Senate Co-Leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein, and Senate Education Chair John Flanagan Call for Delay of Common Core and Sharing of Student Privacy Data

Senators Skelos, Klein and Flanagan issued the following statement:

We continue to support the goals of an improved education curriculum that increases standards and ensures that students are college and career ready.

However, after having spent months listening to parents, teachers, administrators and educational professionals at public hearings conducted throughout New York State, it is our belief that while the implementation of Common Core Learning Standards may have been well intended, it has been poorly executed.

We continue to have grave concerns over this flawed roll-out.  Unless the Board of Regents acts to alleviate the concerns of parents, teachers and other educators, we call on the Regents to delay the use of Common Core tests for high-stakes decisions about teachers, principals and students for a minimum of two years.  During this time, SED should continue to develop curricula aligned with higher standards and assist local school districts in developing their own curricula so teachers can successfully implement higher learning standards and help students reach their maximum potential.

In addition, students, parents, teachers, privacy experts and school administrators have raised serious concerns about the ability of unauthorized third-parties to access personally identifiable information (PII) of students, teachers and principals that will be collected on the state-wide Education Data Portal (EDP).  Therefore, we reiterate our call for the Regents to delay operation of the Education Data Portal for at least one year.

In the end, our goal must continue to be the development of higher learning standards in the best interest of our students and their futures.