Your latest editorial on the Common Core reminds of the adage that, “while success has many fathers, failure will always be an orphan.”
The comments of several superintendents are a testament to that truism.
One is quoted, “I reject the test results because I think they’re contrived,” and further suggests, “that public schools throughout the state were set up to fail in order to promote charter schools and voucher programs.”
Assuming this breathtaking and unsupported assertion to be true, should we now infer that the New York State Department of Education, a bastion of progressive public education since the era of John Dewey, has now become a closet supporter of private schooling through charters and vouchers?
Another is quoted, “We didn’t have all the state curriculum yet. We didn’t have all the information of what we should be teaching,” yet the Common Core Learning Standards, adopted by New York in January of 2011, have been posted since then and are regularly updated on the DOE website.
Your editorial goes on to assert, “The real failure with the new Common Core testing is not in the excellent pubic schools on the North Shore but in the DOE.”
Agreed, the North Shore has fine schools, but it’s beside the point.
Why is the DOE the culprit for poor scores? Their purpose is only to measure grade competence at a point in time. The real issue is as stark as a dog barking at four a.m. on a winter night in Montauk.
The education establishment has been rightfully embarrassed and exposed by these results, which have been in the making for a very long time. As a result, they have chosen to shoot the messenger by excuse mongering, finger pointing and looking for scapegoats. Before one can solve a problem, one must first recognize it and then own it.
Our results in math and science, when adjusted for spending and then measured against our major competitors, are abysmal, a reality not lost on these nations.
As a consequence, continue to expect foreign nationals to be the first choice of American employers, for the jobs of the future.
Most critically, if education is the keystone to any nation’s competitive advantage, what do these results say about our future?
Tom Coffey
Herricks
