The bill introduced in Albany [“Bill seeks 2-year moratorium on using Common Core tests,” March 6] at the very least should be passed. In the high school I teach in, all of the students in all of our English classes are working on a two-month Common Core-based research paper on water; yes, water.

While a number of students have developed a modicum of skills-based methods in the actual research process, the topic itself and the lock-step process we all must follow is killing them. While we used to read literature that would teach our students about life and get them to develop both critical and moral reasoning skills, we are now force-feeding them concrete informational texts which teach them nothing but how to spit back information.

Jeff Vargon, New Explorers HS, the Bronx
(via Facebook)