State Education Leaders Stand By the Common Core
State Education Commissioner John King and State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch have traveled across New York state in recent weeks for forums on the new Common Core standards. After receiving feedback at these forums, the New York State Educational Conference Board issued five recommendations to help improve the transition to the Common Core curriculum.
Penning an op-ed for the Albany Times-Union, King and Tisch defend the Common Core and embrace the five recommendations to help improve implementation. Overall, they acknowledge the first year of implementing the Common Core has not gone smoothly, but they stand by the new standards and will continue their work on improving the implementation process:
There's never been any question that implementing the Common Core learning standards would cause significant growing pains. We and the members of the Board of Regents knew we'd encounter a good amount of concern in public forums. That's not discouraging. We want to hear from teachers, parents, and students about what's working and what could work better. but we also know that moving forward with Common Core is essential: study after study shows that our students are lagging behind in the areas of study and reasoning that are key to their future. The Common Core standards, designed by teachers and education experts across the country, begin to change that. Recent data show states that have adopted the new learning standards and raised standards for teaching show significant gains in student performance.
