Andrew Cuomo's Common Core Ad Is Full Of Distortions And Mistruths

Take a look at the Cuomo Common Core ad his campaign is running and think about the chutzpah it took to make this piece of propaganda:




Here's the script:

Hello, I’m Governor Andrew Cuomo. For all of us, there’s nothing more important than our children and their education is everything.

While the state’s new Common Core curriculum is heading in the right direction, testing on it is premature.

It creates anxiety and it’s just unfair. And their scores should not be counted against them.

I won’t let our children’s scores be counted against our kids.

Please tell your legislator to join me in protecting our children.

Because education is about helping our kids, not hurting them.

Couple of things to say here:

First, as I noted this morning, one of the reasons there are so many tests for kids to take in school these days is because Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system mandates that 40% of each teacher's evaluation come from so-called student performance - that means standardized tests or "performance assessments."

Just today we talked at PD about the Measures of Student Learning performance assessments we have to give in April/May so that we teachers can be evaluated for the 20% local assessment component.

Then there are the high stakes state tests the kids already take that will be used to evaluate students themselves as well as go toward 20% of teachers' evaluations.

For 3rd-8th grade students, they may be taking the MOSL tests right after they take the state tests - literally test after test after test.

High school students go from the MOSL tests to Regents testing.

And for what?

So Andy Cuomo can say he's holding teachers accountable with his APPR teacher evaluation system.

If Cuomo really cared about kids, he'd be willing to let districts forego some of the 40% of the teacher ratings based on tests and assessments.

But not only isn't he willing to do that, he's threatened anybody else who even talked about making little changes to the evaluation system.

Somehow these facts didn't make it into the Cuomo ad.

Casey Seilor makes note of something else that didn't make it into Cuomo's ad:

This appears to be the first time that the governor has said that testing on the Common Core is “premature,” which begs the question of why such testing is allowed to continue. Also, if students shouldn’t have their scores counted against them, why should teachers have students’ scores counted against them?

Two good questions, one of which I asked this morning in this post.

Again, didn't make it into Cuomo's ad.

It would be nice if the NYSUT/UFT would respond to these Cuomo ads with the truth about APPR, testing and evaluations, but I won't hold my breath for that.

We'll just have to do some of the pushback ourselves on this - but it's good to see reporters like Seilor noting the inconsistencies and contradictions in Cuomo's ad, essentially calling him on his b.s.