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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. February 10, 2014:

The New York State Board of Regents Monday voted to accept their own study committee’s recommendations on Common Core standards evaluation and pushed out to 2022 the date when students graduating had to pass Regents exams tied to Common Core standards.

The Board also limited to 1% the role teachers’ success in getting students to pass assessments should have in evalating teachers. The Board also voted to restrict time spent in preparing students specifically for assessments, and said  school districts did not have to use assessment test results as a basis for promotion of students in grades 3 to 8.

The Regents said they would do less field testing of assessment test questions and make more questions available to teachers, however they did not say they would make the complete tests available.

There was no statement from the Board of Regents on whether assessment tests for 2014 would go on as scheduled and designed by Pearson, the designers of last year’s higly criticised tests. At this time,  It appears the assessments are going ahead as scheduled this year.

For the complete memorandum the Board of Regents passed today addressing Common Core alleged deficiencies go to;

The Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch in a statement said:

“We have listened to the concerns of parents and teachers. We’ve heard the concerns expressed at the hearings and forums, and we regret that the urgency of our work, and the unevenness of implementation, have caused frustration and anxiety for some of our educators, students, and their families. This report is designed to make significant and timely changes to improve our shared goal of implementing the Common Core.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a statement, said the Board of Regents did not go far enough:

“Today’s recommendations are another in a series of missteps by the Board of Regents that suggests the time has come to seriously reexamine its capacity and performance. These recommendations are simply too little, too late for our parents and students.

“Common Core is the right goal and direction as it is vital that we have a real set of standards for our students and a meaningful teacher evaluation system. However, Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start.

“As far as today’s recommendations are concerned, there is a difference between remedying the system for students and parents and using this situation as yet another excuse to stop the teacher evaluation process.

“The Regents’ response is to recommend delaying the teacher evaluation system and is yet another in a long series of roadblocks to a much needed evaluation system which the Regents had stalled putting in place for years.

“I have created a commission to thoroughly examine how we can address these issues. The commission has started its work and we should await their recommendations so that we can find a legislative solution this session to solve these problems.”