COLUMBUS, Ohio – Leaders of a major Ohio teachers union want the state to put Common Core on hold.
Nearly a thousand members of the Ohio Education Association voted unanimously to ask for a three-year moratorium on the New Learning Standards scheduled to be imposed during the next school year, according to a release from the union.
“We want to hit the pause button on all state-imposed high-stakes decisions tied to student test results so that educators and the communities in which they work will have the time, resources and freedom to explore and design appropriate curricula,” OEA president Becky Higgins said.
Common Core standards encompass broad academic goals and are designed to prepare students for a variety of life experiences, but have come under fire from conservatives who say they are an example of governmental overreach.
The OEA, which represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals, says teachers and students are burdened by ever-increasing demands of standardized testing.
Columbus-area special education teacher Daria DeNoia says assessments based on the new standards are particularly problematic for third graders.
“Now there is some wiggle room in terms of local decision making and multiple opportunities to take the test, but as the law is written they must not be promoted, so that is probably the most severe result of high-stakes testing,” she said.
Under Ohio’s Third Grade Reading guarantee, if they don’t pass reading they cannot be promoted to the fourth grade.
DeNoia says another concern is that some districts do not have the computers and bandwidth to administer the tests required for the new learning standards.
For teachers, DeNoia says the assessments could have a professional impact because half of their evaluation depends on student test scores.