As a freshman in college, I am still very familiar with common core education standards, as I only parted away from it recently. As a student, I felt that common core was ridiculous and making my life more difficult than it had to be. Of course, I was biased as a student, but now I look back and realize that I was right.

As an older sister, I am still connected to the Common Core education standards through my younger brothers. Both of my younger brother, a nine year old and an eleven year old, are currently experiencing the Common Core which means that when they need help they ask the big sister. Now, I have no problem with helping my younger brothers by any means, up until the moment that their homework is more difficult than mine (Note: This is applicable to both my high school and college homework.) It is important to note that my brothers are in now in third and sixth grade, but this is not the first year that their homework has been abnormally difficult. I like to think that I am an intelligent individual, and I excel in both English and math, so when a their grader's or a sixth grader's homework is more difficult than a firs year college student's, there is a problem.

The purpose of the Common Core standards, according to their website, is that "the Common Core State Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning." While I feel that this is admirable and could be a very good system, I feel as though it is ineffective. From experience, I have noticed that the Common Core system mainly focuses on test scores and performance rather than whether the students are really learning. The mission statement declares that they want to "hep prepare students for college, career, and life;" why does any child not in high school need to prepare for college, career, or life? Shouldn't they be offered the chance to simply be a child rather than be forced to grow up sooner than the should? At this point in time, the system is trying to teach information that neither students or parents are able to understand, despite that schools expect parents to be able to help their students understand the material. If the parents don't understand, how in the world are students expected to understand? I think that the younger children are trying to be prepared when, in reality, it should be the high school students that need the preparation for after graduation.

Despite what the mission statement says, I do not think that the system is helping students prepare for their world after they graduate. The Common Core system does not teach high school seniors properly about politics, how to do their taxes, how to apply for scholarship, or anything related to the real world. Instead they are taught meaningless information that they will probably never use again and force them to have good test scores in order for the school to look successful. The Standards try to make goals for students and teachers to reach, but in trying to do this, they are being unsuccessful in really teaching students about life and ways to be successful.

I admire that the system promotes many alternate ways of learning rather than teaching only one style, but this is also inefficient. For example, math: some students are mathematically inclined and are able to do simple multiplication or division; now schools are teaching three different ways to reach the same answer. This is all fine and well, but when a student is getting bad marks on homework because they do not reach the correct answer through a specific method, there is a problem. Does it really matter how a student gets through the problem if it is logical and they have the correct result? One method that may work for one child does not necessarily mean that it will work for all other children. Children, at any level before graduation, should not be constantly stressing or worrying about their grades or spending countless hours doing homework.

There have been multiple nights that both of my younger brothers have spent multiple hours working on their homework, and taking longer to complete it than I do for homework for an 18-credit hour course load. Children already spend 8 hours or more at school, not including their bus/car trips and their extracurricular activities that are also encouraged. Now students are spending more hours outside of school doing their homework rather than taking time to spend by themselves, outside, or with family after a day at school. Don't get me wrong, I think that students should work hard at school and that spending time on homework to make sure it is right is encouraged, but a third grader should not spend 3+ hours on their homework each night. To add more insult to injury, students are now having to complete multiple projects over Winter and Spring break when they should be de-stressing from school and spending time with their families.

I think that the purpose of the Common Core education standards is admirable and much needed, but I believe it is flawed in its execution and practices. Do I want the future generations to be well prepared for college, careers, and life? Absolutely. Do I think that they are prepared with the Common Core education standards that are set in place today? Absolutely not.