Schools

Levittown School Board Passes Resolution on Common Core

The resolution calls for the state to "reduce use of and overreliance on standardized testing."

The Levittown Board of Education passed a resolution at Wednesday night’s meeting which calls for New York State, the Commissioner of Education and US Congress to “reduce the use of and overreliance on standardized testing.”

The resolution passed by a vote of 6-0. Superintendent James Grossane read from resolution before it was passed:

“Resolved, that Levittown Public Schools calls upon US Congress and the Administration, to reduce federal testing mandates and support the role of and focus on multiple measures of student learning and school quality in accountability systems," Grossane said. 

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Critics of the NYS Common Core and "high-stakes" standardized testing have a number of concerns, including the difficulty of the work, the negative effect that they say the testing is having on children, and data collecting of children through InBloom, which collects 400 data points on each child, according to a board member.

At a previous meeting, dozens of parents against the Common Core packed Levittown Memorial with signs reading “Put Our Children First.”

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Parents had the chance to voice their concerns at Wednesday night’s meeting during the public be heard session. 

Vicki Sanchez was the first Levittown parent to speak. Sanchez said she works as a district manager for Starbucks and is responsible for more than $20 million in revenue every year. Yet, she said she can’t even help her kids with their homework anymore.

“He’s in third grade and they just started learning multiplication,” she said. “The first question on this practice test was, 'please identify which number sentence is commutative property of multiplication'. I did not know what they meant. I had to Google it.”

“It is really making learning difficult,” she said. 

Another parent to speak was Marianne Adrian, a resident who organized a Town Hall meeting last month at Levittown Hall which was attended by numerous parents, educators and school administrators. 

Adrian discussed her concerns with InBloom and the data collecting of children.

"[In Bloom's] privacy and security policy says they are not guaranteeing the security of this data – they are not responsible," Adrian said. "So, if there is a breach that happens, they are not responsible and they wash their hands."

“To me, this is one of the more upsetting things," she said. "I’m concerned about the Common Core and how it effects children and education, and the teachers... but I’m also concerned about future of children in regards to their private data, which could possibly be handled by people that shouldn’t be looking at it. Our data should stay in district."

Administrators and educators were not consulted in terms of adoption on the Common Core, Grossane said.  

"We're saying, we really need to be included in this process as well," Grossane said. 

Grossane said he believes that the goal and principles behind the initiative are worthwhile. However, he said that New York State "should not automatically accept and adopt every aspect of the Common Core Standards just because 44 other states have."

"We should look carefully at developmental issues, especially at the earlier grades, to be certain that our children are ready to handle all of the demands that are being asked of them, from a maturational standpoint," Grossane said. 

On Wednesday, nearly 1,000 educators and parents rallied against New York's implementation of the controversial Common Core standards at Mineola High School.    


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