Common Core to be overhauled

The State Board of Regents approved a four-year moratorium Tuesday on using the annual state English and math tests for students in grades three to eight for teacher evaluations or student promotion which was among the 21 recommendations that the 15-member governor-appointed task force unveiled for reevaluating the Common Core Learning Standards that New York State implemented more than three years ago. The ban will last until the 2019-2020 school year.
Another 20 recommendations are aimed at establishing higher quality standards, developing better curriculum guidance and resources, and to substantially reduce the time involved in preparing for and taking state standardized tests.
The recommendations came amid a raft of proposed policy changes intended, as the report states, “to right the ship.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo impaneled the task force this fall after mounting parental anger over plummeting exam scores led more than 200,000 New York students in grades three to eight to “opt out” of the battery of state tests required under the Common Core last spring.
In making their recommendations, the task force heard from more than 200 pre-K-12 educators, parents, students, and academic experts reviewed more than 1,800 submitted comments.
Richard Parsons, the Common Core Task Force chairman, said the state still has a chance to get Common Core “right.” “The Common Core Standards must be revisited to reflect the particular needs and priorities of state and local school districts, and building on the foundation established by the Common Core Standards, high-quality [standards] must be developed where necessary to meet the needs of our kids.”

Full implementation of the recommended reforms, Parsons said, would require a “transition period” of four years, at minimum. “It is our belief,” he said, “that these recommendations provide the foundation to restore public trust.”
No new legislation is needed to implement the task force’s recommendations, according to the governor’s office, and the policy changes were expected to go through without rancor.
Local school district officials have said they did not oppose Common Core, but didn’t agree with the way it was introduced. “I don’t see it as a backtrack on the Common Core itself, only on the botched rollout of high-stakes tests based on the Common Core and their use in teacher evaluations; all of which took place far too quickly,” said Rick Stark, president of the Hewlett-Woodmere Faculty Association.
Lori Skonberg, president of the Lawrence Teachers Association, said that teaching to a test isn’t a sound educational practice and tying those results to a teacher’s performance doesn’t serve anyone. “It’s always been about the implementation and the rollout that needed more direction,” Skonberg said. “A teacher’s job is more than the curricula that needs to be taught. It is about the social emotional component; creating a classroom community and supporting our students so they can succeed both in and outside the classroom.”
Cuomo applauded the task force’s efforts last week. “The Common Core was supposed to ensure all of our children had the education they needed to be college- and career-ready, but it actually caused confusion and anxiety. That ends now,” he said.
But both Skonberg and Stark do not think that the opt-out movement will come to a screeching halt because of the ban. “This moratorium would not eliminate or even slow down the opt-out movement because of the fact that this movement wants standardized tests removed from their children’s education,” Skonberg said. Stark said the ban has to be “accompanied by changes to the tests themselves to make them shorter and more appropriate.”