(Long Island, NY) Today Assemblyman Andrew Garbarino (R, C, I-Sayville) weighed in with heavy criticism of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s announcement of a new task force to overhaul the Common Core system. The latest task force comes on the heels of the governor’s previous review commissions in 2012 and 2014 to further evaluate the education initiative. Garbarino released the statement below:
“You can call it a task force, a review panel, or a commission but at the end of the day when the dust settles it’s obvious that the implementation of Common Core and its success in New York’s schools has been a total failure. Does the governor think the third time is the charm? When the governor hand picks the panel, we know what we’re getting before it starts.
“His other attempts started with similar fanfare and media coverage; they even included the same Cuomo political allies to help pick up the pieces. The last time the governor gave us this education runaround, his panels and commissions had little input from real education stakeholders who have the most knowledge and are affected the most.
“In the end, the governor’s panels and commissions left us with nothing. The governor and his people walked away from their responsibility without even a single memo while the students, teachers and schools of New York State shouldered the burden of poor school funding, a curriculum that is not developmentally- or age-appropriate, an ineffective teacher evaluation system, and stressful standardized tests. It’s obvious that for the betterment of our students and our schools we must scrap Common Core and start on a fresh page.”
