Kishayna Hazlewood, a 3rd-grade teacher at PS 156 in Brownsville, knows exactly what she brought to the table in her work on the Common Core task force convened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

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Bruce Cotler

“I was able to bring the story of the child into the conversation,” said Hazlewood, the sole UFT member on the panel. “So much of the time, we’re looking at data. You don’t know unless you’re in the classroom what effect it’s having on the student.”

Hazlewood, a 10-year classroom veteran, has a master’s degree in elementary education and is going for a second master’s in educational leadership. She is state certified in both childhood education and special education and has achieved National Board Certification, the highest standard of teaching certification.

“I brought the practitioner perspective — what it’s like to teach the Common Core and what it’s like for the students to have to go through high-stakes testing,” she said. “One of my concerns is that 3rd-graders have a very short amount of time to take the test, not enough time to think about questions. They are told the test is very important, but at the same time we’re rushing them and giving them 50 minutes for the test.”

Hazlewood shared her experience with the dismal rollout of the Common Core standards in the 2013–14 school year. “There was no time to go through the standards and no time to get comfortable with them,” she said. “We had to create our own curriculum.”

The governor’s task force started its work in October, meeting with parents, teachers, principals, superintendents and others. Teacher evaluations were not part of the original charge, Hazlewood said, but that soon changed as the panel spoke to educators across the state. “Many of them said we had to address it,” she said.