Cuomo's Common Core Panel May Skip Writing A Final Report

When Governor Cuomo first announced his Common Core panel, many of us thought it was a jive move to make it look like he was doing something about all the parent and educator complaints about Common Core and the state's education reform agenda while really doing nothing at all about them

This news seems to confirm just that:

ALBANY—I.B.M. executive Stanley Litow, who chaired Governor Andrew Cuomo's panel on Common Core implementation, said Wednesday he hasn't met with the other panel members since releasing the preliminary report in March, and isn't sure whether the panel will issue a final report.

“We issued a preliminary report, and I think we're going to talk to the State Education Department and the governor about further work,” he said after a conference about early-college high schools.

Litow said “there might be” a final report, and he's “had a lot of contact” with other group members, “but we haven't had a formal meeting.”

Teacher Todd Hathaway already exposed the shamery around the panel when he reported that panel heads were not interested in any dissenting views from what they had already decided would be in the preliminary report:

Todd Hathaway, a teacher at East Aora High School and a member of the Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core panel, ripped the process today after the panel released its report last night.

The recommendations include what Cuomo wanted: holding students harmless for the tougher exams, but not a three-year moratorium on using the tests to evaluate teachers.

 ...

Hathaway said, “The report – and the process that produced it—is incomplete. the report was released suddenly, even as final comments were still being solicited. I had indicated the likelihood I would dissent and not allow the report to be spun as ‘consensus.’” Nevertheless, the report was issued with my name attached. I am very concerned that the report tries to make it seem like all the discussion had been completed.”

Here’s the rest of his statement:

“In fact, the Executive Office repeatedly ignored my concerns and the legitimate concerns of others about inappropriate state testing, the misuse of invalid tests for evaluations and the lack of transparency in state testing. The result is that some of the report’s conclusions and suggestions do not hold up to scrutiny. I wouldn’t accept this kind of work from my students and I don’t accept it here.”

“The failure to address testing and evaluation issues in a comprehensive way suggests the dynamics of the classroom will not change. The report seems to blame everybody else for the problems of the Common Core learning standards without adequately addressing the appropriateness of some of the standards and the testing that goes with it. This report should have addressed serious deficiencies in state testing. It should have discussed the lack of transparency in tests; the lack of diagnostic and prescriptive worth to teachers; the unacceptable delays in returning scores to school districts and the insanity of pretending there is validity to teacher ratings that are derived from student scores widely acknowledged to be invalid.”

“Finally, this panel should have recognized the need to pause in the use of assessments for high-stakes decisions for students and teachers. This would have allowed the State Education Department, as well as school districts, to refine the tests and testing materials; teachers to engage in the standards and develop a variety of lessons to meet them instead of just relying on modules; parents to understand the role and utility of data in education; and for teachers to receive the necessary professional development. Implementing massive curriculum changes do not just happen overnight. They take time. I fully support a delay in the use of tests in high-stakes decisions for students and teachers, but that issue was never fully explored. You can’t put students first if you put their teachers last.”

Litow's stating that the panel hasn't done any work since the preliminary report was issued and pretty much doesn't plan to do any more just reinforces what Todd Hathaway exposed back in March:

The Common Core panel was a sham, a jive move to make it look like Cuomo was addressing concerns over the Common Core, testing, evaluations and the like when he had no intention to do so at all.