What’s the gripe of those “white suburban moms” (and dads) who have turned out in large numbers to complain about Common Core and the increase in testing?

Here is a good analysis by a local Long Island reporter.

Jaime Franchi at LongIslandPress.com interviewed parents and leaders of the revolt and gives a full picture of the uprising.

The story begins:

“Eighth grader Ryan Pepe, 13, of East Islip, reads his “intense” Common Core-assigned homework in his parent’s dining room. (Jaime Franchi/Long Island Press)

“Uncomfortable. Impossible. My chest hurts,” says Vincent Pepe, 10, pointing to his t-shirt where he feels his heart rate accelerating. He won’t make eye contact. He doesn’t like talking about the state tests he took last year.

“There wasn’t enough time,” he says. “It makes you quit.”

His older brother Ryan, 13, looks up from under a pile of homework. Ryan has served as Vincent’s protector since he was born. But Ryan can’t protect him from everything.

Neither will be taking the state tests this year. And they’re not alone.

A battle is being waged in New York State with Long Island on the front lines. The warriors come armed with manila folders of research on topics such as Common Core, data-mining and a billion-dollar company named Pearson. They have bags under their eyes from long, weary nights in front of sometimes-incomprehensible homework. The battlegrounds are the classrooms, the kitchen table, and auditoriums packed with parents and teachers who are demanding a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing, but will settle for the resignation of New York State (NYS) Commissioner of Education John B. King, Jr. and the head of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. They are an army formed on Facebook, with groups informed by a national movement but concentrated right here, mobilized and motivated by the stress of their children. Their vow is to defeat Common Core, the educational reform so extreme that kids are mutilating themselves in response to the psychological stress that experts are calling “Common Core Syndrome.”

State officials are intransigent. Despite the near-unanimous condemnation of the state’s high-stakes testing regime, the Regents and the Commissioner of Education have made clear that they have no intention of backing down. The kids will get the tests again and again, no matter how many fail.

Nearly 20,000 parents have signed petitions against the testing; that number will grow. The Long Island principals have led a statewide rebellion against the untested “education evaluation” tied to the high-stakes test.

The parents, teachers, and principals of Long Island understand what state officials do not.

Education policy cannot be rammed down everyone’s throats. Collaboration and respect are needed, not the power to compel compliance.