Opting out of Common Core

Posted 8/21/12

There are some highly respected educators locally and across the country who believe that the Common Core Education Standards that have been adopted by New York and many other states are good for the …

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Opting out of Common Core

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There are some highly respected educators locally and across the country who believe that the Common Core Education Standards that have been adopted by New York and many other states are good for the future of the students. The standards were created with the goal of improving critical thinking among students, more fully preparing students for college and helping students compete against other students on the international stage.

But among those educators, there is general agreement that the standards were poorly implemented. Now, with the crescendo of the voices of parents, teachers and students against Common Core testing, it’s hard to believe that continuing along this path is in the best interest of the students.

There is a video online (www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2QGiGqz-xs) that shows a Common Core method of teaching a simple addition problem of adding nine plus six to an elementary school student. The old method required the student to simply remember that nine plus six equals 15, but it’s not that simple with Common Core. The educator explains that the young learner might not be comfortable thinking about nine plus six and would be more comfortable “thinking about their friend 10.” On the white board, therefore, a numeral one is moved away from the six and “anchored” to the nine with an oval drawing. Thus the nine becomes 10 and the six becomes five, and it is supposed to be easier for the young learner to add five and 10 as opposed to six and nine.

It may, in fact, be the case that this method is easier for a “young learner” to understand. But to the non-educator parent who learned addition by memorizing basic sums, it seems like the educator is going out of her way to make the student go through many more steps than necessary to solve the problem. If this is truly a better way to teach addition, the video does a lousy job of explaining why, and the state has done a lousy job of selling and implementing Common Core.

In 2010, the state decided to adopt Common Core and at the same time received a Race to the Top grant of $700 million from the federal government. The first testing under the new program came in 2013, and resulted in a dramatic drop in scores statewide, with the number of students from grade three to grade eight deemed proficient in English Language Arts dropping from 55% to 33%.

Now there is a big movement in the state to opt out of Common Core testing. According to the New York State Allies for Public Education, (NYSAPE) 92 school- and education-related organizations around the state have endorsed the idea that parents should have their children opt out of the tests that were administered this week.

And there is a lot of support for the opt-out choice in the state legislature. The Common Core Parental Refusal Act has bipartisan support and is being considered in the Senate and Assembly. The bill would require districts to notify parents that they have a choice to take their kids out of testing, and the choice would not have a negative impact on teachers or students.

Assemblyman James Tedisco said of the legislation, “This is a stinging indictment of the ‘Test-a-Thon’ culture and the reliance on the over-utilization of high-stakes Common Core standardized tests. This is not Common Core—it’s ‘Common Gore’ because it’s goring the self-esteem and the love of learning from our children.”

Assemblyman Pete Lopez said, “We want teachers and parents to do what they were meant to do, which is inspire young people to reach their full potential. They cannot do that if they are forced to teach to a one-size-fits-all test or send their children into unnecessary, stressful situations.”

The U.S. Senate has also weighed in on the matter and, on March 26, passed the Local Control of Education Act, sponsored by David Vitter (R-LA), who once supported Common Core. The act prohibits the federal government from mandating, incentivizing, or coercing states to adopt specific academic standards, including the Common Core standards, and would also allow states that choose to opt out of Common Core after adoption to remain eligible for Race to the Top funding.

To aid parents in opting out, NYSAPE supplies a sample of the letter parents may send to their schools. It says, in part, “I am writing to respectfully inform you that my child, (name), under my guardianship and advice, will be scored as a ‘refusal,’ with a final score of “999” and a standard achieved code of 96, on all state testing including English Language arts, Math and Science…. ”

Last year, parents chose to withdraw some 60,000 children from the testing regime. The numbers for this year aren’t in yet, but parents opposed to Common Core are hoping that up to 250,000 students will choose not to participate, which would be about 5% of students, and opponents hope that would prompt the New York State Education Department and Board of Regents to re-evaluate the standards.

The people who created the Common Core standards likely did so with the best interests of the children at heart, and it may be that had they been implemented more gradually or thoughtfully, all of this blowback would have been prevented. But at this point the momentum behind the opt-out movement is gaining speed, and the future for Common Core is not looking bright.

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