A Look at the Common Core in the Classroom

Ninth graders in Jake Eismeier’s English class at Cross Keys High School are reading a book called The Hot Zone. It’s about an outbreak of the Ebola virus in suburban Washington, D.C., in the early 1990’s. Mr. Eismeier is using an excerpt from the book to teach writing.

The students are given time to write their own descriptive passages. Then some share theirs.

A book about an Ebola outbreak may not seem like a literary classic. Eismeier says his students will read plenty of those, including Homer’s The Odyssey and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, he says, focusing on non-fiction texts is one change brought about by the Common Core.

“The percentage of non-fiction reading [students will] be doing in their post-high school education is probably going to be about 80%-90% informational, 10%-15% literary,” he says. “So, there’s been a shift to include significant non-fiction units.”  

In addition to those changes, Cross Keys principal Tashara Wilson says the Common Core is more rigorous than the previous Georgia Performance Standards. She says there are other differences too.

“The students are engaged, a lot of technology,” Wilson says. “The state has provided a lot of great resources, particularly in English/Language Arts. The students are excited about learning and the teachers love what they do.”

The school has also seen improvements. In English Literature, for example, the class Eismeier teaches, 67% of Cross Keys students passed the state-issued End of Course test last year. That compares with 56% the year before. The school’s graduation rate also ticked up.

Cross Keys is roughly 80% Latino, meaning there’s a high number of English Language Learners. It’s also a Title I school, which means a majority of students qualify for free or reduced meals. Wilson says given such challenges, academic improvements are a good sign.

“We still have room to grow,” she says. “But overall, we’re really satisfied in the direction that we’re going. We are showing gains across the board in student academic achievement and we’re really excited about where Cross Keys is going.”

The Common Core wasn’t just developed for schools like Cross Keys. The idea was to create a set of rigorous standards that would better prepare all students for college and careers. Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue was involved in the standards’ development.

“It lined up with the way other students internationally were performing, and we expect the best of the best,” Perdue told WABE, “And I see no reason with having those kind of standards.”

But other Georgia Republicans, like Rep. Ed Setzler (R-Smyrna), think Georgia would be better off without the Common Core.

“I believe we need to set our standards very, very high,” Setzler says. “And I would say even higher than the levels Common Core would suggest, but we as a state don’t need the federal government or any single organization nationally to make that happen for us.”

But at Cross Keys, the politics swirling around the Common Core seem far removed. In Steven Leader’s geometry class, for example, students are focused instead on learning how to construct a building model.

Everyone is concentrating on the task at hand. Teachers are focused on students, and students are focused on learning.