Parents with Pitchforks Angry About Common Core
State ed chief urged to slow Common Core
Frustrated superintendents and parents urged New York’s education commissioner at a meeting in Oyster Bay on Tuesday to slow implementation of the controversial Common Core curriculum.
“My daughter is not a ’1,’ ” John Castronova of Oyster Bay told Commissioner John B. King Jr., who was joined by Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Regent Roger Tilles.
Castronova, referring to the lowest test score under the new curriculum, said he fears Common Core’s high cost will imperil programs for children with learning disabilities, such as his daughter.
Other parents expressed similar concerns about the impact on programs for gifted and talented students, and English as a second language learners, and warned that low-performing schools could fall further behind.
King attended the invitation-only afternoon forum at Oyster Bay High School, but canceled a Garden City meeting open to the public that had been also scheduled for Tuesday after shouting matches erupted at recent upstate forums.
King said his experience as a Massachusetts educator when that state underwent a similarly wrenching process taught him to stay the course. “People said the tests were going to be too hard. . . . The state remained resolute,” he said.
But Toni Labbate, a North Shore School District board member and parent, told the state officials that students are under too much pressure. “You now ask New York State public students to shoulder the weight of their school district’s reputation, their community’s property values and now their teacher’s evaluation,” she said
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