Rocky Point Parents Join 'Students, Not Scores' Rally

For Alicia Palifka, the Common Core curriculum and the new, more rigorous testing that's associated with it is personal.

The Rocky Point parent of two said that this past year, her children "were very stressed out and overwhelmed with frustration on what they were expected to know."

"The expectations of Common Core are unrealistic," she said. "I think that our children and teachers need us to fight Common Core and all that it brings to the table."

Palifka was among a group of Rocky Point parents who joined the Comsewogue school district community on Saturday for "Students, Not Scores," a rally against the Common Core and state testing.

Among them also were Rocky Point parents Mary Heely, a mother of four, and Kathi Heggers, a mother of two.

"I feel the teachers' classes have been hijacked" by the curriculum's mandates, Heggers said. "They're setting them up to fail. ... It wasn't implemented correctly."

Heely agreed, saying: "I feel what is going on in the New York State Department of Education is not serving our students or teachers in any capacity that is certainly worthwhile. The testing really hit it home about what is being done. Teachers are losing so much valuable classroom time by teaching to the test, losing their ability as a teacher to do what they were educated to do."

State officials have said the Common Core curriculum, a national standard for education adopted by more than 40 states, is designed to boost and measure college and career readiness. In an Aug. 7 statement, Education Commissioner John B. King, Jr. said: "Our former standards did not prepare all of our students for 21st century college and careers."

However, Comsewogue Superintendent Dr. Joseph Rella said the state rushed into implementing the Common Core curriculum and the new, more rigorous state tests without giving enough time for the teachers and students to adjust.

"Any test designed to have 70 percent of the children taking it fail is abusive," Rella said Saturday. 

Watch a video from Saturday's rally here.

Were you at the rally? What's your position on the Common Core and state testing? Log in to Patch and share your thoughts as a comment below.