State revamps Common Core

Education Department releases new learning standards

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The New York State Education Department last week released new draft English and math learning standards for public comment, according to Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, but teachers in the community are looking for more changes to the Common Core system.

Matt Adler, a Long Beach resident who has taught math at Seaford High School for 16 years, said he has looked at some of the new standards — especially for algebra, a subject he teaches — and sees no substantial changes.

“It seemed like the majority of the changes really consisted of revising the phrasing and the language,” Adler said. “It was almost like they asked teachers for their input and completely ignored it.”

The Education Department’s move follows four years of parents’ protests about the Common Core State Standards, which were adopted by New York in 2012. More than 200,000 parents kept their children out of grades three to eight English and math state exams across the state in 2015. That led Gov. Andrew Cuomo to empanel a task force to offer recommendations to overhaul Common Core.

That process began last spring, and ended last month with a raft of new standards. Two committees comprising 130 educators and parents recommended changing 60 percent of the English and 55 percent of the math standards. The Education Department is now accepting public comments on the draft standards through Nov. 4.

“Learning standards form the very framework of our educational system, so it’s critical that we get this right for all of our students,” said Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa. “As we work to support teachers in implementing these new learning standards, we will place a particular emphasis on educating English language learners, students with disabilities and other special populations.”

According to Elia, the new draft standards meet the 2015 legislative requirement that the standards be reassessed with stakeholders’ input. Teachers and parents, she noted, have had a voice throughout the revision process, “and their input drove the recommended changes to the learning standards.”

“Dedicated teachers, parents and educators from across the state put in countless hours to develop these new draft standards,” Elia said. “I thank our review committee members for taking the time to propose meaningful changes to improve the state’s learning standards. Teachers will be able to use these standards as a basis for developing their curricula and lesson plans to meet the needs of students in their classrooms.

“These changes,” she continued, “reflect what I have heard from parents, teachers and administrators over the past year in my travels across the state. Now we want to hear from educators and parents so we can develop the best learning standards to prepare New York’s children for their futures.”

For his part, Adler said he though the Common Core standards that were adopted four years ago were portrayed as being more student-oriented, and would allow teachers to spend more time on each topic, but that was not the case.

“I was very unimpressed,” he told the Herald. “The topics [we] were teaching were developmentally inappropriate, cognitively not aligned to the ability of the students, and the concepts were too hard for them to comprehend. It was, in my opinion, a complete disaster.”

As for the proposed changes, Adler, who has been a big supporter of the opt-out movement, described them as nothing more than “window dressing.” He recommended a complete overhaul of the existing standards.

“Every single teacher I’ve spoken to has major concerns with what’s going on … and they keep trying to make little changes to hopefully appease teachers and parents, but they’re not listening,” Adler said, referring to state education officials. “They acknowledge that there’s an issue, but they’re not making any significant change to solve the issues that the parents, teachers, administrators and basically everyone is having with this.”

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach), who is running for re-election next month, has expressed his opposition to the Common Core, and told the Herald that the new draft standards have not fully addressed the problem.

“Obviously it’s a positive step when someone signals that they want to change course and revisit something that the public realizes is problematic,” Kaminsky said. “But real change will come when things are done in a grass-roots matter, not a top-down matter, meaning we have to have parent and teacher buy-in in any testing regime that the state will employ.”

He added that teachers he has talked to are skeptical about the proposed standards, and that unless educators and parents are able to contribute to the conversation, high opt-out rates will continue.

“People have to believe in the system — they have to believe that it benefits their children, that it improves their teaching, and that it makes a better educational system,” Kaminsky said. “Until that happens on a meaningful level, we’re not going to see the change the public really desires.”