[dropcap]S[/dropcap]tate Senate candidate Julie Killian and Phil Oliva, a candidate for Congress, held a rally outside the Westchester County Center on July 29 to urge families and homeowners to take action against a pending federal education regulation that the say, the education department is yet to notify parents and school districts about.
The regulation—proposed by the U.S. Department of Education—would label most Westchester public schools as “in need of improvement” for any school where 5 percent of students or more opt out of Common Core testing.
The proposed federal regulation would also cut funding for schools with Common Core participation rates under 95 percent, according to Killian.
Linda Banta, a Larchmont with two children in public schools who joined the rally, said, “It’s alarming that the federal government announced something in the middle of summer that could so adversely affect our schools and economy.”
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, which currently authorized in New York state until 2022, is a controversial educational initiative that highlights what students should know in English language arts and mathematics at the end of each grade from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Parents and local school administrators have panned the testing arguing that it takes the learning out of the classroom by setting unrealistic educational guidelines for success due to the high rate of failure on standardized tests.
If the proposal is approved, Killian, a Republican member of the Rye City Council, said that Westchester residents would ultimately be punished for exercising their right to withhold their children from the common core tests. “This proposal could single-handedly damage all that our students, teachers and families have worked for,” she said.
According to Oliva, a Republican who serves as senior advisor to County Executive Rob Astorino, the proposal will also result in property depreciation.
Oliva, who stressed that he only found out about the federal proposal a couple days ago, claims that the U.S. Department of Education has kept it in secrecy. “I guarantee 99 percent of parents in Westchester County don’t know about this,” he said. “We only found out about it by luck.”
Meanwhile, state Sen. George Latimer, a Rye Democrat who voted against Common Core has long been a vocal critic of the practice of standardized testing.
“The opt-out rights of parents to do what’s in the best interest for their child should absolutely not be manipulated by the federal government,” he said.
Following the 2012 rollout of Common Core, Latimer made an effort to explain his opposition to initiative to John King, the state Education Commissioner at the time, saying, “I’m convinced we’re heading down the wrong path [for education].”
The deadline for residents to publicly voice their concerns about the federal proposition is Monday, Aug. 1.
