News

New York teachers, parents, and students have expressed resistance to the rollout of the Common Core standards and its associated curriculum. As a result, Governor Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers are working to get corrective action passed into law to improve the transition into the Common Core.

A New York Daily News editorial discusses why the Common Core is necessary for improving New York State education:

The Common Core standards and the curricula that should help students meet them are two different things. Together, they require greater reading comprehension, writing ability and math mastery than New York students have been required to display.

The editorial goes on to identify key factors that should not be altered when correcting the rollout of the Common Core standards:

Altering the standards themselves — carefully developed new benchmarks in math, English and other subjects that demand students engage in deeper, more rigorous, higher-level thinking — should be off the table.

Also non-negotiable should be the linkage of the standards to student tests and a teacher evaluation system that for the first time is distinguishing the best teachers from the worst. It would be meaningless to set a goal and hold no one accountable for meeting it.