Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center on Long Island in Néw York, is retiring to spend her time fighting phony and harmful “reforms.”
Burris has been one of the most effective critics of Common Core and high-stakes testing. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the legislsture’s passage of Governor Cuomo’s anti-teacher, anti- public school evaluation plan based on test scores.
Burris is a brilliant writer and a terrific organizer. She will be a tremendous addition to the struggle to save public education and protect children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From my bio:He retired because he…. “discovered that he could aggravate more people with less consequences outside the system” Give em hell Carol.
LikeLike
Sorry, I’m obviously a little slow, but why are minimum standards a bad thing for kids trying to get out of high school with the skills to get and hold a good job in the 21st century?
LikeLike
Kent Harris,
Common Core is not minimum standards.
The tests are designed to fail 70% of students.
Did you know that?
LikeLike
I didn’t. The “common core” I read in Montana’s published guidelines simply codified minimum standards and didn’t include mandatory instruction or testing regiment. Can you forward the article that confirms an expected 30 percent failure rate?
LikeLike
Kent, the CC tests uses NAEP proficient as their “passing” mark. 70% of US students do not reach that mark.
70% of students in NY, as predicted, failed the CC tests.
LikeLike
The test was not written by K-12 teachers. It is not developmentally appropriate. I am a mother in the system and I have heard accounts of children crying during and after the test. It is a subtle form of mental torture and will give children a false sense that they are not smart which translates into feelings of “not good enough”. I am so grateful for this blog and the people who have offered their input for encouraging parents to opt out. We did and therefore I’ve rescued my child from hours of mental mind f____king. Pardon my French. Give me an assessment but give me a fair one where the writing of it is “transparent” and not done in secrecy!!
LikeLike
Yep. When 4th graders are given a passage at 8th grade reading level with a lexile of 1130 and told to read it, answer questions about it, then write about it, there’s something horribly & developmentally wrong. Even worse is when the directions are confusingly hidden inside multiple sentences of all the same font, all the same text, no color/boxes/bold to set off the task from the background info. Trying to be “tricky” does not do anything to raise standards. It only proves they write a crappy test.
LikeLike
We all certainly wish her well.
Our motto must be: I have not yet begun to fight.
We need faith to believe that the right will in the long run prevail
but
we need to fight valiantly to make that dream come true.
It will not happen on its own.
LikeLike
Best wishes to Ms. Burris! May she succeed in her endeavor so that teachers can go back to real teaching, students can go back to real learning and school can be fun again!
LikeLike
Carol…wish you all the best. When you are on a visit to LA, would love get together and discuss the old days at UCLA.
You can reach me at…. joiningforces4ed@aol.com
You are a shining light to so many of us. Thanks for your many years of sterling service to education…to students and parents and the whole community. You are a treasure.
LikeLike