Governor Cuomo Says Common Core "Is The Right Direction" But Implementation Has Been "Too Hasty"

Sheriff Andy Cuomo today in Buffalo:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in Buffalo offering a summary of his executive budget proposal and talking about new IBM jobs, said the implementation of the Common Core standards has been “too hasty” and needs to be slowed down.

While the demand for a slowdown of the State Education Department’s rollout of the new national standards — and the related use of tests to measure student accomplishment for use in teacher evaluations — has been part of the rhetoric of Common Core opponents for most of the past year, Cuomo himself has until recently held back on calling the problem a matter of excessive speed.

Instead, the governor has in recent weeks acknowledged unspecified mismanagement in the implementation plan developed by SED. Last week, he emphasized that he feels common cause with Common Core opponents and said the Board of Regents had “utterly failed.”

In the Q&A that followed the appearance, Cuomo was asked about his Common Core comments:

“Common Core is the right direction. … How they did it I believe is the problem. This was very different than in past curriculums, and it was almost traumatic to the system. Children that would get grades that were in the 90s now came home with grades that were in the 60s. And the parents weren’t probably briefed; the students weren’t properly briefed. The consequences of what those lowered grades might mean wasn’t adequately handled. … So I think that the implementation of it was flawed, and I’m working with the Legislature about slowing the actual rate of movement toward the Common Core.

So now we have the governor finally on record where he's at - he still supports the Common Core State (sic) Standards, just thinks the Regents and the SED rolled them out too fast before students, parents and teachers were properly prepared for the testing, a problem which has caused all kinds of chaos, confusion and anxiety around the state.

Interestingly enough, the same criticism can be aimed at Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system, which Cuomo has insisted will be the evaluation system for teachers all around the state even though the first year of ratings is so screwed up that SED is months behind schedule releasing them to the public.

In fact, Newsday reported earlier this month that the ratings for teachers around the state (except in NYC, where the system was not in place for 2012-2013) have "significant flaws" and are being delayed so that SED can get the ratings right.

Somehow Cuomo is fine with the half-baked APPR teacher evaluation system that he insisted be implemented even though it has "significant flaws," but the CCSS he criticizes because it was hastily implemented and has been flawed.

Let's see how long Sheriff Andy gets away with this.

When SED finally releases the final evaluations and teachers begin the lawsuits against the state for the unfair ratings, Sheriff Andy is going to have own the same criticism over APPR that he has launched at the Regents and the SED for CCSS.