Task force: Overhaul Common Core

In its final report issued last Thursday, Governor Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force called on the state to place a four-year moratorium on the use of students’ state test scores to evaluate teachers’ classroom performance.

The recommendation came amid a raft of proposed policy changes intended, as the report states, “to right the ship.” The governor impaneled the task force this fall after mounting parental anger over plummeting exam scores led more than 200,000 New York students in grades three to eight to “opt out” of the battery of state tests required under the Common Core last spring.

The report, assembled by a panel of education and business leaders and experts, issued 21 recommendations in all. Among them, the task force called on the state to:

n Modify early-grade standards to ensure that they are age-appropriate. Many parents have complained that the Common Core standards, which the state began implementing in 2012-2013, are one to two grade levels above most students’ ability levels.

n Ensure that standards are “flexible” enough to accommodate the specific needs of special education and English as a Second Language students. Alternative assessments should be provided for the “most severely disabled students,” the task force said. Many educators have said special education and ESL students, who enter school significantly behind their peers through no fault of their own, are expected under Common Core to perform on level in mainstream settings, and that, they say, is fundamentally unfair.

- Ensure that standards do not “diminish the love of reading and joy of learning.” Many parents and teachers have said the standards, because they are centered around state exams, lead schools to “teach to the tests.” In the process, creativity and individuality are brushed aside. Teachers, in fact, have complained that the state has provided step-by-step lesson plans that are essentially scripts.

- Reduce the number of days that students must take state exams, as well as the length of the tests. Many parents and teachers have noted that several of the Common Core tests are significantly longer than college finals.

“They certainly went further than I anticipated,” said Rockville Centre Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. “But I think they came up somewhat short of recommending the complete overhaul that is necessary. There’s a lot of room for interpretation of what they meant. And that’s going to play out in the upcoming State of the State message from the governor, and the legislative session in the spring.”

Richard Parsons, the Common Core Task Force chairman, said the state still has a chance to get Common Core “right.” “The Common Core Standards must be revisited to reflect the particular needs and priorities of state and local school districts, and building on the foundation established by the Common Core Standards, high-quality [standards] must be developed where necessary to meet the needs of our kids.”

Full implementation of the recommended reforms, Parsons said, would require a “transition period” of four years, at minimum. “It is our belief,” he said, “that these recommendations provide the foundation to restore public trust.”

No new legislation is needed to implement the task force’s recommendations, according to the governor’s office, and the policy changes were expected to go through without rancor.

Although he felt the reforms came up short, Johnson said it was still a step in the right direction. “Instead of becoming particularly defensive, [the task force] recognized we had a severe problem with the implementation plan and with some of the Common Core standards themselves, and it’s willing to take a step back before we move forward. And I’m hopeful it will give us in the education community, parents and administrators an opportunity to participate in a much more fertile discussion about what should be included in a New York State set of standards.”

Cuomo applauded the task force’s efforts last week. “After listening to thousands of parents, educators and students, the task force has made important recommendations that include overhauling the Common Core, adopting new, locally designed, high-quality New York standards, and greatly reducing testing and testing anxiety for our students,” the governor said. “The Common Core was supposed to ensure all of our children had the education they needed to be college- and career-ready, but it actually caused confusion and anxiety. That ends now.”

New York State United Teachers, a union of educators, celebrated the task force’s report, writing in a statement on its website, “Today we celebrate momentous developments … that open the door for a much-needed transformation in public education. The recommendations of the state task force signal a commitment to restore the joy of teaching and learning in our classrooms. These changes are essential to end the high-stakes pressure that has eroded the joy of teaching and learning and narrowed the curriculum.