Common Core Worries Union

Teacher’s union chief Randi Weingarten has come out against linking test performance to teacher evaluations under the Obama Administration’s Common Core standards, according to Associated Press reporter Karen Matthews.

Weingarten is the head the American Federation of Teachers, a union that claims 1.5 million members. She told a business group that, “the fact that the changes are being made nationwide without anything close to adequate preparation is a failure of leadership, a sign of a broken accountability system and, worse, and an abdication of our responsibility to kids, particularly poor kids.”

Though Weingarten says she’s a supporter of the Common Core standards, her lone complaint is that it is basing student and teacher evaluations on this year’s test results. Instead, she suggests that the states wait on the evaluations until the standards are fully implemented.

In total, 45 states including the District of Columbia (which is notorious for its failing public school system) have adopted the Common Core standards, Matthews reports. Supporters call it a way to fix a broken education system, ignoring the role of teacher’s unions, public education testing and curriculum and a variety of other factors, according to Matthews.

New York has reported that the Common Core standards are too tough for students, with complaints ranging from too little time allotted to complete sections of the test and even children crying from undue stress.

However, Andrew Kirtzman, spokesman for the New York City Department of Education, said that the resistance to Common Core comes from a “special interest cell” whose members are trying to protect their own jobs. New York’s Board of Regents chair, Merryl Tisch, said that the same percentage of teachers would be rated as “effective” under the new system as in years past. She also claimed that the state will not fail schools under this year’s test results.

 

Spencer Irvine is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.

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