“Opt out” was the popular stance on Thursday at a town hall meeting to discuss the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

The Town Hall on Common Core was held by 13WHAM News Rochester in the theater at The Strong Museum.

The event was live streamed on the 13WHAM website, and the news station invited people to pose questions regarding Common Core to a guest panel. Questions were also taken from Twitter and Facebook under the hashtag “#YourVoiceYourFuture.”

Members of the panel included Deanna King, blogger and former TV news reporter, William Clark, president and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester, Dr. William Cala, former interim superintendent for the Fairport school district, Carl Paladino, member of Buffalo City School Board and Ani Rosario, secondary English teacher and reading specialist from Dansville, N.Y.
Journalist and television host, Mark Hyman, moderated the event.

From the very start, it was clear that the majority of the crowd was against Common Core. Hyman asked the crowd to applaud if they were against the standards, and again if they were for them. By a large majority, most of the applause came from those that were against Common Core.
Clark was the sole panel member to strongly defend Common Core, saying that it was vital to increase education standards, particularly for the urban schools.

“When I look at the results we get, particularly in urban districts, I’m appalled,” Clark said. “Over 80 percent of the students in New York State in urban districts are black and brown. Those are the students that are being adversely affected by opt out.”

Rosario was the only member of the panel who is currently teaching Common Core on a daily basis. According to her, the criticism of Common Core is overblown.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it is better, but, to be honest, there’s only been six major shifts from the [previous] standards,” Rosario said. “So I think it really gets blown out of proportion.”

According to Rosario, her students are exceeding her expectations and they’re definitely still learning under Common Core standards.

Among the panelists, one of the most common arguments was that not all children learn and take tests in the same way, so according to them, it doesn’t make sense to have a standard test.
“I don’t think we should test children to find out how the children are doing, because we can’t set up a uniform test,” Paladino said. “When it comes to English learners, for instance, we have a lot of immigrants in both Rochester and Buffalo and you can’t treat those immigrants the same as a kid who has been in system for all of their school-age years.”

Common Core is a controversial set of education standards introduced in 2010 that have been adopted by 46 of the 50 United States. They are intended to provide a common set of standards to all students in order to raise their level of performance and make them both college and career ready when they graduated.

These standards have been met with criticism from a number of parents, teachers and politicians. Many parents have decided to opt their children out from taking the standardized tests.
According to Cala, 200,000 students opted out this year, and twice that number will opt out next year.

“People can hang on to the thought and the love of Common Core all you want,” Cala said. “Come next June, it’s dead.”