(Long Island, NY) A column by Assemblyman Dean Murray (R,C,I-East Patchogue):
When I ran for election last year, I heard a common refrain from parents and educators: Common Core just isn’t working. The standards are too rigid and lend themselves to inappropriate curricula. The high-stakes testing puts far too much pressure on children and saps the enjoyment out of learning, while the results of these tests are unfairly used as arbiters of a teacher’s ability to perform his or her job.
I promised to work to scrap Common Core, restore local control of our schools, and get our education system back on track. To do this, I joined my Assembly Republican colleagues in supporting the APPLE Plan, a multi-faceted approach to ensure our children learn developmentally-appropriate material and our teachers have the resources they need to make that possible.
While we made some strides this year toward fixing our schools, the governor has been obstinate in his refusal to listen to the concerns of thousands of New Yorkers who have opted their children out of Common Core tests and the teachers who have repeatedly asked for more assistance in helping their students succeed.
That is, until recently. Gov. Cuomo is finally joining the movement and is agreeing that Common Core is not working. He says he would like to create a new commission of experts to look at the standards and curriculum to see what’s working and what isn’t, a measure that mirrors the Blue Ribbon Commission I co-sponsor in the Assembly.
While I wish the governor would have come around and taken steps to correct Common Core sooner, progress is still progress and I’m pleased to see he’s finally listening. As he assembles his expert commission, I have a request and a couple of suggestions.
I would ask the governor to push politics to the wayside and focus on putting the right people on this commission. I believe it would behoove the governor to include at least one Republican Member of the Assembly’s Education Committee. There are two individuals I have in mind: Assemblyman Ed Ra, Ranking Minority Member on the Education Committee, and Assemblyman Al Graf.
In 2013, these two traversed our state in a series of over a dozen hearings on Common Core. Including educators, parents and teachers, these comprehensive forums provided copious amounts of information, and in the wake of this information, Assemblymen Ra and Graf published a lengthy report and put together the APPLE Plan.
I would also suggest that the governor consider asking either Comsewogue Superintendent Dr. Joe Rella or Patchogue-Medford Superintendent Dr. Michael Hynes to serve on this commission. Both of these men have been extremely outspoken and involved in all aspects of the Common Core issues.
If the governor is truly interested in fixing and improving our public education system, he must include people who will bring many different views to the table. We need bold ideas and passion, not the same old-same old.
