Common Core to sink or swim this school year

Welcome to the 2014-15 school year, when supporters and critics of the Common Core learning standards promise to wage the defining battle for the hearts and minds of New York's parents and educators.

Most school districts will be using the standards for a third year, meaning that the Common Core may soon become entrenched in daily school life. But many educators remain uneasy about the Core and its many testing-related tentacles, giving opponents hope that they can build momentum to topple the Core.

"We need to have an impact," said Port Chester's Glen Dalgleish, co-founder of the Stop Common Core in New York State group, which claims 14,000 members. "If we cannot get the Common Core out of the schools, or at least debilitated during the coming school year, we're in trouble."

Until recently, critics of the state's education agenda have focused their ire on testing concerns, but legislation temporarily reduced the impact of test scores on students and teachers. Now public debate is quickly focusing on the Common Core itself, in New York and across the country.

Many teachers in the Lower Hudson Valley say they have various levels of enthusiasm for the Common Core — standards for what students should know in English and math at the end of each grade.

"At first it's overwhelming, but the standards are based on principles of good teaching," said Anny Vanegas, a second-grade teacher at Columbus Elementary School in New Rochelle. "When you use the standards, they're not that scary. I think the Common Core is helping us to push students to reach their potential."

But others are leery of nationally developed standards when there is no clear protocol for revising them in New York.

"There is good in the standards," said Francisca White, who teaches fourth grade at Liberty Elementary School in Nyack. "But educators are supposed to reflect on their work and seek to improve. That's what we do in life. We need more conversation about what is working and what is not."

A key point of debate is whether it's realistic to separate the standards themselves from testing requirements that are so closely linked. New York, for example, is likely to adopt national tests tied to the Common Core that are being prepared by PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment or Readiness for College and Careers.

Bedford Superintendent Jere Hochman, president-elect of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, said the Common Core is so closely tied to a "culture of testing" that it may have to be revamped or thrown out. He foresees another year of conflict unless the state seeks permission from the federal government to rethink its approach to the Common Core and testing.

New York promised to install the Common Core when it received $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

"The whole accountability, 'gotcha' culture is so out of control that we need a fresh start," Hochman said. "The standards are OK, but every problem is connected to the Common Core. New York needs to take a bold stance so we can focus on educating kids."

State Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Education Commissioner John King are all-out advocates for the Common Core. Harry Phillips, the Lower Hudson Valley's representative on the Board of Regents, is a sharp critic of the high-speed implementation of the Common Core, but believes that the standards are here to stay.

"The overnight change and the unfair testing were too much for the public to stomach," Phillips said. "But teachers understand that the standards are good."

Challengers to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Democrat Zephyr Teachout and Republican Rob Astorino, promise to trash the Common Core if elected. And Astorino's camp collected over 70,000 signatures to secure a "Stop Common Core" ballot line for Election Day.

If Cuomo is re-elected, though, it would likely be up to legislators to push any anti-Common Core measure.

The Common Core project was started in 2007 by the National Governors Association and state education heads, with key funding from the Gates Foundation. The broad goals were to promote the teaching of fewer, deeper concepts in math and a sort of practical literacy in English, focusing on nonfiction texts and evidence-backed writing.

Forty-five states quickly signed on in 2011. But Indiana and Oklahoma have pulled out and South Carolina and Kentucky are considering new standards.

In New York, critics are trying to convince parents that the standards are unproven, fail to recognize how young children develop, offer faulty methodology in math and needlessly downplay literature.

"The standards were not built on sound research and were never field tested," said Carol Burris, a Long Island principal who writes and speaks often in opposition to the Common Core.

Nicholas Tampio, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, began campaigning against the Common Core after seeing how it altered his children's education in the Rye Neck schools.

"New York is doing a pure implementation of the Common Core and it's providing a bad education," he said. "If a district wants to use it, fine. But if a district wants to focus on reading great books or mastering the history of Egypt, that should be fine, too."

Some key institutions, such as the national and state PTAs, support the Common Core.

"It makes sense to want more rigorous learning and preparation for all of our students," said Antoinette Darden-Cintron of Greenburgh, director of the Westchester-East Putnam PTA region.

Anne Byrne, a veteran member of the Nanuet school board and president of the National School Boards Association, said that schools need higher standards, even if related policies were ineffectively rushed into place.

"I would love to see the words 'Common Core' disappear because they have such negative implications," she said. "To me, it's about higher standards, period."

Twitter: @garysternNY