This can’t be an easy time for New York State Education Commissioner John King. The commissioner, who came into office not long ago with a bold reform agenda, is increasingly seeing those plans come under fire. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is the latest to question King. He sent a letter to the state Education Department […]
Common Core curriculum
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Senator Flanagan’s early Christmas gift to testing critics
Many parents, teachers, and education advocates may be sighing with relief today. The reason? At least some of their concerns about high-stakes testing, implementation of the more rigorous Common Core curriculum, and teacher evaluations have been heard by New York State Senator John Flanagan. After five hearings, Flanagan issued a report yesterday that might cause […]
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King is optimistic about Common Core
While there may be some adjustments made to the Common Core curriculum and the Annual Professional Performance Review for public school teachers and principals, State Education Commissioner John King said that he has no plans to slow down or delay the implementation of either. Common Core has introduced higher standards for students in 45 states […]
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Study renews emphasis on pre-kindergarten
Delayed speech and limited vocabularies were often cited by former School 50 principal Tim Mains as clear indicators of how under-prepared many city school children are entering kindergarten compared to their suburban peers. One landmark study dealing with early childhood development showed that by age 3, children from wealthier families have much larger vocabularies. Walking […]
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King and the people
It’s not surprising that State Education Commissioner John King rescheduled his public forums regarding the curriculum referred to as Common Core. According to some reports, at least three state legislators contacted him urging a resumption of the forums. King said the newly scheduled forums will start in a high school in Albany on Thursday, October […]
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Protesters reject Commissioner King’s reforms
About 60 people carrying signs with slogans like “Keep Politics Away From Our Kids” and “Life Is Not a Test” protested outside School of the Arts yesterday.
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Rochester students fare poorly on new state tests
This morning, the State Education Department released test results for grades 3-8, and the scores for the Rochester school district are shockingly low. Only 5.4 percent of city students are proficient in English and only 5 percent are proficient in math. Rochester scores are again the lowest of the state’s Big Five school district’s, with […]
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More testing scares
Another shock wave is likely to spread through the Rochester school district tomorrow when the New York State Education Department releases the scores from the new, more rigorous Common Core curriculum. While some educators are saying that the test scores are not going to be good, others are putting it more bluntly, saying that the […]
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UR study reveals concerns about new Common Core curriculum
New York is among 45 states that signed on to teaching a new, more rigorous curriculum called the Common Core. The general idea is two-fold: raise the standard of information that students must know, and create consistency across the public education landscape to help the US remain competitive in a global economy. Seventh-grade students learning […]
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RCSD adopting ‘common core’ curriculum
While the New York City and Yonkers school districts have seen their graduation rates go up over the last few years, Rochester’s rate seems permanently stuck around 50 percent. And 27 of Rochester’s 60 city schools are among the lowest performing in the state. One reason for the gains in New York City and Yonkers, […]
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RCSD adopting ‘common core’ curriculum
For much of the last decade, graduation rates for most of New York State’s Big Five school districts have been around 50 percent. But the numbers have gradually improved for the New York City and Yonkers districts, which have graduation rates over 60 percent. Rochester’s graduation rates continue to hover around 50 percent, however, with […]
