According to Graf, CCSS (Common Core), unless stopped, will do irreparable harm to students in NYS and across the nation. “ This {CCSS} is state sponsored child abuse”, he stated. “ It’s is predicated on the one fits all curriculum and testing practice, which all research has found inhibits rather than enhances the ability of students to grow socially, emotionally and cognitively. And, as if to add injury to insult, if you take a look at the {CCSS} curriculum, you will find a host of grammatical errors…. What a horrible example for the students, whose education they claim to care so much about.”
Come to the free public event on Common Core, March 5th hosted by Nassau County Federation of Republican Women. “Rotten to the Common Core,” all you and your family need to know about Common Core in NYS and beyond!” Click here for details.
Assemblyman Al Graf: Leading the Fight Against the Common Core Curriculum
By Robert Golomb
When I interviewed New York State Assemblyman Al Graf (RCI, 5th AD, Suffolk County) in his Holbrook District Office last Thursday, I planned as my first question ask him about the controversial Common Core Curriculum, because, Graf, who serves in the Assembly’s Education Committee has become known as one of its harshest and most visible critics. But the two- term, fifty six year old Assemblyman- whose district spans the townships of Brookhaven and Islip- beat me to the punch.
“ Can you locate the area known as Mesopotamia on a world map or globe and identify it as part of Asia’’, he asked me with the sound of total seriousness in his voice. And then he quickly followed up with a series of additional questions: “ Do you know that this is the first question, and the next 80 are much tougher, that students in the first grade, yes the first grade, have to answer in English Language Arts as part of a so called listening and learning strand following the guidelines of the New York State Common Core Curriculum? Does this make sense to you? Do you think that these questions are age appropriate? Should a student’s promotion from one grade to the next be based on the ability to answer questions that are so age inappropriate? Should teachers face disciplinary actions if their students are unable to correctly answer such questions?’’
