The UFT Delegate Assembly on Oct. 9 overwhelmingly approved a pair of resolutions calling for an end to New York City’s overemphasis on testing and a moratorium on attaching high-stakes consequences to the state’s new Common Core tests.

The resolution on the moratorium says that the state should continue administering the new Common Core tests each spring. But it calls for a delay in using the test results to make high-stakes decisions about students, teachers or schools.

UFT Assistant Secretary LeRoy Barr, in introducing the resolution, noted that the UFT supports the Common Core Learning Standards but that its implementation in New York City has been rife with problems.

“We are asking for a moratorium, a pause, to get this right,” Barr said. “Our children deserve better, and we must demand that they have it.”

Delegate Michele Ferraro from PS 204 in Brooklyn said she favors the resolution as a means to give teachers and schools time to make the transition to the new standards.

“I’m in a school with fabulous, wonderful teachers,” said Ferraro. “But if I’m in a great place and things are this chaotic and confusing [in the transition to the Common Core], then I can just imagine what it is like in a school that is not such a great place.”

Mulgrew said that the continuing and severe delays in getting curriculum materials to schools and the unevenness in how well-prepared schools are for the new standards is ultimately unfair to not only teachers but also their students.

“You can’t tell me kids are getting the same level of education when this teacher received all the materials and this teacher did not,” Mulgrew said. “We cannot move forward with making decisions based on these tests until we have assurance that all teachers have the resources they need.”

Mulgrew said the UFT is not against the tests, but how the DOE is using them. “It’s not just about our members,” he said. “It’s about the kids.”