Resistance to the Common Core Mounts: Critics span the political spectrum, from tea partyers to union leaders (Education Week - April 21, 2014) [New York State Education in the News] EXCERPT: The newer strain of resistance to the common core coming from teachers unions isnt necessarily opposition to the standards themselves. Rather, its based on the notion that teachers and schools havent received adequate time, the proper training, financial resources, curricula, and other support from state governments, districts, and others to successfully bring the standards into their classrooms. Without a significant shift, so the argument goes, using new state tests based on the standards to evaluate both educators and schools will destroy any benefits the standards might have otherwise provided, while damaging both teachers and the teaching profession. That position was crystallized in the legislation approved in March by the New York Assembly. The measure would require a two-year delay in using common-core test scores for teacher and principal evaluations—assuming the U.S. Department of Education allows it—and also calls for a review of standardized testing to eliminate unnecessary exams. In addition, it would ban the test scores from being the primary factor in student promotions and from being placed on students permanent records, a proposal that ultimately found its way into the state budget plan New York lawmakers recently finalized. The Assembly bill on teacher evaluations followed months of recriminations in the Empire State over a drop in test scores on new common-core exams given last year and what some critics said was inadequate teacher training and delayed curriculum. The New York State United Teachers, the 600,000-member state affiliate of both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, announced early in 2014 that it no longer supported common core as it stood in the state.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 02:46:46 +0000
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