Raia Sponsors Legislation to Reform Common Core

By Michael Gurtowski (Office of Assembly Raia)

At a press conference in Albany, Assemblyman Andrew Raia and his colleagues in the state Assembly reaffirmed their commitment to reforming the state’s education system. Raia and the group announced they will be sponsoring legislation to delay and reform Common Core. The current disaster that is New York State’s education system has been under fire the past few years for their handling of the implementation of the national standards. The proposed legislation, known as the Achieving Pupil Preparedness & Launching Excellence (APPLE) Plan, was created after 11 hearings were held across the state, including two on Long Island. This plan was created as a direct result of the testimony received from hundreds of concerned parents, teachers and administrators at these hearings.

“An exceedingly stressful standardized testing system, needless teacher evaluations, and a botched implementation of an already convoluted curriculum has revealed what I’ve suspected for many years: Common Core has failed,” said Raia. “Unfortunately it’s nothing new and I’ve tried to be at the forefront of this debate for many years. I voted against APPR and ‘Race to the Top’ legislation in 2010 and again in 2012. It’s my hope that our APPLE Plan will get some much needed attention and we’ll be able to enact these desperately needed reforms.”

 On top of calling for a delay of Common Core, the APPLE Plan would force the governor’s office to reveal this year’s school budgets, require a comprehensive review of the standards be completed by an independent, blue-ribbon panel of educators. If deemed acceptable after the panel’s review, the standards would then be phased in on a grade-by-grade level starting in first grade. If the panel decides the national Common Core standards are inappropriate for New York State’s children, they would be done away with and replaced by a NYS curriculum the panel would help craft. The APPLE Plan would also eliminate the 2010 GEA school funding cuts, approve developmentally-appropriate curriculum, and severely restrict data mining of our children’s personal information.