Parents, teachers and principals across the state have criticized the system of testing and teacher evaluation implemented under the Common Core, saying it was rushed into place, poorly designed and puts undue pressure on students and teachers.
They make some legitimate points.
We agree that the state moved too fast and without sufficient public education and that there are some flaws in the program’s design. And we share concerns about placing undue pressure on young grade schools.
We also think basing up to 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation of the tests may be too much, but do believe that the tests offers a very useful measure for teacher performance.
But we don’t agree with the widespread decision of parents to have their children opt out of the Common Core exams.
As MaryEllen Elia, the state’s new education commissioner, noted the test-boycott movement deprives educators the information needed to measure students’ progress and spotlight areas in need of improvement.
“I think that opt-out is something that is not reasonable,” Elia said, according to Newsday.
Among North Shore school districts, which outperformed their statewide peers in state exams, the opt-out rate ranged from as low as 4 percent in math and 6 percent in English in Manhasset to 33 percent of both math and English in neighboring Roslyn with several of the districts near or at 20 percent in both math and English.
That is way too much.
Many schools on the North Shore are among the best – and highest spending per pupil – in the state.
Blank Slate Media has a story this week about a national survey of high schools by Newsweek Magazine that ranks Great Neck North High School the 15th best in the state, Great Neck South High School 28th, Herricks High School 32nd, Paul Schreiber Senior High School 49th and North Shore Senior High School 57th.
None of the schools cracked the top 100 nationally with Great Neck North topping the North Shore at 105th.
But even national rankings do not matter as much as they once did with competition for jobs now global.
A recently released report by the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development that measured math and science education in the world, the United States ranked 28th – tied with Italy.
This is in line with other studies – even though on average the United States spends twice as much per capita on education as other countries.
The top five ranked countries in the study were Asian, led by Singapore and followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
It is children from those countries with whom our children will be competing in the future — and right now our children are not faring well.
Undue pressure on children may be bad, but getting an education that puts our kids at a disadvantage in the global economy is far worse. For them and our country.
The sooner we can accurately measure our students’ performance, the sooner we can identify our weaknesses and do something about it.
Some parents, educators and elected officials say we should scrap the Common Core tests and start all over.
We hope they realize that for children now going to school the clock is ticking.
