...the Regents are “rolling back” what they never did in the first place..... Like Lucy holding the football for poor Charlie Brown, the Regents and Commissioner King have repeatedly set up parents and educators.... Carol BurrisWhy do you think the Regents and King and Cuomo are doing this dance? To confuse, obfuscate and derail the growing threat. These tactics work by making the public think their concerns are being addressed.
Carol Burris, NY State 2013 Principal of the Year has a piece at WAPO's Answer Sheet that drives a truck through their flimsy and shoddy tactics.
Principal: Time to hold NY education leaders accountable for Core mess
Read it all but here is one more excerpt:
I know many people are calling for all kinds of things, like lobbying the corrupt NY State legislature. I have no faith in the political process. The answer is to grow the opt-out movement by parents and to increase teacher union resistance to the entire testing process and actually get the unions to help grow the opt-out movement like our pals in Chicago are doing.First there was the rushed implementation of an evaluation system that they likened to a “plane being built in the air.” Then we found out that teachers and principals could be rated ineffective overall, even without one ineffective rating in any of the three components. (This has yet to be acknowledged and addressed outside of New York City). After that, the commissioner predicted a failing rate of 70 percent on the new 3-8 Common Core exams, before New York’s kids even opened a test booklet. And now we have a set of recommendations that appear to address concerns, when they hardly make a dent at all.
Opt-out by parents is the thing that scares the deformers the most because if it catches on to the masses, their entire ed deform program begins to fall apart. Imagine Pearson and other blood-sucking companies feeding at the public trough being left with tests and test prep materials no one will use? Well, I can dream, can't I?
Monty Neill left a comment taking Michael Mulgrew's Revive NYSUT slate's pal, Cuomo, to task.
Cuomo was also duplicitous. First he said the Regents committee recommendations were 'too little too late,' making it seem he was on the side of teachers and parents. In the same press release, he then attacked the committee for recommending a delay in use of tests to judge teachers, and the Regents punted that one to a study. Cuomo wants his study committee to control the agenda, and he has stacked that committee with proponents of 'test-and-punish' high-stakes test-based accountability, with of course a few who have different views.
What was put on by the New York Regents, the Education Commissioner and Governor Cuomo last week was a carefully orchestrated political performance which is evidence (a Common Core Literacy Standard) that the public outcry has them and their supporters (funders) concerned. An educated and active populace is at the forefront of an effective democracy. In addition, Democracy is local which is how our federalist democratic government was designed to function. Yet, our President through his ethically challenged Race to the Top education policy seeks to nationalize our education system by coercing states to follow or lose federal funding for education. The peoples' fight must continue, we must choose our own path to educating our children and should the federal government seek to withhold funding as a result, then we have the right to withhold taxes appropriated for education in the federal budget, as a state. The time has come to push back and push back hard. Education budgets are full of unfunded federal and state mandates which are continually stressing them and diverting resources without public comment or approval. No more people, continue to speak up and change will come. Time to ramp up the opt-out of common core testing movement.
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