Carol Burris Calls For Accountability at the Top for Common Core Mess

...the Regents are “rolling back” what they never did in the first place..... Like Lucy holding the football for poor Charlie Brown, the Regents and Commissioner King have repeatedly set up parents and educators.... Carol Burris 

Why do you think the Regents and King and Cuomo are doing this dance? To confuse, obfuscate and derail the growing threat. These tactics work by making the public think their concerns are being addressed.

Carol Burris, NY State 2013 Principal of the Year has a piece at WAPO's Answer Sheet that drives a truck through their flimsy and shoddy tactics.

Principal: Time to hold NY education leaders accountable for Core mess

Read it all but here is one more excerpt:

First there was the rushed implementation of an evaluation system that they likened to a “plane being built in the air.”  Then we found out that teachers and principals could be rated ineffective overall, even without one ineffective rating in any of the three components.  (This has yet to be acknowledged and addressed outside of New York City). After that, the commissioner predicted a failing rate of 70 percent on the new 3-8 Common Core exams, before New York’s kids even opened a test booklet.  And now we have a set of recommendations that appear to address concerns, when they hardly make a dent at all. 

I know many people are calling for all kinds of things, like lobbying the corrupt NY State legislature. I have no faith in the political process. The answer is to grow the opt-out movement by parents and to increase teacher union resistance to the entire testing process and actually get the unions to help grow the opt-out movement like our pals in Chicago are doing.

Opt-out by parents is the thing that scares the deformers the most because if it catches on to the masses, their entire ed deform program begins to fall apart. Imagine Pearson and other blood-sucking companies feeding at the public trough being left with tests and test prep materials no one will use? Well, I can dream, can't I?

Monty Neill left a comment taking Michael Mulgrew's Revive NYSUT slate's pal, Cuomo, to task.

montyneill

2/12/2014 9:35 AM EST

Cuomo was also duplicitous. First he said the Regents committee recommendations were 'too little too late,' making it seem he was on the side of teachers and parents. In the same press release, he then attacked the committee for recommending a delay in use of tests to judge teachers, and the Regents punted that one to a study. Cuomo wants his study committee to control the agenda, and he has stacked that committee with proponents of 'test-and-punish' high-stakes test-based accountability, with of course a few who have different views.