Letter: Transition instead to Common Core plan

Kudos to State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) for publicly taking a position on the poor implementation of the new Common Core standards by our state education leadership ["Common Core delay advised," News, Jan. 8].

I am one of the 60 school superintendents in Suffolk County who proudly provided input and signed the letter referenced in the story. We again tried, after numerous previous attempts, to provide our state education leaders with sound advice for fixing the mess related to the Common Core, state assessments and teacher and principal performance evaluations. The letters asked the state to slow implementation of exams tied to the new academic standards, using this year and next as transition years.

For the past three years, this advice coming from the collective wisdom and experience of a great many respected public educators from across the state, has fallen on the deaf ears of our well-intentioned Education commissioner, John B. King Jr., and others in charge in Albany. As intelligent as these people are, they can't seem to bring themselves to admit their implementation mistakes. Instead, they have continued to ignore reasonable voices and to plow forward.

Now that state lawmakers in leadership positions from both sides of the aisle have spoken, along with parents across the state, perhaps we'll see some welcome adjustments that will help reduce the heated rhetoric and allow us to focus at the local level on the true needs of students.

Charles A. Leunig, Wading River

Editor's note: The writer is the superintendent of Copiague schools.