Title: As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out - The New York Times
Headings: As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out
As Common Core Testing Is Ushered In, Parents and Students Opt Out
Content: The Common Core standards, a set of challenging learning goals designed to better prepare students for college, were developed by a coalition of states. But they became closely tied to President Obama in the public mind as his administration offered money to states that adopted the standards, which conservatives portrayed as a stealth federal takeover of schools. Tests that gauge how well students are learning the new material have become part of the way many states evaluate their teachers. This makes the tests a target for teachers’ unions, a bulwark of the left. So the new batch of tests in New Jersey, created by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, is faced with an unusually diverse list of enemies. “There are forces united against it on the left side of the aisle and the right of the aisle,” said James Crisfield, a former superintendent of the school district in Millburn, N.J. “We’re also talking about things that are happening to one’s child. You mix that all up into a caldron and it does create some really high levels of interest, high levels of passion — and, shall we say, enthusiasm.” New Jersey’s teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, is in the midst of a six-week run of advertisements against the partnership, one of which features an emotional parent describing his overworked first grader, and another talking about the elimination of science classes to make way for test preparation. ( Testing begins in third grade, but the union contends that schools begin grooming students for it earlier.) Teachers in the state who instruct classes to be tested will see 10 percent of their evaluation tied to this year’s exams.