King defends Common Core at heated town hall

Richard Tedesco

State Commissioner of Education John King Jr. defended the Common Core curriculum at a public forum in the Mineola High School auditorium last Wednesday where he faced a barrage of questions from teachers, administrators and parents troubled by the new state education standards.

“No one’s goal is to have students turned off to school or to ignore the whole child,” King said in response to one question during a three-hour question-and-answer session. “Our emphasis is to address the needs of the whole child. The goal isn’t to create an education system that’s focused on rote testing.”

The audience, which nearly filled the 700-person capacity auditorium, repeatedly criticized the Common Core concept, the speed of its implementation and the impact on students and teachers coping with it and expressed displeasure with King’s answers to pointed questions that frequently drew applause.

The meeting, which was also attended by state Board of Regents Chancellor Merrill Tisch, was scheduled shortly after state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola) called on King to either resume holding suspended public forums on the new Common Core learning standards or resign from office. King had canceled a meeting scheduled for Garden City after finding what he termed an “unconstructive response” at a community forum in Upstate New York that he blamed on “special interests.”

The meeting in Mineola is one of a dozen King has now scheduled around the state including four on Long Island.

Martins, who acted as both a forum moderator and commentator, said he believed the state education department was moving ahead too quickly with the Common Core curriculum.

“That’s the core right there,” Martins said. “We’ve got parents, students, teachers, educators, administrators on this side asking the state education department to slow down. And on the other side, we have the education department saying we need to move forward.”

“We intend to make adjustments. But I have to say what you’re describing isn’t true everywhere,” King said.

Christine Corbett, president of the Westbury Teachers Association, drew loud applause when she charged that the Common Core curriculum was “rolled out and shoved down these kids throats, that’s what’s creating the problem. What you need to do is step back and halt. It’s too much too fast too soon.”

Sheila Simone, president of the Great Neck Teachers Association, asked how teachers can use results of state assessment tests to improve students’ classroom performance without full access to the results.

“I will tell you as a teacher I find this absolutely unhelpful in terms of improving my own instruction,” she said.

King said the state education department is trying to “strike a balance” in determining how much information it releases about test results. 

“What we don’t want is for last year’s test to become the curriculum,” he said.

Janine Bonura, a third grade teacher in the New Hyde Park-Garden City Park School District, said teachers and parents are “unsettled, anxious and frustrated.” She asked when changes would be made to what she called a “disastrous” implementation of the new education standards.

King said changes would be made, but said many of those changes need to be made at the local level.

“Where we have more testing than we need, we should change that,” he said.

King and Tisch said they are exploring options to reduce the frequency of tests.

Christine Cozzolino, a parent in the East Williston School District, asked how children can think creatively in a system of “scripted lessons.”

“These materials are not a script. We do make suggestions for how the materials are delivered but the decision for how those materials are presented has to be made on the local level,” King said.

Cozzolino, who also identified herself as a high school and college math teacher, told King, “You’re living in a world of theory,” adding, “If you want to fix things right now, you go and fix the impoverished schools.”  

Martins said area school districts are typically sending 96 percent or more of graduating high school seniors to four-year colleges where they are completing their studies in four years.

He suggested those “high-performing” school districts should be permitted to continue what they’ve been doing.

David Jaslow, a junior at Roslyn High School, questioned how the Common Core could deal with grade school students who can’t keep up with the uniform curriculum.

“The curriculum is developed locally. And we want the curriculum to meet the needs of the students,” King said. 

Charles Leone, Manhasset assistant superintendent of curriculum, said it is “not fair” to subject students to what he called the state education department’s “one-size-fits-all model.” He called on King to “free” students from the “over-testing and undue pressure” of the new system.

Tisch said the state education department has “articulated a vision that mandated math, English and science,” allowing for “multiple pathways” to academic success beyond those core subjects.

Addressing the formula of the Annual Professional Performance Review, Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler said emphasis on student performance has caused teachers anxiety about “high-stakes tests.” He suggested a compromise to use a three-year aggregate of student performance for teacher evaluations.

King said test results are a portion – 20 percent – of teacher evaluations. But Nagler said the common perception is that “it’s the whole assessment.”

King acknowledged there had been “communications problems.”

Parents at the forum also expressed concern about the influence of corporate interests in the Common Core development and the potential dissemination of test data.

Herricks parent Genara DiGirolomo said the Gates Foundation had invested $100 million to create InBloom, the Common Core data collection entity, and $174.5 million to “push” Common Core curriculum development. She said News Corp. and Pearson Inc. also played roles in curriculum development.

‘Incorporating new standards isn’t about corporate interests, it’s about preparation for college and career success,” King said, adding that K through 12 educators, college educators and business leaders had collaborated on developing the Common Core.

Colleen Bloom, a data coordinator for the Manhasset School District, asked whether student data would be used for research that would profit InBloom.

King said InBloom is a non-profit entity that can only provide data to school districts. He said school districts would be able to look at the aggregate test results data of other school districts.

Andrea Bergin, a Carle Place School District parent, asked if a written request to exclude her children’s data from InBloom would be honored.

King indicated that wasn’t possible, saying, “We could never have a system where information was not collected about a student.”

Danielle Manco, a Hicksville parent of twin fifth graders, said some parents are opting to keep their children out of the state assessments testing and asked how parents should explain that to their children.

“I would urge people not to opt out,” King said, suggesting parents should tell their children the state assessments represented “moments in time to get information that will help inform instruction.”

Martins said there are no clear consequences to school districts if parents do opt to keep their children from taking the state tests. 

King said there are consequences from students not being tested, with school districts becoming ineligible from receiving certain grants. But he also said there is no way to “opt out.”

“Parents are going to do what they want to do,” Martins said. “We can’t argue with a parent doing what’s best for a child.” 

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