The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12

After reading this chapter about the CCSS my feelings are still mixed on the topic. I still feel that it is fantastic that we have some sort of standard to found our classrooms and teaching on (some sort of tangible standard). However, in some ways it feels like the CCSS were smashed down on paper, signed off, and then the education world was forgotten. There is so much that the CCSS don't address and they certainly aren't a fix it all. My very first thought as I started reading this chapter was that the standards should be shaped by the needs of the students. What we are teaching should be beneficial to all of our students. That seems like a no-brainer and, in a way, the standards are striving for this. However, while the CCSS do aim to achieve intellectual and academic greatness they seem to often lack in the importance of personal and creative achievement. Of course, one could argue that the CCSS are supposed to be strictly academic focused and teachers can guide students in their personal and creative growth as they see fit. But, how can students focus on a balanced school diet of academic and personal growth if the teachers are constantly trying to meet standards that only focus on the academic. Something is lacking here.
This lack of emphasis on personal growth in the CCSS also reflects (as mentioned in the chapter) a lack of care or acknowledgement of cultural diversity and instead tends to encourage (however accidentally) a push towards homogenization of curriculum. We know that all students and classrooms are different and we know that what works in one classroom could fail miserably in another. Do we still push the same agenda? Do we still try to put our students into the cookie cutter mold that strictly following CCSS would enforce? Do we forget the importance of the cultures and the diversity and individuality of our classrooms and our students? I should think not! There needs to be a balance between what the CCSS focus on (the academic and the intellectual) and what is left out (the cultural and the personal).
Finally, I was struck by the section of the chapter that mentioned how students in different SES situations and cultures may not understand why they are being asked to perform certain tasks and achieve certain standards. And why should't they be skeptical? Sometimes we look so hard and long at the academic side of things we forget to remember that the skills we teach our students need to be practical. They need to be applicable to the students' lives and they need to clearly have some sort of real life impact on the student. This is something that each teacher should consider when trying to meet a CCSS. How is the way they are teaching this standard going to impact the life of their student and is it going to make sense to the students as to why they are learning it? After all, everything we implement in our schools should be for our students and if something isn't then we need to take a step back and ask the question...why, and how do I fix this?