The Common Core: why some area parents, teachers, & educators oppose the new initiative

Students taking a test

The 2014-15 school year is well started, and by now, most of the thousands of area children enrolled in school in and around Monroe County have settled into a routine and are adjusting to another year of classes. While their attentions are focused on mastering their math, English, science and social studies skills, there is a dedicated group of teachers, parents and administrators who are working to slow down or even reverse what they see as a troubling trend in education: the Common Core Standards Initiative.

Adopted in schools for all grade levels, the common core was developed by state education commissioners, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). According to the Common Core Standards website (www.corestandards.org), the Common Core is a “set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. … The standards are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to take credit-bearing introductory courses in two- or four-year college programs, or enter the workforce.” The Common Core has been fully adopted and implemented in 43 of the 50 states, including New York.

Locally, there has been plenty of opposition to the Common Core, with parents, teachers and administrators pushing for more people to opt their children out of the standardized tests associated with the Common Core. Teachers have railed against the Common Core, citing long days of testing for students in grades three through eight as an inefficient method for proving competency in a particular subject. The Stop Common Core in New York group maintains nearly 14,000 supporters on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/StopCommonCoreinNewYorkState), and has a website, (www.stopccssinnys.com), dedicated to educating parents on the dangers and shortcomings of the Common Core. Additionally, there are many other area groups, including Monroe County Against the Common Core, which is a regional version of the Stop Common Core group. These groups are denouncing the “Race to the Top” style of testing that is associated with the Common Core.

Karen Costner, a concerned parent with three school-aged children in the Spencerport Central School District, opted her children out of this year’s school testing. She was one of more than 4,000 people to sign their names on the “Stand with Spencerport” petition last summer, calling for dramatic changes in how area students are tested in the state. Members of the group and others opposed to the Common Core are upset at the standards because they were developed and funded by “big business,” and not by educators. Also, the standards are copyrighted so they can’t be changed or adjusted by individual states or schools.

The Stop Common Core group is ultimately hoping for a full repeal of the Common Core, as well as withdrawing from the “Race to the Top” initiative, in favor of teacher and parent-developed standards. “The flaw with the Common Core is the standards themselves, because teachers need to teach to the test, and not to their students. These standards are not preparing our children for success in high school and college,” says Costner, a mother of twins in high school and also a seventh-grader in Spencerport. “Testing companies like Pearson can share and mine our children’s testing data without our consent. These standardized tests have over 400 data points, and Pearson creates the tests and sells the products for the tests to our schools. Everything is aligned with the Common Core, but the teachers aren’t allowed to comment on the results of these tests, and they do not get any useful data or feedback from the tests. But we are spending millions of dollars on these tests while companies are profiting, and we foot the bill.”

Other common complaints about the Common Core: the tests only accept one type of answer, even if there are numerous methods for solving the problem. This means that even if a student correctly solves the question, they can still fail if they didn’t arrive at the answer using the prescribed method.

Rachel Rosner, a Brighton resident, is a teacher who currently works as the member services director for AutismUp, a support group in Rochester aimed at improving the quality of life for children with autism, and their families. She says that, with teachers’ performances tied directly to the results of these tests (teachers could lose tenure or even face termination if their students performed poorly on these standardized tests) educators are under more pressure than ever to push their pupils through the tests without regard for their comprehension of the subject. “The CCSS is forcing teachers to stop educating. They are simply doing test preparations,” Rosner says. “As a teacher, your job is to help each child live up to his fullest potential. When the bar is set the same for every child, every child loses. Teachers cannot teach to each child’s strengths and work on their weaknesses.”

Another big criticism of the Common Core is the lack of immediate results for teachers. Many area teachers are frustrated because at the end of the school year, they still hadn’t received their students’ test results. Changes have already been made to the controversial Common Core. New York State passed legislation that would remove test scores from teachers’ evaluations. Additionally, lawmakers voted to keep common core test scores off student transcripts through 2018.

These changes are just the beginning for area groups opposed to the Common Core. The groups also takes issue with the state’s gag order that denies educators the opportunity to discuss the results of their exams with their students or colleagues. The gag order shields the state Education Department and test makers Pearson PLC from criticism of poorly written, confusing and developmentally inappropriate exam questions and prevents the tests from being used for any instructional purpose. Currently, teachers must sign a confidentiality agreement making it illegal for them to discuss any part of the exam. Opponents of the Common Core argue this is just one aspect that keeps the tests from being a useful part of instruction.

Mike Panessa is a concerned parent of two boys, Joe (age 11) and Dan (7). He believes that the Common Core’s overemphasis on non-fiction reading and writing solely using excerpts instead of the entire work is derailing children from falling in love with reading and learning by stifling their educational creativity. “The Common Core agenda hurts a child’s education by imposing a one size fits all model of learning onto students,” says Panessa, who along with his wife pulled their two boys from public school and are now homeschooling them. “Children in the middle can perform the tasks with enough repetition, while those that are gifted will likely be bored and those with learning disabilities are virtually left out of the loop. The methodology requires abstract thinking within mathematics instruction in the lower grades. This requires children to utilize the hippocampus portion of their brain rather than the pre-frontal cortex. The hippocampus is designed as temporary storage. Over reliance upon its use slows the connections and growth of the prefrontal cortex and neocortex, where high order thinking and long-term retrieval occur as mature adults. In effect, it is making children dumber.”

Rosner says that in addition to the Common Core’s standards being developmentally inappropriate, the standards are also biased against students with disabilities. “There are dozens of examples throughout the Common Core Standards that simply highlight the nature of my children’s disabilities, and do nothing to measure their understanding, knowledge or skills,” says Rosner, a mother of a son, 16, and a daughter, 12 with Autism. “Foundational skills are overlooked for students with developmental disabilities in order to present students with grade-level material as required by the Common Core,” she adds. “My son is in 10th grade and has the functional vocabulary of a fourth-grader. He is more than capable of understanding new concepts if presented with language that he can understand. He is also capable of being directly taught a new word. If his teachers are forced to present concepts and information using grade-level appropriate language, my son will fail. Unless teachers can work with each student at their own individual developmental level, all of these children will fail.”

Looking to learn more? A great resource for parents is the links page on the Stop Common Core in New York group, which lists both pro- and anti-Common Core groups in the state and across the country. That resource can be found at: www.stopccssinnys.com/CCSS_Links.html 

John Boccacino is monthly contributor to Rochester & Genesee Valley Parent Magazine. He reported on sports and local news for more than 6 1/2 years with the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper. He is currently the Director of Sports Information for Keuka College. Boccacino is a Brighton native who currently resides in Webster.

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