if you put this concept together with the plan to lure Rupert Murdoch downtown with big rent discounts, I can see the UFT paying parents to keep their kids in school and avoid teacher staff reductions (oh, wait, they don't do that either.). Well at least the education is good, right? Oh, not really you say. Scores not good, better eliminate the test! Good thing we have astute politicians steering this ship.
Yet another PR release from Cuomo about "reform"?
Perhaps I'm too cynical about him and his motives at this point, but this really seems like just the latest in his recent series of squid-ink attempts to push the Skelos/Silver/Albany corruption scandal news off Page 1 by the "third man in the room"!
And for the record, many NYS patents aren't opposed to high "standards" per se, but rather all the standardized (mostly multiple-guess) testing, the endless cycle of classroom test-prep in lieu of subjects, windfall profiteering by the education-for-profit industry (e.g. Pearson), and the misuse of the tests for things like teacher evaluation (something they were not created to do).
Perhaps I'm too cynical about him and his motives at this point, but this really seems like just the latest in his recent series of squid-ink attempts to push the Skelos/Silver/Albany corruption scandal news off Page 1 by the "third man in the room"!
And for the record, many NYS patents aren't opposed to high "standards" per se, but rather all the standardized (mostly multiple-guess) testing, the endless cycle of classroom test-prep in lieu of subjects, windfall profiteering by the education-for-profit industry (e.g. Pearson), and the misuse of the tests for things like teacher evaluation (something they were not created to do).
10
The opt-out movement will continue to grow until the standardized testing madness associated with CC is fully repealed. Rank and file educators see through this Cuomo charade. The UFT, AFT and NYSUT may declare victory but they are no longer activists unions - they are in bed with the Democratic party and care only about dues $$ flowing into their coffers to fund their double pensions that Cuomo signed into law recently to buy the leadership vote. The parents and rank and file teachers who actually spend time with students will not be fooled.
2
Education policy needs to be de-politicized. The task force's recommendations are important steps in the right direction, and I am pleased that the governor is not resisting. But we just wasted how many years of back and forth on these issues, with the governor flip flopping according to where his next campaign contribution is coming from? Let's stop subjecting our students and teachers to whiplash, and for once, allow the education professionals to be in charge of education policy.
6
How far can these tests be "dumbed down?"
1
This is all very well and good, but when is the influence of the Danielson method of observation going to be assigned to the trash heap? Even Danielson herself says it should not be used for observational purposes.
3
If you actually take some time to review why and how the Common Core standards were developed and some of the actual standards, they are tough and ambitious but appropriate and consistent with other countries that score high on educational attainment. Unfortunately their implementation has coincided with backlash to another program that encouraged ridiculous amounts of testing and misuse of testing results as well as major problems with implementation of the Core including lack of training for educators and lack of information and preparation to parents and students. I cannot speak to the actual assessment exams developed based on the core. Now of course the standards are being misused by politicians as a political tool. So we will likely never know if the Common Core standards might actually improve education in this country especially among those of lower socioeconomic status which is by far the biggest factor associated with educational success and the factor no one really wants to discuss or address.
7
Common core is a social engineering plot to dumb down the population, exposed by Charlotte Iserbyt, whistle blower who was high up in Reagan’s Dept of Ed. In The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.
Sam Blumenfeld talks about the same thing – how the Progressive Father of Education Reform John Dewey who also wrote the Humanist Manifesto ( an atheist screed) was against individuality and wanted to dumb down students so they could not think independently.
THIS Is the reason for the terrible education results.
Blumenfeld’s Books NEA the Trojan Horse In Education and
Crimes of the Educators - How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children
expose the use of reading methods that cause dyslexia, and learning disabilities, by design. I was a sub in the early 90s and saw this myself.
Benjamin Bloom, father of OBE (Outcome Based Education) which goes by other names to fool parents, & is about teaching values instead of skills, said the purpose of education is to change the thoughts feelings and behaviors of students. NOT teach them to read write & think critically. They don’t want that. They want obedient robots
I met a recent grad of teaching college who had NO courses in teaching reading.
I have met NYC middle schools who are being taught there are multiple genders. This is social engineering indoctrination in insanity.
The corruption of Education
http://www.1prophetspeaks7.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-corruption-of-educat...
Sam Blumenfeld talks about the same thing – how the Progressive Father of Education Reform John Dewey who also wrote the Humanist Manifesto ( an atheist screed) was against individuality and wanted to dumb down students so they could not think independently.
THIS Is the reason for the terrible education results.
Blumenfeld’s Books NEA the Trojan Horse In Education and
Crimes of the Educators - How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children
expose the use of reading methods that cause dyslexia, and learning disabilities, by design. I was a sub in the early 90s and saw this myself.
Benjamin Bloom, father of OBE (Outcome Based Education) which goes by other names to fool parents, & is about teaching values instead of skills, said the purpose of education is to change the thoughts feelings and behaviors of students. NOT teach them to read write & think critically. They don’t want that. They want obedient robots
I met a recent grad of teaching college who had NO courses in teaching reading.
I have met NYC middle schools who are being taught there are multiple genders. This is social engineering indoctrination in insanity.
The corruption of Education
http://www.1prophetspeaks7.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-corruption-of-educat...
Another of the endless string of articles about education that discusses testing, legislation, politics, Regents, scores, evaluations, ratings and standards.
Does it strike other readers that none of these things are about education? There is an immense body of knowledge about child development, the importance of play, neurobiology of learning, the effects of cortisol on the brain, the power value of active learning through experience, the negative impacts of rote learning, the fascinating reality of multiple intelligences and more.
Our entire educational system ignores this entire body of knowledge as politicians and economists haggle over the "metrics" of a dysfunctional system. We argue constantly over the scales with which we measure the extent of malnourishment when we should just be feeding the children.
Does it strike other readers that none of these things are about education? There is an immense body of knowledge about child development, the importance of play, neurobiology of learning, the effects of cortisol on the brain, the power value of active learning through experience, the negative impacts of rote learning, the fascinating reality of multiple intelligences and more.
Our entire educational system ignores this entire body of knowledge as politicians and economists haggle over the "metrics" of a dysfunctional system. We argue constantly over the scales with which we measure the extent of malnourishment when we should just be feeding the children.
7
The idea of having a comon curriculum for the nation is a good idea . Every other nation does it becuase it just makes sense. The problem came when policy makers became obsessed with trying to measure it.
6
All teachers will still be rated on student "growth" as measured by local pre and post tests.
There is nor moratorium for HS students required to pass Common Core Regents algebra I and Common Core ELA tests in order to graduate, until (?) the standards are revised and new tests are written. Usually its a two year process to ramp up a new exam. Cuomo's Task Force was conspicuously silent on this important issue.
There is nor moratorium for HS students required to pass Common Core Regents algebra I and Common Core ELA tests in order to graduate, until (?) the standards are revised and new tests are written. Usually its a two year process to ramp up a new exam. Cuomo's Task Force was conspicuously silent on this important issue.
3
Once upon a time, we had real high school math courses totally in line with what North American universities expected students to bring to the table if they wished to major in math, science, engineering and the like. There were complete courses of study listing the topics to be studied and of course thousands of our students took these courses and became the nation's scientists, doctors and engineers. There never was anything wrong with these courses. The students took real Regents exams and if the students achieved a grade of 85 out of 100, that was the grade and we didnt need psychometricians to "validate" the exams and establish a scale so that a student scoring 28 out of 84, something a little over 30% is considered a passing grade. These courses of study still exist; true they need a little bit of work to take advantage of today's technology (no need to teach students how to do computations with logarithms for example when the same calculation can be done on an inexpensive calculator) but these courses were all solid math classes. It was when the self appointed educational reformers got involved that the math curriculums were destroyed in favor of today's catch words, "standards". What a crock of you know what this has been and has destroyed the math education of a generation of students now. Just go back to algegra, geometry and trigonometry and most of the problems will be solved and leave math education in the hand of math edudatos not think tanks.
7
The Common Core standards were poorly designed, developmentally inappropriate ELA and Math standards.
It's not about poor implementation.
It's about parents seeing that their children were receiving a test prep education and their teachers and schools were being punished for poor results on those impossible tests.
Parents will never let up until Common Core is history. Parents want for their children the education that Obama, Arne Duncan, John King and Bill Gates want for theirs.
It's not about poor implementation.
It's about parents seeing that their children were receiving a test prep education and their teachers and schools were being punished for poor results on those impossible tests.
Parents will never let up until Common Core is history. Parents want for their children the education that Obama, Arne Duncan, John King and Bill Gates want for theirs.
17
Well said! These recommendations are not real changes. These are just window dressing to keep the common core, the testing, and evaluation piece in place for grades 3 and above. New Yorkers will not be fooled. There will bigger opt out numbers in 2016! Then Cuomo can put together his fourth Common Core Commission to pretend he is doing something.
1
Opt out has been a rolling political disaster for Cuomo. He needed to back away from these misguided policies lest he forever be known as the guy who destroyed New York's public schools. Women, in particular suburban women, grew to loathe him. Remember the soccer moms? Not a constituency that you want throwing darts at your picture.
Not for a second do I believe that he views this issue any differently now than he did a year ago. He's just realized that there was no political upside in continuing to bash teachers and insist that school districts like Great Neck and Jericho needed to be managed with the same heavy hand as Rochester.
Anyhow, these recommendations do not reflect any coherent thinking about education. They basically amount to a recommendation that the next governor, whomever s/he may be, be the one to sort out this mess. And that opt out should leave him alone.
Not for a second do I believe that he views this issue any differently now than he did a year ago. He's just realized that there was no political upside in continuing to bash teachers and insist that school districts like Great Neck and Jericho needed to be managed with the same heavy hand as Rochester.
Anyhow, these recommendations do not reflect any coherent thinking about education. They basically amount to a recommendation that the next governor, whomever s/he may be, be the one to sort out this mess. And that opt out should leave him alone.
19
It was known years ago that the money for Common Core would run out in 2016. Millions have been dumped into this poorly implemented program. They will repackage it and make taxpayers pay even more for the latest and greatest.
The 2005 standards were not the cause of failing students. If you read any study worth its salt, you will see that there is a correlation between socioeconomic and educational achievement.
The PISA exam is often used to show how poorly America ranks in comparison to the rest of the world. The number one country is Shanghai... even though it's not a country. It is a wealthy region in a country where 75% of teenagers do not attend high school. The top countries have less than 15% poverty. If you isolate the populations within the United States that meet this criteria, the United States would rank #1 in the PISA exam.
The 2005 standards were not the cause of failing students. If you read any study worth its salt, you will see that there is a correlation between socioeconomic and educational achievement.
The PISA exam is often used to show how poorly America ranks in comparison to the rest of the world. The number one country is Shanghai... even though it's not a country. It is a wealthy region in a country where 75% of teenagers do not attend high school. The top countries have less than 15% poverty. If you isolate the populations within the United States that meet this criteria, the United States would rank #1 in the PISA exam.
12
The tests are poorly written. They don't measure real progress because they don't resemble in any way what kids should actually learn. Then, because of their high stakes, schools begin to warp their curriculum to teach to the tests. This is awful and sad. The news of high-stakes tests demise is heartening.
16
Actually, the tests were meticulously researched and designed over years by consulting with top experts in pedagogy as well as top experts in each subject. The aim was to determine the appropriate skills kids should be mastering in their subject each year, so that they can continue to build on them and advance their understanding. The curriculum and tests were designed to make sure that kids are not falling behind in the required benchmarks for progress at each step of the way.
The ultimate goal is having high school graduates who are ready to do college level work up graduation. Sadly, we are far, far from that goal and the majority of recent NY high school graduates, now "college students", pay college tuition to be taught what we used to learn in high school.
We are disturbingly far behind the rest of the industrialized world in meeting these essential reading and math standards, and the future of our children and our country will suffer. Parents and teachers must accept that school's purpose is not just to make everyone feel good about themselves.
The ultimate goal is having high school graduates who are ready to do college level work up graduation. Sadly, we are far, far from that goal and the majority of recent NY high school graduates, now "college students", pay college tuition to be taught what we used to learn in high school.
We are disturbingly far behind the rest of the industrialized world in meeting these essential reading and math standards, and the future of our children and our country will suffer. Parents and teachers must accept that school's purpose is not just to make everyone feel good about themselves.
8
Oh, give me a break, Rational Person. Do you work for Pearson. I'm the head of a school and the tests are meticulously idiotic and I wouldn't waste 5 minutes of my students' time on them. And a previous commenter fully debunked your ed-reform talking point about "behind the rest of the industrialized world . . ." We are behind the rest of the civilized world when it comes to addressing the real problems in America: Racism, poverty, despair, jingoism, low information and economic injustice.
10
Shamefully, in thrall to the teachers unions, New York is proceeding to produce another generation of failing students until at least 2020, when the politicos will cave again. Parents obviously prefer semi-literate children to the effort it would require to get them an education. Shame on you New York, and Cuomo.
8
Earle,
Being down in Florida like you are you may not be current on what's happening here. Parents boycotted the tests, effectively nullifying the whole awful high stakes testing program. The press likes to portray it as unions pressuring politicians. But pols are caving to parents and rightly so. We know what's good for our kids.
Patrick
Being down in Florida like you are you may not be current on what's happening here. Parents boycotted the tests, effectively nullifying the whole awful high stakes testing program. The press likes to portray it as unions pressuring politicians. But pols are caving to parents and rightly so. We know what's good for our kids.
Patrick
15
Not all parents boycotted the tests. In fact, more children took the tests than opted out. There are plenty of parents here in NY that support the common core and do not support the opt-out movement.
And, by the way, I live on Long Island, so I am current on what;'s happening here.
And, by the way, I live on Long Island, so I am current on what;'s happening here.
2
The daily struggles of so many of our students will never be overcome without addressing the real underlying problems of poverty and insufficient parental support.
Today in my high school a sick child went from class to class. Why? No school nurse. The contract the school has with an outside healthcare provider requires that parents submit a specific form and that they have an appointment No form, no appointment, child goes back to class, sick and likely to spread that illness. Mother called. She says that she knew her son was sick but couldn't get a doctors appointment til the next day so she sent I'll child to school.
This student was so obviously I'll but the assistant principal insisted he remain in classes all day.
Special education students pushed into General education classes to save money without any of the support needed to succeed, trying to make 34 textbooks work for 134 students or 23 working computers for 34 students. A library with virtually no books and a librarian who can only afford sample subscriptions to databases for research because she hasn't been given any budget...
So now I'm not rated on dumb tests. Today that was the least of my worries.
Today in my high school a sick child went from class to class. Why? No school nurse. The contract the school has with an outside healthcare provider requires that parents submit a specific form and that they have an appointment No form, no appointment, child goes back to class, sick and likely to spread that illness. Mother called. She says that she knew her son was sick but couldn't get a doctors appointment til the next day so she sent I'll child to school.
This student was so obviously I'll but the assistant principal insisted he remain in classes all day.
Special education students pushed into General education classes to save money without any of the support needed to succeed, trying to make 34 textbooks work for 134 students or 23 working computers for 34 students. A library with virtually no books and a librarian who can only afford sample subscriptions to databases for research because she hasn't been given any budget...
So now I'm not rated on dumb tests. Today that was the least of my worries.
28
Life is tough, but of course you have Randi Weingarten to make sure it's the kids who pay the price, and end up working for minimum wage, not you !!
4
This year I became a volunteer tutor in a literacy program for first grade students who have been identified at risk for not reading at grade level. It is quite an eye opener being in a classroom. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to teach students if they don't want to behave. I sympathize with the teachers who have to deal with many issues such as classrooms too small to adequately accommodate the number of students, unruly kids and schools that don't provide a reasonable number of gym classes per week so the kids can release their pent up energy in a productive way.
21
Once again we see the lack of any basic understanding of what the goals of our education system should be, how to assess their attainment, and of appropriate ways to hold educators accountable. Clearly, the Common Core Standards were a reflection of this, as they were based on the flawed notion that we understand what are kids needs to learn and if they weren’t it was because the standards were not rigorous enough nor were teachers working as hard as they could.
No wonder most educators are cynical and generally respond to these "reforms" with a sigh and a sense of 'deja vu'. Thus, back to square one, while more and more poor kids are left behind because of false expectations and a lack of understanding of how best to teach kids.
No wonder most educators are cynical and generally respond to these "reforms" with a sigh and a sense of 'deja vu'. Thus, back to square one, while more and more poor kids are left behind because of false expectations and a lack of understanding of how best to teach kids.
5
The fault is not in the Common Core standards, it is in the incompetent way they were introduced without first teaching the teachers how to use them, then in the way tests were designed to measure accomplishment by Common Core standards before they had been introduced to the curriculum (this is a fact, unbelievable as it seems, and no responsible person has admitted fault or been subjected to "consequences" as they want for teachers), and finally in the educationally absurd testing regimen (I say "regimen" advisedly, as in a regimen of exercise designed to wear out the body).
17