Thursday, December 12, 2013

When Common Core Is Viewed as "Just War"- The NY State Ed Dept's Politics of Cynicism

After seeing  NY State Regents Chair Merryl Tisch in action at the Bronx Common Core Forum without Commissioner King present, I am convinced the Regents are approaching the transition to Common Core as a "just war" in which they are willing to accept a very high number of casualties. The only way to stop them, since their own children will not be among the casualties, is to make the price of continuing the war even higher. The best ways to do that are the following:

1. Sharply increasing the number of children Opting out of State tests next spring.
2. Filing lawsuits against them for everything from illegal data sharing to promoting child abuse through excessive testing
3. Getting the medical community involved in examining the stress related trauma experienced by children as a result of high stakes testing and the Common Core standards.
4. Support candidates for office, and run candidates ourselves, who support a major overhaul of State Education policies, including removing current leadership of the Regents and State Education departments.
5. Deluging the media with stories of the stress experienced by children as young as 4 as a result of State Education Department policies.

We are already doing many of these things; but we have to ratchet up the pressure on all fronts


.  And we should also start holding fundraising parties to fund class action lawsuits

No comments: