New York state has a relatively low performing education system and a high level of commitment to punitive education reform policies.  Just the opposite of New Hampshire.

Their biggest problem has probably been high stakes testing.  Although it takes years to begin seeing the effect of the new standards on student’s learning, New York made a brand new test, based on the newly introduce Common Core State Standards, high stakes for the students and teachers.  For students, the test became a graduation requirement and, for teachers, a very crude form of the scoring became the bases for pay and promotion.

As a result, the state’s Common Core implementation has been a mess.  That’s where all the horror stories come from.

As a result, the state has had a full scale rebellion on its hands.  So the New York state department of education has announced that it will stop beating up its students and teachers – at least temporarily.  In doing so, they have moved a little more toward the policies that have made the New Hampshire Common Core implementation so successful.

Here’s the meat of their announcement:

“Under the changes, the requirement to pass Common Core-based Regents exams at the college and career ready level will be extended. The class of 2022 will be the first to face the new higher graduation requirements, 12 years after the adoption of the standards in 2010.”

“…the State Education Department (SED) neither requires nor encourages districts to make promotion or placement decisions using student performance on state assessments in grades 3-8, but if districts choose to do so, they should make adjustments to ensure students are not negatively impacted by the Common Core transition and should use multiple measures – not grades 3-8 state assessment results alone.”