Dear Dr. Cash:
As you know the District received the Report by the Civil
Rights Project and its lead consultant, Dr. Gary Orfield, in response to the
Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, New York Office for
Civil Rights (OCR Case No. 02-14-1077) in May 2015. Since that time, the District has grappled
with developing an approvable plan to address the findings and recommendations
of the Report. I understand we are
close, however I must raise a question regarding the recent vote by the New
York State Regents regarding Common Core aligned standardized tests. Consistent with the recommendations of
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force, released on December 10th,
the New York State Regents voted, on December 14th, to accept among
others Recommendation 21 that proposes: Until
the new system is fully phased in, the results from assessments aligned to the
current Common Core Standards, as well as the updated standards, shall only be
advisory and not be used to evaluate the performance of individual teachers or
students. More broadly stated
the decision is to place a moratorium on the use of the results of these tests
until 2019-2020 pending their revision.
That includes the tests given during the 2012-13. 2013-14 and 2014-15
school years.
As you also know, one of the recommendations of Dr. Orfield
regarding the criteria used to determine student admission to the criterion
schools was “eliminating the New York state tests because the standards have
been changed so drastically and their use is too new to support valid predictions…”
(The Report: p 81)
I believe that the current reversal by the Regents regarding
these tests warrants a revisit by the District of this recommendation and by
way of this communication I am requesting that the District undertake this
review. Thank you. I look forward to your response.
Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, PhD
Member at Large
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