Fred Smith on the Common Core: Show me the evidence!
Fred Smith is an expert on testing and a critical voice on the flaws in the Common Core standards and the state exams. His testimony to the Governor's Common Core task force is below. The presentation given by Lisa Rudley to the Common Core task force, co-founder of NYSAPE, that Fred refers to is well worth watching and is posted here.
Statement to the Common Core Task Force–LaGuardia Community College
Fred Smith – Nov. 6, 2015
Good afternoon. My name is Fred Smith. I served as a testing specialist and analyst for the New York City public school system and retired after 33 years. I’m a member of Change the Stakes, a parent awareness group that has spearheaded the steadily growing opt-out movement in New York City.
Thank you for giving me time to present concerns about the quality of the tests aligned with the Common Core and the State Education Department’s unwillingness to provide information about the tests to parents and independent researchers.
But first I want to acknowledge the significance of Assemblywoman Nolan in these proceedings and in shaping whatever positive outcomes the Task Force may produce, if it hopes to restore rationality to education. As a respected legislator and Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, she is its preeminent member and must be the voice of the task force.
I attended its first public meeting last week in New Rochelle and was taken by Lisa Rudley’s presentation about the imposition of the Common Core Standards over the last few years and all the testing and anxiety it has brought down on students and teachers. Lisa is a parent advocate and a founder of New York State Allies for Public Education, a galvanizing force in last April’s statewide boycott of the testing program.
She set a tone that said We, the People, are tired of yet another task force. She asked what research had been done to show the efficacy of NYC Public School Parents: Fred Smith on the Common Core: Show me the evidence!:
Nancy Cauthen on the Common Core: stop experimenting on my children and other people's kids!
Here is the testimony of Nancy Cauthen to the Governor's Common Core Task Force on Friday. Nancy is a public school parent, a member of Change the Stakes and NY State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), and a sociologist.My name is Nancy Cauthen and I’ve been a NYC public school parent since 2002, the year No Child Left Behind went into effect. Both of my sons, who are now in high school, attended a traditional K-8 school in Washington Heights in Manhattan.
Having had the opportunity to watch No Child Left Behind and then Race to the Top unfold, my first point to the task force is this: I urge you to consider your charge in the context of the long process that got us here. This grand experiment with high-stakes testing and now Common Core has been going on for a long time.
Yet, instead of research or evidence, this experiment has been based on: (1) a hyped narrative about the “failure of public education”; (2) the personal beliefs about “what works” on the part of rich and powerful people, like Bill Gates and David Coleman, who lack the qualifications to make education policy; (3) simple attributions of causality, such as “bad teachers create bad academic outcomes”; and (4) a blatant disregard for the expertise of educators and of decades of research on early childhood and how to ameliorate the effects of poverty on school performance.
I say this in part as a political sociologist who studies public policy and researches strategies to reduce child and family poverty and increase opportunity. But as a public school parent, I am sick and tired of federal, state, and local politicians and officials experimenting on my children http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2015/11/nancy-cauthen-on-common-core-stop.html
Having had the opportunity to watch No Child Left Behind and then Race to the Top unfold, my first point to the task force is this: I urge you to consider your charge in the context of the long process that got us here. This grand experiment with high-stakes testing and now Common Core has been going on for a long time.
Yet, instead of research or evidence, this experiment has been based on: (1) a hyped narrative about the “failure of public education”; (2) the personal beliefs about “what works” on the part of rich and powerful people, like Bill Gates and David Coleman, who lack the qualifications to make education policy; (3) simple attributions of causality, such as “bad teachers create bad academic outcomes”; and (4) a blatant disregard for the expertise of educators and of decades of research on early childhood and how to ameliorate the effects of poverty on school performance.
I say this in part as a political sociologist who studies public policy and researches strategies to reduce child and family poverty and increase opportunity. But as a public school parent, I am sick and tired of federal, state, and local politicians and officials experimenting on my children http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2015/11/nancy-cauthen-on-common-core-stop.html
