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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

High-stakes testing, Common Core focus of education forum - City & Region - The Buffalo News

High-stakes testing, Common Core focus of education forum - City & Region - The Buffalo News:

High-stakes testing, Common Core focus of education forum






Two leading advocates in a movement to scale back high-stakes testing in schools will be featured at an education forum at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Niagara Falls High School.
Carol Burris, a retired principal who has frequently written about the impact of testing and other education reform measures, will be the guest speaker at the event, “Public Education Now: Reform, Resistance and Solutions in New York State.” Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education, education historian and author, will deliver a message via video during the event.
The forum is free and open to the public. Seats and parking are available on a first-to-arrive basis.
Burris was a principal at South Side High School on Long Island until earlier this year, when she retired to advocate for rolling back high-stakes tests linked to teacher evaluations, the Common Core standards and other controversial policies New York State leaders have rolled out in public schools in recent years. Burris, who was named Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State 2013, is now the executive director of the Network for Public Education. Burris and Ravitch spoke Monday night at West Seneca West High School.
The forum will include discussions
on the impact of the Common Core standards and high-stakes testing, the movement to refuse state standardized tests, education reform and local control issues.

At the forum on Monday, organizers said, Burris criticized a new task force created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to review the Common Core standards as a “sham” and called for a larger effort on behalf of parents to refuse state standardized assessments.High-stakes testing, Common Core focus of education forum - City & Region - The Buffalo News: