New York Chancellor Merryl Tisch offered to delay Cuomo’s high-stakes testing regime for a year. Legislators were delighted.
But opt-out parents rejected the offer. They saw no change in the onerous testing, just a one-year reprieve.
The new system, under which teachers will be rated based on students’ standardized test scores as well as classroom observations, is bad policy, and delaying it a year won’t make it better, parents said.
“I love my teachers, but if you link the children’s achievement to the teachers’ evaluations, it turns classrooms into test prep, and it robs my child of a well-rounded education,” said Pamela Verity, a Suffolk County mother of three. “So I have to protect my teachers.
“This doesn’t calm me down,” Verity continued. “I want it all gone—Common Core, high-stakes testing, all of it. I want the federal government out of my schools. I want big business out of my schools. I want my schools back.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good write-up. I responded on the site.
Tisch, Cuomo and NY legislators really think all these parents who opted their kids out are stupid, don’t they?
Unfortunately for them, the parents are far smarter than they are.
It’s kinda like a monkey offering Einstein a banana to let them out of the cage.
So a delay of execution isn’t enough for opt-out parents?
Good. The sentence has to be changed, not the timetable.
How about mandating the death of high-stakes standardized testing a year from now—with no chance of reprieve?
😎
Anything this WRONG, is WRONG today, tomorrow and next year!
We should never recommend a delay, ONLY a STOP, of something this important and exploitive, financially robbing, ethically wrong, and harmful to children, teachers and the American family.
Nonsense!
We must hold the line.
Yes! You can kick the can down the road, but the can is still there. And it is WRONG!
I have read over and over that parents who don’t support the Common Core testing don’t understand the Common Core/Common Core testing. If that is true (I don’t think it’s true, but say it is) couldn’t the reverse also be true? Parents who say they “support Common Core/Common Core testing” don’t understand Common Core testing?
It seems to me people making the argument that opponents are poorly informed or misinformed are ignoring the flip side, and the flip side should follow naturally if one begins at “parents are probably poorly informed”
“If it was big news last week that most parents know nothing about new K-12 testing aligned to the Common Core, consider the headlines later this summer when the results come back and only a fraction of the students pass.
That’s the scenario that the California State Board of Education has been bracing for and why the Brown administration has so vigorously fought off efforts by the U.S. Department of Education to use the results for federal accountability purposes.
If most parents whose children are taking the new tests this spring know little about it, how will they – along with lawmakers, taxpayer groups and the mainstream media – react when they learn that a large, perhaps very large, percentage of kids failed.”
https://www.cabinetreport.com/politics-education/poll-hints-of-political-train-wreck-over-common-core
Chiara: good point.
So the “thought leaders” of corporate education reform want people to get informed?
Okey dokey. Here’s one of the actual thought leaders [note: no quote marks!] and charter [shills & trolls: word play. Capiche?] members of the self-styled “education reform” establishment, Dr. Frederick Hess, American Enterprise Institute:
[start]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end]
For the above and crucial context, go to—
Link: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Apparently Arne Duncan and Meryl Tisch and Mario Cuomo aren’t inviting Mr. Hess to their next private screening of THE WIZARD OF OZ, especially the scene where Scarecrow sings “If I Only Had A Brain.”
Inquiring minds…
Oh, don’t give it no nevermind.
“I could while away the hours,
Conversin’ with the flowers,
If I only had a brain.”
Because, folks, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
And when a perfect example is needed, there’s always a rheephormster read to step right up and answer the Bill Gates Call of Duty…
😎
And a waste is a terrible thing to mind (waist too) if you are Andrew Cuomo or Meryl Tisch.
As much money as they spent on marketing, one would think more than 45% of parents would be aware that the tests have changed.
I know they stopped using the phrase “Common Core” to protect vulnerable ed reform politicians, but perhaps they should have told parents 70% of their children are going to fail this experiment?
70% of New York State residents support having state test scores count toward teacher evaluations. What has become the main goal of the opt-out movement — eliminating state tests entirely — is dead-on-arrival, politically.
Click to access SNY0415_Crosstabs.pdf
I actually appreciate the candor expressed by those living in the suburbs, which is the where the core of the opt-out movement lives: when asked if they would be willing to pay more in state taxes for state education funding (which would largely flow to Other People’s Children), they said no by a whopping 59-38% margin. Way to keep it real.
This means Tisch has no power to directly penalize students and teachers who choose to opt out.
Reblogged this on education pathways and commented:
Tisch’s offer to continue CCSS and testing, with a delay, is proof that the opt-out parents have gotten policy makers’ attention; it is also proof that the policy makers are still not listening to “core” concerns.