To: Washingtonville Central School District Board of Education
Stop using EngageNY for curriculum
We, the undersigned, represent parents, grandparents, teachers and community members in the Washingtonville Central School District. We believe that high educational standards are important to the success of our students. We believe that control of our school district should remain local and that curriculum should be approved by our local school board. We understand that WCSD must, by state mandate, align our curriculum and assessments to meet the Common Core Learning Standards adopted in 2010 through state acceptance of Race to the Top grants.
With the above stated, make it known that we are opposed to the use of ANY Common Core ELA or Math curriculum/modules available through EngageNY to teach to these standards for the following reasons including but not limited to:
1. Developmentally inappropriate lessons
2. Untested curriculum
3. Poorly designed/written and “scripted” modules that offer little flexibility to teachers
4. Poor lesson pacing
5. Error-riddled modules and homework sheets
6. Content created by non-educators
7. Lack of textbooks
8. Modules offer a single instructional, one-size-fits-all approach
9. Cause of undue stress, frustration and disinterest
10. High cost
We, too, are opposed to the collection of personally identifiable student data that is slated to be sent to the cloud-based company inBloom; and high-stakes testing with scores being misused in a system of accountability that unfairly rates teachers, principals and school performance and does not realistically or fairly assess a student's knowledge.
We thereby implore the district to end the use of EngageNY Common Core modules and return the curriculum decision-making back to the local control of our educators. We also ask the board to suspend release of any student level personally identifiable information to the state. And finally, we ask the board to respect any parental requests to decline their child's participation in the New York State Common Core Assessments.
With the above stated, make it known that we are opposed to the use of ANY Common Core ELA or Math curriculum/modules available through EngageNY to teach to these standards for the following reasons including but not limited to:
1. Developmentally inappropriate lessons
2. Untested curriculum
3. Poorly designed/written and “scripted” modules that offer little flexibility to teachers
4. Poor lesson pacing
5. Error-riddled modules and homework sheets
6. Content created by non-educators
7. Lack of textbooks
8. Modules offer a single instructional, one-size-fits-all approach
9. Cause of undue stress, frustration and disinterest
10. High cost
We, too, are opposed to the collection of personally identifiable student data that is slated to be sent to the cloud-based company inBloom; and high-stakes testing with scores being misused in a system of accountability that unfairly rates teachers, principals and school performance and does not realistically or fairly assess a student's knowledge.
We thereby implore the district to end the use of EngageNY Common Core modules and return the curriculum decision-making back to the local control of our educators. We also ask the board to suspend release of any student level personally identifiable information to the state. And finally, we ask the board to respect any parental requests to decline their child's participation in the New York State Common Core Assessments.
Why is this important?
Schools have been mandated to use the Common Core Learning Standards. They are not required to use EngageNY for curriculum. They are allowed to develop their own curriculum as long as they align it with Common Core.