After the past year’s troubled rollout of Common Core standards and tests, parents and legislative leaders spoke out against the New York State Education Department’s rush to impose and test standards that neither students nor teachers were prepared for. On the botched tests, passing rates fell to only 30% across the state. Only 3% of English learners passed the test, along with 5% of students with disabilities and less than 20% of African American and Hispanic students. In response to the fiasco, parents turned out by the thousands at public hearings, and legislators called for a moratorium of at least two years on the testing.
To date, the state Board of Regents has shown no willingness to review the developmental appropriateness of the standards, and Commissioner King has been insistent that no meaningful changes are likely.
Governor Cuomo entered the fray by appointing a panel to review the controversy, but parent advocates say the panel is stacked with known proponents of Common Core, who are unable to conduct an independent review.
Here is their press release, just issued:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2014
More information contact:
Eric Mihelbergel (716) 553-1123; nys.allies@gmail.com
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education http://www.nysape.org
New Yorkers Outraged by Governor’s Flawed Common Core Panel
The leaders of the NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), a coalition of more than 45 parent and educator groups from throughout the state, expressed their outrage at Governor Cuomo’s choice of appointees to his Common Core Panel.
As Lisa Rudley, Ossining public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE said, “As a parent I am offended that the Governor’s Panel is stacked with known supporters of the Common Core, eliminating the chance for an objective evaluation. The chair, Stanley Litow, Vice President of IBM, has already written an Op-ed saying full speed ahead with its implementation. Dr. Charles Russo is one of the very few Superintendents in the state to publicly support the standards, including the flawed NYSED modules known to be rife with errors and questionable content.”
As Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters pointed out, “Several members selected by the Governor belong to organizations that are heavily dependent on funding from the Gates Foundation, which has spent more than $170 million on developing and promoting the Common Core. These include Dan Weisberg of The New Teacher Project, which has received $23 million from the Gates Foundation, including $7 million in the last year alone. Nick Lawrence is a prominent member of Educators for Excellence, which received more than $3 million from the Gates Foundation in 2013. This evident conflict of interest undermines their credibility not only concerning the Common Core, but also the highly controversial issue of whether the state should go ahead with sharing personal student data with inBloom Inc., a corporation established by the Gates Foundation with $100 million.”
“Parents are tired of having education policy in this state hijacked by deep-pocketed billionaires who do not send their own children to public school and would never consider having their education stifled by a rigid regime of instructional text, scripted modules, test prep, and their personal data provided to for-profit companies without their consent,” said Eric Mihelbergel, Ken-Ton public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE.
Bianca Tanis a New Paltz public school parent and special education teacher noted, “Experts in special education, early childhood development and elementary school teachers have all noted that the Common Core standards are developmentally inappropriate, were created without their input and need significant reform. And yet not a single individual from any of these groups was selected for the Panel, ensuring that their recommendations will be profoundly deficient.”
“I am astounded that the governor would fail to include any teachers of younger students and those with special needs, especially since many of the criticisms and concerns surround the issue whether the standards are appropriately designed for these children,” pointed out Lori Griffin, a Copenhagen public school parent and educator.
“The Governor argues that no decision should be made on the Common Core until this Panel has come up with its recommendations. The fact that this Panel is so heavily stacked only reinforces our conviction that there is no reason to wait for the Panel’s conclusions. The Common Core standards must be immediately pulled back and revised, with input from educators and parents, the over-testing must come to a halt, the teacher evaluation system scrapped, and the contract with inBloom cancelled,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Bellmore public school parent and founder of Long Island Opt-Out.
Jessica McNair, New Hartford public school parent concluded, “Our children are suffering and cannot wait. If Commissioner King does not immediately stop the runaway train, call a halt to the standards and the testing, and withdraw his agreement with inBloom, the Legislature must act in his place.”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
This just in: Sinaloa Cartel announces panel to review drug policy.
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And the Zetas have been invited to the table.
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The opposition to Common Core in NY is really a great argument for the “voice” component of publicly-run schools.
The fact is, without publicly-run schools, there wouldn’t have been any debate on Common Core at all.
If all of NY were a “portfolio” system of privately-run, publicly-funded schools, any opposition would have been so fragmented and weak there wouldn’t have been a debate at all. They would have simply imposed Common Core and rolled right on.
If anyone wants to know the democratic value of publicly-run schools, this is a great example. There’s a debate in NY. That’s the value.
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Here is my “Cuomo” analogy… the governor hires a panel of meth amphetamine addicts to study whether meth amphetamine should be legalized. The notion is no less absurd than hiring corporate types to judge supposed ed standards. The corporate world is addicted to money. If common core makes money then so be it… the business community wants it. Is it not the least bit transparent that teachers with ed degrees and classroom experience or child developmental psychologists are not on the panel and that only business people are? Huh??? Do we have circus acrobats reviewing engineering schematics or professional chefs reviewing surgical training in medical school? This is sheer madness!
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But here’s the thing: the deformers, despite their commitment to neoliberalism, with its emphasis on the value that comes from competition among autonomous agents, don’t want the Common Core to have to COMPETE for hearts and minds. They want it IMPOSED by a distant, centralized authority.
One word for that: bizarre
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Madness beyond comprehension. I feel like we are in a movie with a plot so preposterous that no viewer could suspend their disbelief. I believe that part of the plan was to create situations that were impossible for most people to believe.
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The Journal News reports today that the only parent representative on the panel is the daughter of a political friend of former Governor Pataki of NY:
http://www.lohud.com/article/20140207/NEWS/302070090/Common-Core-Croton-Falls-mom-named-Cuomo-s-panel?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cs
Here is her quote straight from the Duncan playbook:
Jackson-Jolley said she has an open mind about the Common Core, in particular how it has been introduced in New York. But she said that she wants her two daughters, 10 and 7, who attend North Salem schools, to receive a more challenging public-school education than what she received.
“I hope they get an education that is rigorous, challenges them, and inspires them, so they never feel they are skating through,” she said. “When they get to college and beyond, I want them to feel prepared and competitive.”
Of all of the qualified parents who could have served on this panel, Cuomo picks a politically connected and obviously biased one. What an insult!
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Ah, she speaks Reformish! Clearly, a prerequisite for membership on this commission
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This just in: Attorney General announces panel to investigate organized crime. Members of the panel–Artie “Toots” Colombo, Jack “the Fly” Gambino, Patricia Genovese, and Lucky Louie Lucchese–declined to be interviewed for this report, citing possible conflicts of interest.
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This just in: Farmer McGregor establishes panel of foxes to guard henhouse
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rabbits to guard carrot field
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Prisoners on work release allowed to sit on parole board.
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Keep pushing out letters and emails to the legislators. The only chance for any change is to threaten their elected seats if they don’t follow NYSAPE’s lead and reject all elements of this fiasco. The Regents care naught about the parents and teachers. But they are afraid of the legislators who can take legislative action to undo the damage, so that is where the attacks must occur.
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Yes this is a political battle, not to confused with an debate on ed policy. Yesterday on NPR Skelos claimed that if the BOR does not act on imposing a moratorium that the legislature will. Time will tell. Cuomo is the grand puppet master; the heat needs to be on his projected landslide victory. Maybe he just looking for the right person to throw under his campaign bus.
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Cuomo is a de-facto tool for CC, despite his bogus pretense of being impartial. Now that the panel membership has been revealed, Andy gets a little more exposed for the weasel that he is. However if the political winds blow strongly against CC, he will walk it all back because his only guiding light is his political ambition. There are some sign that the winds are shifting in the favor of students, concerned parents, and teachers who have refused to drink the grape Kool-Aide. Money may become the stumbling block. A moratorium may require that Cuomo return the $700 million “won” in the RTTT contest and it may also require the forfeiture of even more desperately needed money. It was a rather clever trap set by the feds/corporate reformers if you think about it!
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How interesting that Mr Cuomo has set up a “panel” to review the hideous Common Core…a panel dangerously weaved and intertwined to the special interests.
The voters in the state of New York will get to have their panel, come election day. The forces of good, embedded in democracy, will come together and send him out the door, with his false educational standards that he has sold out the children of New York.
Think of the children, Mr Cuomo. Imagine that they were yours. What would you do then?
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Cuomo clearly underestimates the critics of CCSS. How can he blatantly pick a panel with obvious conflicts of interest and biases? He is doing a good job of letting himself be painted as a fool.
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“Reformers” often say that parents want a choice for their children but I think what they really want is a voice that is heard and respected. How can you really have any choices when you don’t even have a voice?
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Marianne Giannis: IMHO, when you hear what “education reformers” say or read what they write, you have to do an English-to-English translation.
When edupreneurs and educrats and edubullies have the decisive voice in the choice of the particular enriched learning environments THEIR OWN CHILDREN will be part of, they feel with all their hearts and souls that all is right with the world.
When edupreneurs and educrats and edubullies have the decisive voice in the choice of the drill-and-kill rote learning/docility training Centres of EduExcellence that OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN will be part of, they feel with all their hearts and souls that all is right with the world.
What is absolutely intolerable to the leaders of the “new civil rights movement” of our era is when the parents (aka “white suburban moms” among other things) of OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN (Rahm Emanuel’s ‘uneducables’ and Michael J Petrilli’s ‘non-strivers’) presume that they should have the right to school “choice” and “voice.”
Would an adult parent let a toddler stick her/his hand in the fire of choice & voice? Of course not. The same applies for rheephormistas, who are willing to assume the entire burden of voice & choice for the vast majority of parents who aren’t mature enough, knowledgeable enough, and frankly, just not good enough to make the proper decisions for their children.
I am not exaggerating or being humorous when I say that the self-styled cage busting achievement gap crushing rheephormistas feel and think that they are (by some combination of natural and divine forces) particularly suited to relieve us of the tiresome task of thinking and choosing.
They chafe at any restraints put on their ceaseless pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ but pushback with come from folks like you:
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.” [Frederick Douglass]
😎
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edupreneurs + educrats + edubullies = EDUDEFORMERS
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This makes Cuomo a true laughing stock. That sucking sound you hear is Andrew Cuomo’s political credibility going down the toilet of lost ambitions.
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We can only hope Cuomo will go down. Until then, let’s all vow to call RHEEform in NY Cuomocore. Say it loud, and say it often. And find some of those southern tier anti-SAFEers to say it with us.
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Yes. He just bought a new nickname.
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This just in: Winter Hill gang will investigate, report on Boston rackets to FBI
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For the well-being of all the reformists: please, don’t confuse them with facts. It may make their heads explode.
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This is a small d democratic victory, though. You all got to them respond and engage in a debate on the Common Core. Had you not done so, this thing would have gone in with no public debate at all.
If they really loved the thing as much as they say they do, they’d welcome debate, because it was obviously adopted with very little debate, almost under duress.
Put it in the ed reform language they use. Tell them to “relinquish” their iron grip on the Common Core, and see if it survives in the marketplace of ideas 🙂
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Precisely, Chiara!!!
The hypocrisy of those pushing these deforms is breathtaking. The ELA “standards” would not survive in anything like their current form if people had the autonomy to adapt them as necessary–if they had to win hearts and minds, school by school. They are possible only as a top-down mandate. And they are an ossification of a great many backward notions about how to teach English.
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If Coleman had not been plucked out of obscurity by Achieve and Gates–if he had, for example, gotten some actual training and experience–taught for a decade, gotten an advanced degree, done some research, become an Assistant Professor of, say, English Education–and then he had published these “Common Core State Standards,” well, his work would just have remained obscure. It would not have survived critical scrutiny by professionals. At best, he might have pulled off an article or two, here or there, in an obscure journal. He might have written a piece of how great it would be for kids to do close reading, and then others would have shown him the research–the time on task studies of teachers–showing that that is MOSTLY what middle school and high school English teachers have done for the past century and the scholarship that shows that the New Critics were way ahead of him there. And he would have remained in relative obscurity.
But he was anointed. He was chosen by a few people to be absolute monarch of the English language arts in the United States, and what ANY OTHER teacher, curriculum coordinator, curriculum designer, scholar, or researcher might think about what outcomes we should look for in ELA or what learning progressions we might have NO LONGER MATTERS. Achieve and His Majesty David Coleman have, by divine right, MADE THESE DECISIONS FOR YOU. They have relieved you of the need to do anything thinking about your job. David now does the thinking. Achieve and Gates have decided that he’s “the decider.” They actually think, or claim to think, that that’s GOOD FOR U.S. EDUCATION. Do they really–it seems astonishing that they should–but they claim to.
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I call the deformers the “seers of the seemingly obvious. They treat hackneyed ideas about what teachers of English should be doing as The Revelation to Achieve. It used to be that we debated these matters, and this was a national debate among teachers, administrators, scholars, researchers, curriculum developers and innovators, etc. Now, David makes the decisions. You obey.
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Many of those ideas are dangerously bad. Some are wrong generally, for all kids. Some are applied way too broadly and often inappropriately–as when the possessor of a hammer treats everything as if it were a nail.
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