Years After States Adopt Common Core, 2018 Sees Worst ACT Scores in over a Decade
After years of Common Core standards, Americans students math skills are eroding, according to a new report.
ACT, which administers standardized exams used for college entrance, said that students who took the 2018 exam had the lowest readiness for college math since 2004.
Only 40 percent of high school students met the ACT College Readiness Benchmark in math. That’s down from an ACT high of 46 percent in 2012, and the lowest mark since 2004, the ACT report noted.
It gets worse.
The report said the average math ACT score has hit its lowest level — 20.5 — in 20 years. The average score has also been falling since 2012.
Common Core — a national effort to standardize curriculum — was launched in 2010 during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
Politicians and states continue to pour more money into education for political leverage. The return on investment is abysmal. K-12 education in America has turned into LABORATORIES of LIBERAL INDOCTRINATION and SOCIAL JUSTICE GARBAGE instead of learning. https://t.co/PI7paeL0Bx
— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) October 18, 2018
Ohio State Rep. Andrew Thompson said Common Core does not deserve all the blame for the falling scores, but called it “a significant factor.”
“I think testimony we took during our attempts to eradicate Common Core showed the dumbing down of curriculum, the social justice indoctrination, the emphasis on social-emotional learning, reduced quantity and quality of reading, emphasizing screen time rather than classroom instruction,” Thompson said, according to PJ Media. “Destruction of proper math has also been a contributing factor.”
Common Core proponents, he said, “place a higher priority on indoctrination than education.”
The results are a cause for concern.
“Math specifically concerns me in a society that’s becoming more and more technological,” said ACT Chief Executive Marten Roorda, according to The Wall Street Journal. “The economy needs more students with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, and good math skills are vital to the STEM orientation. There is a high risk for the U.S. economy coming to a slowdown or a standstill.”
In the ACT report, Roorda called the results “a red flag for our country, given the growing importance of math and science skills in the increasingly tech-driven U.S. and global job market.”
A leading math teacher said the changes needed must take place in the classroom.
“We should be concerned as a country,” said Matt Larson, immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “There’s a need to restructure how high-school mathematics teaching and learning is done in the United States.”
The report also noted that high school graduates college readiness in English is also slipping. The report said 60 percent were considered ready, based upon their scores, a drop from 64 percent in 2015. The 2018 level was the lowest since current benchmarks began to be used, ACT said.
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