The complaints I have heard from my son’s teachers is the new standards implemented by the Government sterilized the learning process and stripped them of their ability to teach lessons contextually with outside materials. I know both my sons said learning became a chore instead of being challenging in fun creative ways. Now I would expect any teacher would have wiggle room to change things up but Common Core removed a lot of the classics that brought culture and depth to the learning process.
I also so the effect it had on my son who is a high achiever student where he got thrust into groups where he was dummied down by the curriculum or found himself teaching the kids in his group that couldn’t understand the material. Our schools in our district overall are excellent and had excellent programs before this and Common Core has scrubbed away many of the finer elements of their curriculum.
This one group sums up a lot of the complaints out there and is has a lot more points of contention than this one:
“The curriculum replaces the classics with government propaganda. According to the American Principles Project, “They de-emphasize the study of classic literature in favor of reading so-called ‘informational texts,’ such as government documents, court opinions, and technical manuals.” Over half the reading materials in grades 6–12 are to consist of informational texts rather than classical literature. Historical texts like the Gettysburg Address are to be presented to students without context or explanation.”
“The bloated program is underfunded. Local school administrators have already started complaining that the grants aren’t enough to cover the requirements behind them. “We were spending a disproportionate amount of time following all the requirements,” said Mike Johnson, the superintendent of Bexley schools in Ohio, which turned down the last half of a $100,000, four-year grant this school year. “It was costing us far more than that to implement all of the mandates.”