Previously discussed in class this past week was the topic of the students being the finished products of schools. In a way that the professors and the materials they use to teach students can be seen as employees working on a product and the final product being the type of quality student received at the doors of employers. The students overall knowledge and preparedness upon graduation can serve as the measurable quality of the school’s professors and materials used.
One can say that overall the way professors teach is changing with time and technology advancements, but is it moving in the proper direction to result in the highest quality student possible? That can be argued both ways and it is all beginning in the earlier stage of the process line of the students, back to K-12 grades, where all the essential quality procedures have to be conducted no matter what.
Through advancements in technology the materials used by teachers in K-12 have been changing from regular take home textbooks to leave at school textbooks to virtual at home learning. Many cannot complain about that, the book bag load is lighter and means less homework to others, is that the road that education wishes to take? The big change to this is being caused by the lack of funds to purchase and keep textbooks in the classroom for all the students. That is why school districts are being forced to look at other means and types of material to use in the education of the students.  Many parents like Paul Lewis, from the article describe their concern with not seeing their child do homework at home because now it has to be done at school since there is a limited amount of textbooks that can be used. Questions are rising to whether this new method is helping the students or decreasing their chances for the future.
To aid the teachers and assist in teaching where the lack of funds become an issue there is a new program called Common Core that is being used in the classroom to measure standard and ensure teaching is being done. Common Core is a program that has been recently released and is being used as a standard guide that is set at a customized level by each state. The point of the program is to set educational standards for all teachers to follow and be teaching the students, even for those with no textbooks to at a level with the rest.  Many doubt the relief that Common Core is suppose to provide due to its lack of sufficient evidence that it will help close the gap with schools that lack textbooks and methods to teach students without homework and through virtual methods. In many ways Common Core can be seen in similarities to Six Sigma and setting standards and expectations to be met by the teachers regardless of size and resources on hand.
But as Vicki Ferguson the director of teacher education at the University of Science and Arts Oklahoma states, “Time will tell. Hopefully, this will push kids to read at or above the college level.”

Do you think that setting Common Core across the board for all schools to follow result in better type of quality students? Or does something else need to be done in order to help schools remain at standard regardless of textbooks across the nation?

http://asq.org/qualitynews/qnt/execute/displaySetup?newsID=14783
http://www.corestandards.org/