Cuomo Blames Regents For Problems He Caused

Cuomo's just throwing everybody under the bus these days - this time it's the Board of Regents (following on his former aides, Percoco and Howe, and SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros, all of whom are under federal investigation for corruption):

HIGHLAND - Gov. Andrew Cuomo had harsh words Monday for the Board of Regents as the state science tests wrapped up.

Many parents across the state are continuing to refuse to let their children take the Common Core-based tests.

"The problem is the state Education Department, which is the the Board of Regents," said Cuomo, who was in the mid-Hudson for an event at the Walkway Over the Hudson.

"It did a terrible job in implementing Common Core," Cuomo said. "Now, state Education Department people say, 'Well, that's you, governor, you're the state.' Actually, no. I have no role in selecting the Board of Regents," he added, noting that the Regents are elected by the state Assembly. 

... 

Cuomo said the 17-member Board of Regents must "change their perspective and their level of competence." 

"They lost the faith and trust of the parents of this state, and they're going to have to remedy that," said Cuomo. 

"It's not that the parents are irrational. The parents are rational. The system was implemented poorly and it did a lot of harm," he added.

A big part of the reason parents have lost "faith and trust" in the system is because of the education policies Cuomo has pushed - including the draconian education law that made test scores 50% of a teacher's evaluation.

Cuomo likes to make as if he has no power over education, but he's used his budgetary powers numerous times as governor to impose his own desires on the education system, whether it be tying teachers to 50% of their students' test scores or forcing New York City to pick up the tab for charter school rents.

This is just another example of Cuomo causing problems, then trying to pass the blame off elsewhere.

Are the Board of Regents to blame for some of this mess?

Absolutely - the Merryl Tisch Board of Regents certainly was to blame.

Same goes for the David Steiner and John King NYSED.

But Cuomo's got lots of blame for this mess too - and parents around this state know this.

Just witness his polling on education - it's in the toilet, along with the rest of his administration.

Preet Bharara can't cart this criminal out fast enough.

Come on, Preet - when's Preetmas?

Regents Exam Season Begins, But NYSUT Says The Scores Are Not In APPR (Even Though They Are!)

You can see here the fun I had on twitter with an NYSUT hack over the APPR test score moratorium that isn't actually a moratorium since high school teachers are not effected by it in the least.

Today starts Regents season - the ELA Regents, along with a math and history test are all today.

More Regents exams continue the rest of the week, including Common Core math exams.

The ELA test today is the Common Core variation and it will indeed be part of my APPR rating, thus making the claim that Common Core state tests are not part of APPR ratings an erroneous one:

Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

 The politicians keep saying there's a moratorium on state test scores in APPR.

The unions are running ads saying the same thing.

The education reporters are writing about the moratorium in their education stories.

Except the "moratorium" doesn't actually exist.

It's been learned long ago that if you repeat lies often enough, they become truth.

This is what has happened with APPR.

The lie just keeps getting repeated over and over and over.

Here is the truth:

• The Education Transformation Act of 2015 requires that 50% of  a teacher’s evaluation be based on a student performance measure. This will not change unless the law is amended.  

• Although teachers will still receive a growth score based on state tests, a 4 year moratorium has been passed on the use of state-provided growth scores for NYS Grades 3-8 Common Core ELA and Math tests in teacher evaluations. 

• ALL teachers will still be subject to a 50% test-based evaluation as per the law. Schools must administer an additional, locally determined assessment  (approved by the state department of education), and scores from that test will supplant the state test derived growth score in a teacher’s evaluation. 

• Teachers will receive a “transitional score” during the moratorium. 50% of this score will be based on observation, and 50% will be based on the locally-determined assessment. This transitional score will be used for making tenure decisions, and as per the law can be used to fire a teacher.

• While growth scores derived from the state tests may not be used for purposes of evaluation during the moratorium, they will still be recorded, and upon request be made available to parents. Teachers evaluated by Regents exams and by the 4th and 8th grade science tests will still be evaluated using those scores.

• Once the moratorium is over, NYS will move to a three year average growth score. In other words, teachers will receive a growth score based on student performance from the previous 3 years. It is unclear whether or not state test growth scores captured during the moratorium will be used in the average growth score for the 2019-20 school year.

• Based on flawed growth scores, schools will continue to be placed into receivership and subject to autocratic control. This will happen disproportionately in schools located in economically disadvantaged Black and Brown communities, as laid out in the Economic Policy Institute’s report, “The Racial Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods – A Constitutional Insult.”

Here's An Emblem For What's Wrong With Education In The Reform Era

It's also an emblem for how so little has changed from Bloomberg to de Blasio at the NYCDOE:

Tom Porton is used to drama: Since arriving at James Monroe High School as an English teacher 45 years ago, he has taught and staged plays. Outside, in the Bronx River neighborhood where the school is, there was plenty of drama in the 1980s, when AIDS and crack ravaged the area. His response then was to establish a group of peer educators who worked with Montefiore Medical Center to teach teenagers about H.I.V. prevention. His efforts earned him awards, including recognition from the City Council and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and led to his induction into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Now he is at the center of drama: Last month he clashed with Brendan Lyons, the school’s principal, who disapproved of his distributing H.I.V./AIDS education fliers that listed nonsexual ways of “Making Love Without Doin’ It” (including advice to “read a book together”). This month, he said the principal eliminated his early-morning civic leadership class, which engaged students in activities such as feeding the homeless, saying it was not part of the Common Core curriculum. Mr. Porton was already skeptical of that curriculum, saying it shortchanged students by focusing on chapters of novels and nonfiction essays rather than entire works of literature.

So, next month Mr. Porton — a 67-year-old educator whom students praised as a lifesaver and life-changer — is walking away from teaching. He handed in his retirement papers on Friday.

Education in the Reform Era, in the Danielson Era, in the Endless Testing Era has no place for a teacher like this.

What, a curriculum that engages students in activities like helping to feed homeless people?

No, by God, that's not education!

Writing argumentative essays about this, that's education!

The principal who has successively pushed Tom Porton out sounds like a doozy:

Mr. Lyons — who repeatedly replied “no comment” to questions during a telephone conversation — arrived at the school at the start of the academic year. A previous tenure at a Manhattan high school was marked by his replacing paper hall passes with toilet plungers, which students used to wreak havoc on property and one another.

In December, on World AIDS Day, Mr. Porton handed out his flier, as he had for almost 25 years. Mr. Lyons sent him an email saying the flier was “inappropriate,” and asked that he collect those already distributed. Though Mr. Lyons said he would discuss the matter later with him, Mr. Porton said that conversation never took place.

H.I.V. and AIDS may have faded from the public mind, but they remain a danger in places like the South Bronx, especially among young blacks and Latinos. Mr. Porton said the school has failed to meet Department of Education mandates to educate students about the diseases, making his work all the more necessary.

Mr. Lyons, who would not say if the school met the mandates, never explained his objections to Mr. Porton. At the start of this semester, Mr. Porton said, the principal eliminated the 40-student leadership class because he said it was not part of the standard curriculum, even though the class met before the formal start of the school day. Because of that, combined with Mr. Porton’s disappointment over the standardized test frenzy that rules in many schools, he chose to leave.

And what kind of teacher was Tom Porton?

This kind:

Reaction among students and former students, many of whom learned of Mr. Porton’s retirement on Facebook, was immediate and full of outrage.

“How can anyone think what he does is inappropriate?” said Janelle Roundtree, a former peer educator who graduated from Monroe in 1995 and went on to Howard University. “He changed Monroe. He was in the forefront of so many things. The school is losing out on this one.”

David Gonzalez (no relation to this writer), a musician, poet and performer who graduated in 1973, was so grateful to Mr. Porton that he nominated him for the Kennedy Center’s Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award, which he received in 2011.

“Tom has been the consistent heart of that building since I was at Monroe in the ’70s,” said Mr. Gonzalez, who still wonders how the teacher managed to get tickets to Broadway shows. “He was always looking for the heart and soul of the individual. I would never have had the confidence to do what I do without him. He changed my life forever.”

The truth is, there is no place in public education these days for a teacher like Tom Porton.

Teachers who teach to the test, who teach by the Danielson rubric, who teach the crap they want her/him to teach and nothing but that - those are the kinds of teachers wanted these days.

As Porton says in the Times article, the powers that be pay lip service to the social and emotional needs of children, but all that really matters these days is the test scores.

This is just another outrage in a long line of NYCDOE outrages.

The principal, Lyons, ought to be the one leaving (see here for the mess he made at Graphics.)

Alas, life in the de Blasio NYCDOE is pretty much the same as life in the Bloomberg NYCDOE - incompetent administrators get moved around to destroy more and more schools while excellent teachers, inspirational teachers, are pushed out.

Time For NYSUT To Take Real Steps To End The Endless Testing Regime

This is cross-posted from New York Rank & File and it's in response to the propaganda NYSUT has been spewing forth about there being a "moratorium" on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations (a claim that is patently false):

Rank and File Teachers Call on NYSUT Leadership to Do More

We are a coalition of educators motivated by a desire to provide our students with an authentic, developmentally appropriate, culturally relevant, and child-centered public education. As we near the 2016 testing season, hundreds of thousands of young learners will be asked to submit to 9 hours of flawed and harmful state assessments that reduce teaching and learning to a test score, narrow the curriculum, label the majority of children failures, and squander resources, ultimately providing no educational benefit.

 

While the opt out movement has captured the attention of policymakers,there has been no substantive change. The only change is that school districts must now use limited time and resources to negotiate another APPR plan that requires both more testing for NYS children and a continued focus on evaluating teachers through test scores.

Despite this glaring lack of relief for students, the state teachers union (NYSUT) has failed to sound the alarm, and instead has launched a million dollar member-funded “multi-media campaign to highlight progress.” While a campaign video vaguely states that “there is still a lot of work to do,” the campaign is absent of any call to action. A similar campaign by the UFT–the state’s largest local union, based in NYC–goes so far as to spread misinformation, making the false claim that teachers will not be evaluated by test scores for the next 4 years. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
As educators, we are committed to sharing factual information so that those impacted by these policies can make informed decisions. Here are the facts:

• The Education Transformation Act of 2015 requires that 50% of  a teacher’s evaluation be based on a student performance measure. This will not change unless the law is amended.  

• Although teachers will still receive a growth score based on state tests, a 4 year moratorium has been passed on the use of state-provided growth scores for NYS Grades 3-8 Common Core ELA and Math tests in teacher evaluations. 

• ALL teachers will still be subject to a 50% test-based evaluation as per the law. Schools must administer an additional, locally determined assessment  (approved by the state department of education), and scores from that test will supplant the state test derived growth score in a teacher’s evaluation. 

• Teachers will receive a “transitional score” during the moratorium. 50% of this score will be based on observation, and 50% will be based on the locally-determined assessment. This transitional score will be used for making tenure decisions, and as per the law can be used to fire a teacher.

• While growth scores derived from the state tests may not be used for purposes of evaluation during the moratorium, they will still be recorded, and upon request be made available to parents. Teachers evaluated by Regents exams and by the 4th and 8th grade science tests will still be evaluated using those scores.

• Once the moratorium is over, NYS will move to a three year average growth score. In other words, teachers will receive a growth score based on student performance from the previous 3 years. It is unclear whether or not state test growth scores captured during the moratorium will be used in the average growth score for the 2019-20 school year.

• Based on flawed growth scores, schools will continue to be placed into receivership and subject to autocratic control. This will happen disproportionately in schools located in economically disadvantaged Black and Brown communities, as laid out in the Economic Policy Institute’s report, “The Racial Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods – A Constitutional Insult.”

NYSUT officials recently responded to educators on social media calling for NYSUT to pursue an amendment to the law by stating that they believe the Regents will enact the 21 recommendations of the Common Core Task Force. In a recent interview on The Capital Pressroom, NYSUT President Karen Magee opined that it is “premature” to call for changes to the law and reiterated NYSUT’s belief that the Regents will implement the Common Core Task Force recommendations.

It should be noted that the Task Force has not recommended ANY changes to the focus on test scores in teacher evaluations, making this response irrelevant. While the task force pays lip service to the need for shorter tests, it fails to recommend any substantial change. For example, the Task Force report calls upon New York to follow the examples set by North Carolina, Texas, and New Mexico. The testing practices in these States are hardly positive role models for a reduction in testing. In North Carolina, testing has been reduced to a one day, four hour exam. In Texas, testing has been capped, forcing the average student to sit for 120 minutes, with no administration lasting more than eight hours. And in New Mexico, testing has been reduced by a paltry 15%. In New York, that would reduce 9 hours of testing for 10 year olds to 7.5 hours; some students with disabilities would still be forced to endure 15 hours of testing. This is cold comfort.

We call on the leaders of NYSUT and the UFT to suspend their misleading media campaigns. We also call for NYSUT to work for an immediate amendment to the education law 3012d, that requires teacher evaluations be based on high-stakes tests. Those tests will continue to count for 50% of teacher evaluations.  

Additionally, we call upon NYSUT leaders to launch a new, fact-based media campaign that will inform their members and the public that very little has changed for the children we serve. The continued requirement of students to participate in flawed and inappropriate testing this spring, as well as additional, local assessments (solely for the purposes of teacher evaluations) must stop. Furthermore, we demand that NYSUT urge all teachers to join the effort to save our profession, and to protect our students by refusing NYS tests in grades 3-8 for their own children.

Parents across New York State have labored for the past three years to protect their children and support educators. It is time that NYSUT and UFT leaders do the same. Now is not the time to lose the support of the public and our allies.

Signed,

BATs (Badass Teachers)

MORE (Movement of Rank & File Educators)

Stronger Together Caucus

Teachers of Conscience

**********************************************************************

The following organizations support The Call to Stand Up for Students:

Long Island Opt Out

Bronx Educators United for Justice

Opt Out CNY

Change the Stakes

New York State Allies For Public Education

Lace to the Top

NYC Opt Out

Pencils Down Rockland County

NYS Receivership and NYC Renewal Schools Action Group

ReThinking Testing MidHudson

The Paperclip Revolution

Note To MaryEllen Elia, NY Pols And NY Press: Test Scores Are Still Part Of APPR Evaluations

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — As education commissioner MaryEllen Elia updated a Senate panel on her agency's 2016 priorities Wednesday, lawmakers noted a "different vibe in the room.”

Her meeting with the Senate Education Committee came a little more than six months after she took over heading the agency from John King, a champion of the Common Core learning standards who became a polarizing figure in the state after their troubled rollout. He left for the federal agency and is now acting secretary of education there.

...

Among the priorities that Elia detailed Wednesday were revising the principal and teacher evaluation system, involving teachers in revising the Common Core learning standards and creating state assessments.

The Regents board has already put a moratorium on the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations through the 2019-2020 school year while the system is under review. It has also made changes to the state tests, shortening them and increasing the time allotted, and the Education Department is reviewing the standards, assessments and evaluations.

Moratorium?

Is this a "moratorium"?

Common Core grade 3-8 scores won't be used for teacher evaluations until 2019 but other tests will still be in there including high school Regents Exams unless they are tied to a state growth model. Does going from a growth model to a Student Learning Objective (SLO) system constitute an end to high stakes testing?  I don't think so.

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

For math and ELA teachers, the Regents exams are the new Common Core exams, many with low passing rates - especially in math.

Moratorium on using Common Core test scores for teacher evaluations?

Hardly.

When will the education press stop writing stuff like "the Regents board has already put a moratorium on the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations through the 2019-2020 school year while the system is under review"?

Because it's not true - NYSED's APPR Q&A lays that out quite specifically, as did Governor Cuomo a while back.

The more accurate description is, there is a partial moratorium on test scores for some teachers while the rest continue to be linked to test scores - including Common Core Regents test scores for some high school teachers.

UFT Spends $1.4 Million On Pro-Cuomo Ad

No, seriously:



That ad - which they spent $1.4 million on, btw - functions as a pro-Cuomo ad, talking about the governor's Common Core Task Force and making it sound like Cuomo is doing the right thing on education.

The truth is, he's not.

Test scores are STILL part of APPR teacher evaluations, either local tests or the Regents exams.

The governor himself said it.

So the claim in the ad that Cuomo's doing right is, well, wrong.

The public education system remains as test-centric as ever, nothing's changed post-Cuomo CCSS Task Force.

But you wouldn't know that from this ad.

A while back I blogged how Cuomo's talking up community schools and sounding like Mulgrew in the bargain, coupled with the UFT's refusal to have Cuomo's odious 2015 education law thrown in the garbage where it belongs, was a sign that the UFT and Cuomo had a backroom deal going.

This ad is further confirmation of it - your dues money going to run an ad that helps out Cuomo politically.

Public Education Is All About Compliance: Obey Or Else!

From the Daily News:

A teacher at an Upper West Side high school was fired for creating a curriculum with lessons about the Central Park Five that administrators feared would “rile up” black students, according to a new federal lawsuit.

English teacher Jeena Lee-Walker said her bosses at the High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry urged her in November 2013 to be more “balanced” in her approach to the racially charged Central Park jogger case that ended with five black and Latino teens being exonerated after spending several years in prison for the attack.

They told her the lessons could create little “riots,” according to court papers.

Although Lee-Walker, 37, agreed to soften her approach, she argued “that students in general, and black students in particular, should be riled up.”

“I kind of wanted to hook them in, engage them, win them over,” she said. “I thought that this material was not only engaging but important.”

...

After several tense exchanges with supervisors, Lee-Walker received a series of bad performance reviews over the next 18 months that ultimately led to her dismissal, the suit said.

Lee-Walker said she was accused of insubordination and given poor evaluations not just because of the material, but because she pushed back.

She was fired in May, roughly two years after joining the High School for the Arts and six years after she began teaching in city public schools.

“I felt abandoned and mistreated,” Lee-Walker said of the ordeal. “I think a lot of teachers in the system feel the same way.”

There's still all this talk in the media and from politicians about the need to fire "bad" teachers and close "failing" schools.

The environment for education is toxic and poisoned these days by all the compliance mandates we have that are supposed to handle the firing of "bad" teachers and the closing of "failing" schools.

Danielson drive-bys, where administrators come into your room with the Danielson rubric and ensure that you're jumping through every hoop on the rubric, are meant to control and contain teachers.

They're also meant to give dismissal tools to administrators who want to get rid of teachers they don't want - regardless of whether they're "bad" or not.

There's nothing "objective" about the Danielson rubric - administrators can ignore all the great stuff a teacher does, focus on one or two supposed "flaws" in a lesson and give enough developings and ineffectives in an evaluation to get the teacher either put on a PIP or sent packing.

You can see how this worked with Lee-Walker - they wanted her to tone down her lessons, she agreed, but the "softening" wasn't enough for administrators at the school and she was targeted for dismissal and successfully canned after a period of so-called "objective documentation."

The message for teachers in the DOE - obey or else! - is also the message for students when they see what happens to their teachers who try and step out of the uniform and give something of themselves in the classroom.

That message is underscored by the EngageNY curriculum and Regents exams, which punish any thoughts that do not come "from the text" and so teach students that they are not to think for themselves, only learn what their betters think and figure out how to parrot that back in the endless "text-based argumentative essays" they have to write across classes.

Lee-Walker's lawyer puts this all into perspective for us:

“Ms. Lee-Walker is the type of teacher we want in a classroom,” her lawyer, Ambrose Wotorson, told The News.

“We’re not looking to turn our students into automatons. We’re looking to turn out independent thinkers — and she got fired for that, and that's just wrong,” Wotorson said.

Actually it's quite the opposite.

What education reformers want are compliant teachers who obey the rules, teach only what is supposed to be taught in the way the system wants it taught and students who learn to be automatons who are just smart enough to be able to figure out what their betters want but not smart enough to know how badly they're getting screwed by the system.

21st Century public education is all about compliance - from the system as a whole right down to the individual classrooms and the teachers and students in each one.

Long Island Superintendents Object To Test-Centric Evaluation System

John Hildebrand in Newsday:

Four Long Island school superintendents took their objections to Common Core testing and related “reforms” on the road Monday night to a public forum at Sayville Middle School attended by about 150 parents, teachers and others.

The school chiefs, all from central or eastern Suffolk County, contend the state’s tough new tests in English and math, tied to classroom evaluations, have forced teachers to spend too much time prepping students for those assessments.

 The result, these administrators say, is that students often have far less time than in the past for in-depth research on other subjects — for example, history and civics.

Cuomo's Common Core task force has called for a temporary de-coupling of state Common Core tests from teacher evals, but there's a catch - the de-coupling won't count for high school teachers whose students take Regents exams and "local" assessments will replace the state exams to make up the 50% test component for APPR.

So:

Local assessments will now b driving force in classrooms - get UR opt out letters in! Encourage others 2 do same https://t.co/a2kQo4H9Ov

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 5, 2016

The powers that be want you to think a lot has changed in education post-Common Core task force.

The truth is, little has changed - "local" assessments replace state tests for many teachers, Regents exams continue to be a part of APPR for high school teachers and whatever Common Core tweaks the state plans will not disrupt the "instructional focus" of the Core. 

In short, same old same old.

Newsday Editorial Says State MUST Get Kids To Take Their State Tests This School Year Or Else!

The shrillness of the deformers continues:

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week of actions it may take, including financial penalties, if the percentage of students taking the tests falls below 95 percent. Of course, in New York in Spring 2015 that percentage fell to about 80 percent, and to about 50 percent on Long Island. The timing serves notice to those who have supported opt-out to oppose excessive testing and test prep and the fear they claim comes from tying student scores to teacher evaluations: students must take tests so that schools, districts and states can be assessed. Washington will not budge on this.

In New York, education reformers also have taken a huge step back, decoupling tests from teacher evaluations for four years and promising new achievement standards and better exams. Now the state must convince unions, parents and teachers that they have been accommodated as much as possible, and must get students to take the tests this spring. And they must get participation percentages up in districts that get little federal funding, because the whole state could lose funding if New York participation doesn’t reach 95 percent.

If poorer districts with generally low opt-out numbers lose federal money because richer districts with high opt-out percentages pull down the state numbers, Albany can and should make up that shortfall. It should take state aid away from high opt-out districts and award it to high-needs districts where nearly all the kids take the exams.

The threat that money will be taken away by the feds is as much jive this year as it was last year.

Does anyone really think that the Obama administration is going to take away school aid because of opt out in an election year?

Please...

The desperation of the deformers is clear as they use FEAR to try and stem the opt out movement.

The curtain has been pulled back on the Endless Testing regime and exposed for the empty compliance measure it is.

Deformers are desperately trying to get people back to believing that there's some meaning to the state testing regime.

If FEAR over their own kids won't work, then they'll use FEAR over the funding.

But given the political realities of the Obama administration thankfully sunsetting next year with an election held in November, their threats are empty ones.

That won't stop the fear-meisters at Newsday from trying to sow discord, of course.

But we can call this Newsday editorial what it is - fear-mongering - and the Newsday editors who published what they are - fear-meisters.

Cuomo/Regents Bait And Switch On Testing/Teacher Evaluations Will Not End Opt Out

From the NY Post:

Opponents of Common Core standards are urging parents to boycott next year’s state math and English exams, despite the state imposing a four-year freeze on using the results to grade students or teachers.

NYS Allies for Public Education said Wednesday that state and local school districts are administering too many tests and want the Common Core standards scrapped completely.

“We will continue to refuse to allow our children to participate in this system until all harmful reforms are removed,” said a spokesman for the group LI Opt Out.

About 200,000 students boycotted the last exams.

Teachers are still going to be evaluated using test scores and, depending upon the district, may still be evaluated using the state tests.

The Common Core isn't going anywhere, the Cuomo Common Core Task Force called for no "instructional shift" from the Common Core, just tweaks around the edges so they can say "Changes are being made!"

This bait and switch will not fool us.

The union leadership can fall all over itself declaring this a "win" for students, parents and teachers against the corporate reform movement, but those of us in schools know differently.

Nothing's changed, the Endless Testing regime lives on, APPR continues to use test scores to rate teachers, and with the Cuomo task force calling for a switch to "local" tests for APPR, there will be a whole lot more testing in the system next year.

The fight goes on.

Chris Gibson: Don't Trust Cuomo For Common Core Fixes

From the Daily Star:

Calling the Common Core curriculum “a mistake,” Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo Tuesday to “start over” and to bring parents, teachers and administrators into the discussion.

“It’s disappointing that the governor needed a task force to find out what parents, teachers and administrators have been saying all along — that Common Core has been a mistake,” the congressman said in an interview from Washington.

“We should roll this back and start over,” added Gibson, who has indicated he is planning to mount a campaign for statewide office in 2018, the year the two-term Cuomo faces re-election.

...

Cuomo has since hit the brakes on his drive to use the test scores to rate teachers, and last week a Cuomo-appointed task force set up to review Common Core recommended that the state adopt its own curriculum standards. It also urged that the student test scores not be used in teacher evaluations until the 2019-2020 school year.
Gibson questioned whether Cuomo’s embrace of the task force recommendations is sincere.

“He is using words suggesting he is listening now but we’re going to have to watch him closely,” the congressman said.

Close watch of Cuomo and the Board of Regents shows how they're double dealing with the "de-coupling" of test scores from the APPR teacher evaluation system, shifting part of the test component from "state" tests to "local" tests that may, in fact, be "state" tests (see here and here.)

So indeed, watching Cuomo closely as he "fixes" the Common Core problem in New York is warranted.

We know that his Common Core task force recommended little instructional shift from the Core, more of a renaming of the Core than a changing of the Core, even as they recommended developing "new standards."

As Kate Taylor reported in the NY Times in her piece on the task force recommendations:

It is unclear how different the new standards will be from the Common Core. The task force’s report calls for enlisting educators and parents to help create them, and it recommends modifying the standards for kindergarten, first grade and second grade so that they are more age-appropriate. But it says little about the standards in the upper grades, in which students take state tests, and it says that, generally, the new standards should “maintain the key instructional shifts set forth in the Common Core.”

Cuomo said he wanted a "total reboot" of Common Core and education policy when he first announced the creation of his task force, but essentially what we're getting with both Common Core and the test score component in the APPR teacher evaluation system is a little tweaking at the edges so that they can say "Everything's changed!" but in practicality, nothing really has.

Somebody on twitter said last night, you can tell when Cuomo's lying or deceiving you because he's talking.

That's pretty much what we've gotten from him in his "total reboot" of education policy - lies and deceptions, along with a couple of misdirections.

So Gibson is right - Cuomo is not to be trusted, he is to be watched closely throughout this process and, in the end, when he issues his agenda during his State of the State/budget address (assuming he's not under indictment by that point), called out for his betrayal of public education and the public trust and fought on every agenda point.

We will not be fooled.

Regents Vote To Continue Using Test Scores To Rate Teachers

The Regents voted for a four year moratorium from using state test scores in teacher evaluations - but there's a catch:

A four-year moratorium on use of state standardized test scores to rate — or penalize — the job performance of schoolteachers and principals gained overwhelming preliminary approval Monday from the state Board of Regents.

The policymaking board passed the “emergency regulation” in a 15-1 vote, with the only “no” cast by Chancellor Merryl Tisch.

The catch?

They're still using test scores to rate you, just not "state" test scores:

Under a complex four-year transition, teachers would receive new “transition scores” calculated by the state, based on information provided by local school districts. Such ratings would come from results of classroom observations and tests selected locally by school districts.

So don't believe the hype - Regents vote for moratorium on state test scores in teacher evaluations blah blah blah.

Means nothing so long as "local" tests will be used on you because in the end, whether the voodoo VAM is based on local test scores or state test scores, it's still voodoo.

So call the Regents on their manipulation here and spread the word - the Endless Testing regime and voodoo VAM is alive and well in APPR.

Not Much Real Change To The Standards In Those Cuomo Common Core Task Force Recommendations

The union leaders are shouting "Hosanna!" over the recommendations that Cuomo's Common Core Review Task Force released yesterday, but I'm less impressed by the whole thing.

Here's how Kate Taylor of the NY Times wrote this up:

A task force Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo created is calling for changes in what New York State students learn and how they are assessed, in a set of recommendations released on Thursday.

The task force, which Mr. Cuomo convened in response to the concerns of parents and teachers, is also calling for the state not to use its test scores to evaluate teachers through the 2018-19 school year, to allow time to develop the new standards and tests.

The report is the latest step in the state’s retreat from the Common Core school standards, national benchmarks that New York adopted in 2010, and especially from using student test scores in teacher evaluations. It comes in the wake of a rebellion by parents against testing; one-fifth of students did not sit for the state exams this year, a fourfold increase from the previous year.

But is it a "retreat"?

It is unclear how different the new standards will be from the Common Core. The task force’s report calls for enlisting educators and parents to help create them, and it recommends modifying the standards for kindergarten, first grade and second grade so that they are more age-appropriate. But it says little about the standards in the upper grades, in which students take state tests, and it says that, generally, the new standards should “maintain the key instructional shifts set forth in the Common Core.”

Gee, that doesn't sound like real change to me?

That sounds like the Common Core State Standards will get some minor tweaks and stay in place.

Sounded that way to one of the Common Core shills too:

“The report makes clear that the current standards and assessments will stay in place,” said Stephen Sigmund, the executive director of High Achievement New York, a coalition of groups that promote the standards.

So long as the math and ELA Regents exams stay as they are, there will be no practical change from what's being taught in schools.

Since the Regents tests are Common Core-aligned and schools are being held accountable for the results (and can be put into state receivership if they're really low), you can bet that not much will shift in math and ELA classes in high schools when it comes to teaching the Common Core standards.

In short, the Endless Testing regime and Endless Test Prep tied to Common Core will remain alive and well so long as what gets tested is Common Core- or Common Core-Lite.

The same will be true for the tested grades in elementary and middle schools if the tests remain Common Core-aligned and are used to rate schools.

I'm also told that the "local" assessment scores will remain as part of APPR, which, if true, means "junk science" VAM is alive and well in teacher evaluations, even before the "moratorium" that the task force called for having on using state test scores in APPR expires and junk science VAM using state test scores returns to APPR.

So, what real change did we really get yesterday in these recommendation?

The UFT and NYSUT can declare victory all they want with these recommendations.

What I see here is one big PR event made to look like a lot more is going to go on then really will go on.

Dick Parsons Claims Cuomo Hasn't Meddled In Common Core Task Force

This statement from Dick Parsons, Cuomo's Common Core Task Force chairman, is laughable:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s task force on academic standards and testing expects to hand in its much anticipated report this month, amid a continuing push by teachers unions to end the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations.

The 15-member Common Core Task Force wasn’t asked to explore the politically charged issue of evaluations, but several members said the subject came up so often in public hearings this fall that the group might weigh in on them. Several said they discussed whether to recommend a moratorium on using tests in evaluations, or possibly a reduction in their weight.

Richard Parsons, chairman of the New York task force and former chairman of Citigroup Inc., said Wednesday his group was “in the middle of sausage making” and hoped to hand its report to the governor in the next 10 days.

Mr. Parsons said Mr. Cuomo hadn’t pressed for any particular outcome. “He has not tried to put his thumb on the scale,” Mr. Parsons said. “I would hope that he would review it and take it seriously.”

 Cuomo hasn't "tried to put his thumb on the scale"?

Then what was the trial balloon that was sent forth into the NY Times about the governor considering delinking test scores from his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system or putting a "moratorium" on the use of the scores on teacher ratings?

That sure sounded like the governor "putting his thumb on the scale" to me - especially when Politico NY reported that members of the task force were "confused" when Cuomo put the trial balloon about delinking scores and/or putting a moratorium on their use in teacher ratings into the NY Times:

After learning that Gov. Andrew Cuomo may be looking to minimize the impact of test scores on teacher evaluations, the Common Core task force will likely weigh in on the controversy, recommending either the decoupling of the two or a moratorium on the use of the scores, according to a source familiar with the panel. The task force had not been asked to consider the evaluation process, and until now, it has not focused on it. When Cuomo put together the panel in September, he charged its 15 members with reviewing the Common Core learning standards, calling for a "total reboot" of the state's education system. The recommendations are due to the governor this month prior to his State of the State address in January. 

Members of the task force told POLITICO they were confused by comments made in a New York Times story last week on Cuomo's possible retreat from the politically fraught linkage of test scores and teacher evaluations, because the administration's statement made it seem as though they were looking at the evaluation system when, in fact, they have not been. "We're not focusing on that now ... we're focusing on what the task force was brought together for," said task force member Sam Radford III, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council of Buffalo. http://politi.co/1O2pfrb

Parsons can say whatever he wants about Cuomo not trying to influence the Common Core task force.

We know from the past that Cuomo has influenced and/or rigged every commission, panel and task force he's put together (from the Moreland Commission on Public Utilities to the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption to the education commission Todd Hathaway sat on), so we knew he would try to influence and/or rig this one.

And sure enough, by sending the trial balloon about test scores to the Times, Cuomo's gotten heavy-handed publicly with this Common Core task force.

Lord only knows what he's got his henchmen and henchwomen doing to influence the task force behind the scenes.

Be Skeptical Of Those Changes To Education That Cuomo Is Said To Be Considering

So says Fred LeBrun, writing about that NY Times piece that reported Andrew Cuomo is said to be thinking about "decoupling" test scores from his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system:

We're being told Gov. Andrew Cuomo is prepared to contradict himself and reverse course on tying public school teacher evaluations to student test scores.

The suggestion has been planted that behind the scenes the governor is now pushing for a significant decoupling of test scores to teacher evaluations.

It seems even a total delinking is under discussion, a 180 degree shift from his imposed law passed this spring hardwiring a teacher's survival to student scores on state mandated Common Core driven tests.

...

If what we're being told is true, this reversal by the governor would be a long overdue triumph of common sense over ideological idiocy.

If.

We'll believe it when we see the law changed. A recurring observation about our sitting governor is that he can't be trusted. He'll say anything, but what he means and really hopes to achieve is often hard to decipher and more often than not, a study in misdirection.

LeBrun points out that the best way for the governor to change education policy is to go back to the Legislature and have the law changed - but Cuomo won't do that:

In the Times story, Malatras tellingly dismisses the strategy of asking the Legislature to change the language of the law when it comes to setting the percentage and makeup of test scores counting for teacher evaluations.

''There's just no need to go back to the Legislature,'' Malatras told the Times, because the State Education Department (SED) ''has the ability to dial up and dial down all sorts of things in the regulations.'' This is the opposite of what we're hearing from the Board of Regents and State Ed, which have said repeatedly the language of the Cuomo statute gives them very little wiggle room for maneuvering.

So what's Cuomo doing?

Perhaps another one of those head fakes that is made to fool you into thinking he's making substantive changes when he's really not making substantive changes:

Now the buzzword being sent up the flagpole by the governor, through Malatras, is ''moratorium.'' Putting a moratorium on the use of test scores in evaluations. But a moratorium is merely a sophisticated pause, and not substantive change.

When the NY Times story first went up, I expressed skepticism about the changes Cuomo was supposed to be considering, as did many Perdido Street School blog readers who left comments.

Fred LeBrun, an astute observer of Albany politics in general and Andrew Cuomo in particular, is skeptical too.

Here's the reality: Cuomo wants to make it look like he's pushing for substantive policy changes to education in order to assuage the 220,000+ who opted their children out of the state tests last school year.

He also wants to continue to make his hedge fund manager/education reformer donors, the ones who paid him for the education reform agenda he's pushing, happy.

So, a head fake from the governor is in order - talk a good game about substantive changes to education policy, but make sure the education laws that are now on the books, including APPR, are not changed, but rather "tweaked" via NYSED dictate.

No matter - if Cuomo thinks parents and teachers will be fooled by a "moratorium" on using test scores in APPR or tweaks to Common Core (like renaming the standards but keeping the "core"), he's got another thing coming.

As LeBrun writes:

The governor in the past has recognized this when he's called for a ''complete reboot.'' The old boots need to be thrown out.

Now we wait to see what the governor's task force has to say, which is the governor in thin disguise, and what the newly invigorated Board of Regents and the state Assembly come up with. Which better materialize into new law that rewrites Common Core and teacher evaluations.

Because you can be sure Opt Out will not be fooled. 

Indeed, Opt Out will not be fooled.

But that doesn't mean that corrupt Governor Cuomo, a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Hedge Fund Managers For Education Reform, won't try anyway.

NY Times: Cuomo Reportedly Set To Reduce Role Of Testing In His Vaunted APPR Teacher Evaluation System

It's amazing what 220,000+ opt outs and poll numbers mired in the very low 40's will do to a politician's take on a particular issue:

Less than a year ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York proclaimed that the key to transforming the state’s education system was tougher evaluations for teachers, and he pushed through changes that increased the weight of student test scores in teachers’ ratings.

Now, facing a parents’ revolt against testing, the state is poised to change course and reduce the role of test scores in evaluations. And according to two people involved in making state education policy, Mr. Cuomo has been quietly pushing for a reduction, even to zero. That would represent an about-face from January, when the governor called for test scores to determine 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation.

There's some conjecture on just what this "reduction" will be:

The idea that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is pushing for the changes comes from several different avenues. According to one of the education policy makers, Mr. Malatras said in a conversation that the administration wanted to decouple test scores and evaluations. The other person reported having spoken with people who had similar conversations with the administration.

Two members of the Board of Regents, the body that sets state education policy, said they had heard that Mr. Cuomo was pushing for a moratorium on the use of test scores in evaluations. The two board members, Kathleen M. Cashin and Betty A. Rosa, both said they would heartily support such a change.

There's a big difference between "decoupling" tests scores from evaluations and having a "moratorium" on test scores being used in evaluations, so as always with this stuff, the devil is in the details.

Cuomo, through shill Malatras, is claiming nothing has been determined yet, that they're waiting for findings from the vaunted Common Core Review task force that Cuomo announced in September - but that's jive of course.

Cuomo has controlled every commission, panel and task force he's put together, from the two Moreland Commissions (one after Sandy on utilities, one on corruption that has him under federal investigation for witness tampering and possible obstruction) to the other two education commissions he put together (just ask Todd Hathaway who disagreed with the findings of the task force he sat on but had his name signed to the pre-determined report nonetheless!)

So what Cuomo wants, Cuomo's Common Core Review task force will find.

And it looks as if the governor, reeling from the bad press and bad polling on education, has perhaps decided the suitcases full of cash he gets from ed deformers aren't enough to keep him pushing ed deform policies in toto:

In New York, Mr. Cuomo’s push to give test scores more weight in evaluations helped propel a widespread test refusal movement this year, centered on Long Island. More than 200,000 of the nearly 1.2 million students expected to take the annual reading and math tests did not sit for them in 2015. At some schools, as many as 75 percent of students opted out.

Long Islanders tend to be swing voters, and education is a top concern of theirs, given the high percentage of school-age children and the role that local schools’ reputations have on real estate values, said Lawrence Levy, the executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.

“Considering how his numbers fell off in suburban communities in the last election, I thought that the governor had to pay close attention to the desires and the demands of these suburban swing constituencies,” Mr. Levy said.

One final point to make on this - there's a likelihood that all they're going to do is call for a "moratorium" on test score use in APPR or a "moratorium" on the "penalties" teachers would suffer for low scores:

“A moratorium is under consideration,” said State Senator Carl L. Marcellino, a Long Island Republican, chairman of the Education Committee and a member of the task force.

The Board of Regents would quite likely approve a moratorium or any other step to reduce the role of test scores in evaluations. Until recently, a majority of the board supported tying test scores to evaluations, but the Legislature elected several new members this year who are critical of that policy.

This "moratorium" could come based upon the 50% test score criteria Cuomo imposed in the budget or it could be lowered to something like 20% (which is apparently what NYSED MaryEllen Elia thinks it ought to be.)

In any case, the "big changes" to education policy Cuomo promised look to be coming.

Whether they're substantive changes or more jive made to look like substantive changes remains to be seen.

Having watched Cuomo closely now for a few years, I remain skeptical.

But the low approval numbers in the polling, the especially low education numbers in those polls, the high opt out rates (with the numbers set to go even higher this year if the status quo continues) and the even higher "hardship waivers" districts got on Cuomo's vaunted new APPR teacher evaluation system with the 50% test score component seem to have weakened some of Cuomo's resolve to continue to scapegoat teachers for all the ills in the education system.

Time For Another Hedge Fund Manager-Funded Pro-Common Core Ad Buy

From State of Politics:

High Achievement New York, a group that has been supportive of Common Core, is launching a six-figure radio campaign aimed at boosting support for the education standards.

The campaign, set to run through December, is being launched as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s task force convened to study and potentially recommend changes to the standards is concluding its round of public hearings.

In the ad, two Buffalo teachers discuss their support for the standards, saying they “are working” for students.

“But opponents want to pull the rug out on teachers,” says teacher Lucy Mendola in the spot.

Teacher Heather McCarthy adds: “Help us strengthen New York Standards, not dismantle them.” 

The ads will be targeted for audiences in New York City, the Capital Region, Buffalo and Rochester.

This isn't the first time pro-Common Core ad buys have run.

They haven't worked in the past.

I have a difficult time seeing these work either - the polling is pretty clear in its trends where the public at large stands on Common Core.

But there is a strategy, perhaps, behind the ads:

The spot...directs listeners to the task force’s comments page as well as the Department of Education’s feedback survey.

NYSED has already been touting its CCSS survey, the one that takes intimate knowledge of the standards and hours to fill out, as proof positive New Yorkers love them some Common Core.

Perhaps Hedge Fund, er, High Achievement New York wants to juice the numbers even more by directing people to that survey.

Then they'll point to the survey to say New Yorkers don't want any changes to the Common Core.

Perhaps this is all part of Cuomo's plan to make it look like changes are coming to the state's education policy when no real change is coming.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some coordination between the group and the Cuomo administration, since the backers of High Achievement come from the same place as his donor class, and Cuomo has been known to coordinate with ed deformers before (see here, for example.)

Common Core Is Doing Its Job - Anxiety Increasing In Children

Mission Accomplished for Common Core:

Six in 10 school psychologists said the Common Core learning standards, which includes state exams for students in third through eighth grades each April, has increased students’ anxiety.

The anxiety hasn’t, for the most part, led to physical ailments, the school psychologists said, but the new Common Core testing has translated into students feeling more stressed.

“This report should make all education stakeholders — from state policymakers to local teachers to parents — aware of the profound impact that they can have, both positive and negative, on student test anxiety,” Timothy Kremer, executive director of the School Boards Association, said in a statement.

... 

The report contended that the test anxiety is more common at the elementary-school level, saying students more often showed “internalized” symptoms such as excessive worry and withdrawal rather than demonstrating “externalized” symptoms, such as increased irritability, frustration and acting out.

One of the goals of the education reform movement is to create a compliant class of dutiful order-takers - nothing like having kids internalize symptoms of worry and withdrawal to do just that.

I would argue that at older ages, the children are beginning to act out.

I have been told by counselors that they're seeing increased cases of alcohol use, drug use, eating disorders and self-harm like cutting themselves.

That's anecdotal of course, but I've seen some of this in my work too.

Exacerbating all of this is how teachers are forced to make every class "rigorous" and "text-based," with children given very few opportunities to express their own thoughts or feelings through art, writing or speaking.

We truly have a system where "no one gives a shit what you think or feel - just can you do the market analysis by Monday."

Southern Tier Residents Rail Against Common Core At Public Hearing

Another public hearing for Cuomo's Common Core dog and pony show:

Vestal, NY (WBNG Binghamton) Members of the public spoke before representatives of New York State's Common Core Task Force, during a listening session at Binghamton University Monday night.

The meeting was one of 10 regional sessions that were organized to receive public input on the controversial Common Core curriculum, which New York adopted in 2010.

An overwhelming majority of people spoke against the Common Core on Monday. They shared their concerns and ideas with two representatives: Samuel L. Radford III, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council of Buffalo and Constance Evelyn, superintendent of the Valley Stream Union Free School District-13 in Nassau County.

...

One of the first speakers was Janice Strauss, a retired Owego Apalachin Middle School Spanish and ESL Teacher, who now teaches in the modern language department at SUNY Cortland.

"I think it's very crucial," Strauss, who lives in Endicott, said. "I think we're going to destroy a generation of children if we don't get this right."

In 2014, many teachers were displeased when the state began using Common Core standards to evaluate students before educators were fully trained with the new materials. As a result, student test scores dropped.

In addition to the controversial testing process, many teachers have expressed concern about their evaluations being tied, in part, to student test scores.

Dr. Carol Mikoda previously taught reading and writing in the Windsor Central School District and now teaches writing at SUNY Broome. She said educators have been trying to get their message across to state leaders for years without success.

"Common Core standards are always accompanied by expensive assessments that do not give information to teachers who are working with children," Mikoda said.

As has been the case so far with these dog and pony shows, almost all the speakers were opposed to the Common Core and the Endless Testing regime.

The only hearing where speakers were split over CCSS and the Endless Testing regime was in New York City, where the professional ed deformers got their supporters out early and rigged the speaking list.

Not that any of this matters - the panel report is already written, the "reforms" Cuomo plans are already set in stone.

These are just sham shows to give Cuomo cover so he can say he took public input.

Until politicians pay political prices for their support of the Common Core, the Endless Testing regime and other ed deforms, they will not stop imposing their unpopular agenda on the state.

Cuomo's Education Reform Agenda Gets Hammered At His Common Core Task Force Public Hearings

Bethany Bump in the Times Union reports on the Common Core task force public hearing last night in the Capital Region:

COLONIE — The whole thing is a train wreck. The teacher evaluations are an unmitigated disaster. Students are being drained of any creativity. The material isn't developmentally appropriate. Children are being used as political pawns.

A majority of people who spoke at one of five public hearings Friday on the state's Common Core program had these and lots of other negative things to say about New York's implementation of the stringent educational standards. The Capital Region was home to one of those hearings — the first since Gov. Andrew Cuomo charged a task force in September with reviewing the Common Core standards, curriculum and assessments for a "total reboot."

About 100 people turned out to the Crossings of Colonie Friday afternoon for the Capital Region hearing. They were parents, current and retired teachers, school administrators, school board officials and business representatives. Other hearings were held simultaneously Friday evening in the Finger Lakes/Western New York, Hudson Valley, Long Island and New York City regions.

"These kids see no relevance to these tests they now have to take," said Stacey Caruso-Sharpe, a math teacher in the Amsterdam City School District, where she's worked for more than 30 years. "The governor says they don't mean anything yet, and then you want to tie them to a teachers' score? It doesn't make sense."

John Hildebrand of Newsday on the Common Core hearing at Stony Brook:

Common Core opponents predicted at a state-sponsored forum Friday in Stony Brook that 500,000 students statewide in grades three through eight would boycott spring tests unless Albany pulls back from unpopular new exams and teacher evaluations tied to students' scores.

A standing-room-only crowd of parents and educators cheered and applauded as Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, leader of Long Island's testing opt-out movement, warned that boycott numbers could more than double in April from more than 200,000 recorded last spring.

Other forum speakers followed suit.

"You are going to see a tsunami of test refusals," said Beth Dimino, president of the teachers union in the Comsewogue school district.

The 2 1/2-hour session, organized by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office, was held in a small auditorium of Stony Brook University's Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology. It was one of five simultaneous "listening sessions" across the state attended by members of the governor's appointed Common Core Task Force.

Several teachers and superintendents at the hearing called for a two-year moratorium on education reforms.

"What we have is a culture of standardization," said Patchogue-Medford schools chief Michael Hynes, a vocal opponent of overtesting and the linking of student scores to teachers' and principals' performance evaluations. He called for separating student scores from job ratings and "getting rid" of the Common Core.

For the most part, the forum was an orderly affair, in contrast to a raucous session held two years ago at Ward Melville High School, less than six miles away. At the earlier public hearing, then-Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. was at times shouted down as he tried to defend state education policies before an emotional crowd of 1,500 parents and educators.

Friday's session drew more than 150 parents, educators and others, and speakers were limited to three minutes each. Those who voiced criticism of the Common Core standards, curriculums and tests -- implemented in districts across the state largely over the last three school years -- were clearly the large majority. The national guidelines were adopted by New York in 2010.

"Common Core is destroying the dignity of the learning process," said Dan Campbell, a fifth-grade teacher in the South Huntington school district. He said one parent told him that his 10-year-old son cries at the bus stop because he doesn't understand the math curriculum.

Campbell said he wanted to tell the parent, "Your son is being bullied by the state."

A rare exception to the opponents was Preston Tucci, an eighth-grade math teacher in the Middle Country district, who was jeered by some audience members when he described how his students are enthused by a Common Core algebra curriculum.

"Your time's up!" several shouted as an electronic stopwatch that was used to limit speakers' time wound down. "Very disappointing!" another hissed.

Some participants began lining up more than an hour in advance for the "listening session," which began at 4 p.m., with people allowed to speak on a first-come, first-served basis. Check-in for the event started at 3:30 p.m., and all 45 speaking slots were filled shortly after the meeting began.

Dawn Wylie of North Babylon, who has pulled her two children out of state standardized tests for the past two years and plans to do so again in the spring, was among those in attendance.

"This is the most important thing happening right now," she said. "Our children are suffering -- collateral damage."

Before the hearing, Tucci told Newsday that he had come to speak in favor of new math standards that emphasize "real-world" problem solving.

"In a 15-year career, last year was the first year I haven't had a kid ask me, 'When will I ever use this?' " he said.

Dimino, of Rocky Point, who teaches eighth-grade science in Comsewogue schools, said she had testified last year against the standards and the state's teacher evaluation system. A vocal critic of Common Core, she said she has refused to administer the exams even if it means she is given an "ineffective" job rating.

Before the forum began, she said she was disappointed by both the timing of the event and the size of the meeting room. Organizers should have held it later in the day and in a larger space, she said.

"I am hoping this is not a nonsensical tour," Dimino said. "I am hoping this is a hearing tour."

Earlier this week, parents and educators complained that state officials had not given enough advance notice of the hearing, and that the time and location would make it difficult for many to attend.

Over the past three years, implementation of curriculums and tests aligned with the Common Core standards has spurred a growing test-boycott movement in states across the nation, with parents pulling children out of standardized tests.

Last spring, the revolt in New York was the largest in the country. More than 200,000 students in grades three through eight opted out of state tests in English language arts and mathematics in April, with about 70,000 of those students in school districts on Long Island.

As has been the case with hearings on education reform before, the hearing in the city was attended by the professional Common Core class - civil rights "activists" on the Gates Foundation payroll, an executive director for a corporate-sponsored pro-education reform group and members of StudentsFirstNY:

The first public hearing of Gov. Cuomo's Common Core Task Force in the city drew about 100 people to LaGuardia Community College Friday afternoon – parents, educators and students bitterly divided over the issue.

About two dozen signed up to speak, asking task force members Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan and Brooklyn teacher Kishayna Hazlewood to toss the Common Core, saying it was forcing a test-driven curriculum in schools while others expressed the need to keep high expectations of students.

"I think our children are capable of learning," said Nina Doster, a mother of two from Queens who signed up to speak in favor of keeping the Common Core standards. "Children in other areas get their best education and sometimes our children are left out of that."

A large coalition of pro-Common Core advocates attended the hearing, including Urban League President Arva Rice, Stephen Sigmund, executive director of High Achievement New York and more than 50 parents from StudentsFirst NY.

But City Councilman Danny Dromm, a former teacher who heads the Council's Education Committee, said the state needs to step back from an emphasis on standardized testing.

"The kids are getting bored to death with being beaten over the head with test prep, test prep, test prep," said David Dobosz, a retired teacher who worked in Brownsville and Bushwick. "We are giving kids a narrow education."

As with all of Cuomo's task forces and commissions before, it is suspected that the "reforms" this Common Core task force is going to come up with are already written in stone, so these public hearings are probably nothing more than dog and pony shows to give the illusion that Cuomo is listening to parents and educators.

Nonetheless Cuomo felt threatened enough by the possibility of another Poughkeepsie (where John King had his public meltdown after parents and teachers challenged his reform agenda) that the Cuomo administration did its best to limit attendance at these hearings by having them held during school time and in small spaces.

They eventually made the hearings a little later after challenged over the scheduling, but even so, the message from the Cuomo administration on this is clear - they're not interested in hearing differing points of view on Common Core and the Endless Testing regime, just making it look like they are before they issue the already written Cuomo "reform" plan for the education system.

But one important part of the dog and pony show is it does put pressure on Cuomo, mirroring the polling on his handling of education issues as well as support for Common Core (both of which are very low) and showing that Common Core and the Endless Testing regime are deeply unpopular in most of this state.

I maintain that until politicians pay a political price for their support of the Core and the Endless Testing regime, we will get no substantive change to the reform policies.

Still, for Cuomo's sham force to hear so much criticism and negativity on Common Core and testing is important, because it continues to ratchet up the pressure and makes it harder for Cuomo to defend the "Steady as she goes" reform plan we're going to get on this in the end.