New York state's implementation of the Common Core was slowed last week when State Education Commissioner John King and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch made 19 adjustments to the Common Core program.
According to an editorial in the New York Daily News, two of these adjustments were "significant" mistakes. The first mistake was the decision to delay new graduation standards by five years to 2022. The second mistake was to allow teachers an additional way to defend themselves from firing after receiving "ineffective" ratings for two straight years.
The Daily News said the adjustments were made after parent outrage from the messy rollout, but the editorial argues that higher standards for New York students from the Common Core curriculum cannot wait any longer:
Seizing on a sharp drop in reading and math scores after students took their first Common Core tests, the teachers fed fears that kids would somehow suffer because their grades had fallen, when the opposite was true.
Many parents revolted. The Legislature took note, with some legislators threatening to derail Common Core entirely.
After putting New York at the forefront of the national movement, where it belongs, Tisch and King bent too far.
