Opposition to the Common Core education reforms embraced by the Obama Administration is growing, and not just on the political right.
The latest issue of the decidedly left-wing journal Rethinking Schools carries two items on Common Core protests in, respectively, Long Island and New Mexico. “Beth Dimino is an 8th-grade teacher and president of the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association in New York,” RT reported in Spring 2015. “She announced in February that she would not administer the Common Core tests to her students.”
“Dimino is one of the leaders of a growing opt-out movement in the area and throughout the United States. Last year, more than 20,000 Long Island students refused to take the test.”
The month following Dimino’s announcement, “Hundreds of high school students in New Mexico walked out of school the first week of March to protest PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)—the new Common Core standardized tests,” RT also reported. “Albequerque Public Schools told KRQE News 13 that 900-1,000 students participated in the walkout from cities all over the state, including Albequerque, Rio Rancho, Las Cruces, Carsbad, Hot Springs, and Santa Fe.”
“The protest built on a week of walkouts and demonstrations in Santa Fe the previous month that climaxed with a sit-in at the governor’s office.”
