as we're all learning the same thing. This sounds like a great idea at first glance, however this Common Core is drastically flawed in quite a few ways, and it's adaption will undoubtedly hinder student education.

The first issue I'm going to talk about is how an integral part of Common Core It should be noted that Common Core does not inspire students to pursue higher education with a rigorous curriculum and the like, so that community college will be an acceptable route, even for someone who is academically driven. I is lowering educational standards, setting the bar so low that it becomes impossible not to meet such standards. In other words, it's providing such a low-tiered education, where proficiency in a given subject is devalued, and the bare minimum is encouraged. So to put it simply, Common Core is a system costing the tax payers a hefty $759 million dollars to implement in California alone, with the return being an even worse-off educational system in terms of quality.

Speaking of Common Core's level of quality, I'll give you an example- take for instance it's math curriculum. It's quite exclusive in terms of what is taught in said math curriculum, with integral parts of Geometry and Algebra 2 being left out, despite much of the excluded content being a prerequisite for four-year universities. Why exclude content? The writers and backers of Common Core want their curriculum to be a success, and I have no doubt that it will be a great success, as I've said before, they are lowering the level of intensity at public high school, and in turn, ensuring that we won't do well colleges beyond the likes of VC. It values pathos rhetoric and a "mediocrity is acceptable teaching mantra", while completely forcing out logic and fact. This is immensely problematic, because it's setting us all up for failure if we do so wish to have careers that doesn't involve begging the question "would you like fries with that". Beyond that, in mathematics, it values explaining one's steps of the equation, all the while devaluing the actual answer. For example, if I told you that 6 times 4 is 23, and I told you how I came up with that answer, I wouldn't be penalized, even though I was incorrect, because the curriculum values effort over accuracy in whatever's being taught. What are the future engineers going to do when they can't add or multiply correctly, as the method for which they learned elementary math is too convoluted. Common Core is a horrid and problematic system, which will degenerate education by extraordinary means.

Common Core also should not be implemented because it puts means of profit above learning, through the privatization of learning standards, even at the expense of quality. State educational departments have been forced into submission to approve the standards, with the promising of grant money from the deep pockets of "No Child Left Behind" and "Race to the Top" funds under the expectation that Common Core standards are to be adopted. It doesn't matter if Common Core is inferior or not, because state education budgets are so small that declining the funds is a very hard choice, at least, such is the case in California. Common Core is a creation made possible through private funding; states had no say in how it was written, so school administrators have to accept Common Core's copyrighted material the way it was written, with very little room for deviation.

Education is a business, and David Coleman, the self-described architect of the Common Core can tell you all about business. On top of designing the English-Language Arts Common Core curriculum without having any type of teaching credential, mind you will go on to become the president of the College Board. You might all be aware of the new changes which the SAT will be implementing in 2016- the non-penalization for incorrect answers, the removal of "difficult" vocabulary and a completely optional essay section of the new SAT align with the mediocre, dumbed-down Common Core standards perfectly, and guess who's behind these changes. People in high positions are exploiting public education in order to profit.

Even textbook companies such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill support Common Core whole-heartedly because if Common Core is ever adapted nation-wide, more schools will need to replace their "outdated" curriculum with common core lessons and text books, so there's plenty of money to be made. Due to the fact that Common Core can't fail because the curriculum is made easier on all students, school districts will be fooled into adapting it, and this of course, means the purchasing of all necessary products from said textbook companies. These connections are no coincidence; learning has taken the back seat to the people in charge of our education making money.

Under Common Core, education is back-pedaled, and schools will become a place where innovation goes to die. It discourages creativity and diversity, and students are to become lab rats, as they are subject to new, untested methods of teaching. It looks stellar under a guise of equality, but the standards ignore one crucial fact. We aren't at all equal. We have varying levels of intelligence and comprehension; some of us are more academically driven than others, some of us learn in different ways, and not one of us will perform exactly the same as the other, which is precisely what the standard of Common Core caters to, and is also why Common Core is destined to fail in providing a quality education. One size does not fit all, especially in education, and unfortunately school district officials nation-wide do not grasp this concept.

It's customary to offer a solution in these types of speeches, but in all honesty, I have none. Common Core will become part of VUSD's curriculum next year, and other districts will undoubtedly follow suit, if they haven't adopted it already. What can I, as a 17 year old high school student do to change the bureaucracy. I'm not a Vanderbilt or a state legislator or someone with any means of influence or power, beyond the fact that I can vote when I turn eighteen. This doesn't mean the Amerian people should admit defeat. We, as citizens have the power to change things; hopefully for the better. I urge all of you to be politically aware of what's going on around you and to vote when you're old enough, and to value logic over intuition in application with in your decisions. I dream of an America where we have the power to change things for the better, and we do!

In the America I wish to grow old in, I wish education to be about the students again, with a system of learning based not on fiscal gain, but a system which has the education of the students in mind from start to finish, because school should be a rigorous and demanding environment which sprawls creativity and innovation from everybody, with no compromising of these conditions under any circumstances. That concludes my speech; thank you.

=Cite Your Sources= http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_02/28_02_karp.shtml http://www.schoolimprovement.com/common-core-360/blog/common-core-standards-jumping-ship/ http://www.freedomworks.org/content/top-10-reasons-oppose-common-core http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/23/opinion/tampio-common-core/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html