NYS Allies for Public Education

this is very sensible, thoughtful and compassionate response to Cuomo

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/06/a-dozen-questions-and-a-dozen-answers-about-school-reform/

Here is a letter that NYS Allies for Public Education — a coalition of more than 50 organizations in New York — just sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo about his education policies. While the letter is specific to New York, the issues it covers — evaluations, charter schools, due process — are hot button around the country. It was written in December by Jim Malatras, Cuomo’s director of state operations, to Board of Regents Chairwoman Merryl Tisch and John King, who was at the time the New York State commissioner of education. He resigned late last month and is becoming a top assistant to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We, the undersigned members of NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), are writing in response to the December 18th letter to the Commissioner and Chancellor that Mr. Malatras wrote on your behalf. By responding to the questions posed, we want to separate fact from misinformation. We are also very troubled by several questions that were not included in your letter which continues to demonstrate a disconnect between your office and the public.

We strongly believe in the importance and power of public education for all children. While the vast majority of our students are successful, we cannot rest until our struggling students are supported and given the needed resources to be successful.

Unfortunately, you have based your vision of school reform on a misguided agenda.  That agenda includes ineffective strategies for school improvement. If current policies are not corrected, more state resources will be wasted and our students’ futures will be put at even more risk.

Let’s start at the beginning of the letter.  The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has established capricious and inaccurate measures of proficiency and college readiness.  The proficiency rates that are quoted in the letter (34.8% and 31.4%) reflect arbitrary cut scores set by Commissioner King in 2013.  In 2012, proficiency rates in ELA and Math were 55% and 65% by the cut scores set by then-Commissioner Steiner, based on a college readiness study that he commissioned in 2010.  Prior to 2010, proficiency rates were higher still under Commissioner Mills. In short, proficiency is an arbitrarily defined standard, and there is good evidence to suggest that NYSED has now set the Common Core standards unreasonably high, for political rather than pedagogical reasons.

We understand that you believe that over the past four years “much has been done to improve public education.”  We disagree.  Our high school graduation rate has barely budged since 2011, and the percentage of students earning a Regents diploma with Advanced Designation has been stagnant for several years and decreased this year.  During the past four years, the graduation rate for the state’s English Language learners has dropped by 6 percentage points.

The Common Core proficiency rates were essentially flat between year one and two of the new tests (as were the rates on the final two years of the prior test) and our state’s SAT scores have decreased since 2010.   In short, although we have engaged in four years of market-based corporate reforms—expansion of charter schools, evaluating teachers by student scores, imposing the Common Core standards and more time-consuming, and developmentally inappropriate tests–there is no evidence that New York schools are improving, and there is some evidence that results are moving backward instead.  We believe that there is sufficient evidence to change course.

Clearly the public agrees. The 2014 Times Union/Siena College poll indicates that 46% of New Yorkers oppose the implementation of the Common Core standards, compared to only 23% who support them, while 46% oppose the current use of standardized testing, compared to 29% who support it.  We believe it is time to listen to your constituents, rather than double-down on damaging policies that are hurting our children. It is our intent, by answering the questions that your office posed, to help you advocate for a better and wiser course in the months ahead.

the letter continues....

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/06/a-dozen-questions-and-a-dozen-answers-about-school-reform/