Dive Brief:
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New York State Education Commissioner, John King, gave a speech Thursday announcing plans to continue his efforts to push student achievement and higher education standards.
- King has not been so popular in recent months; over the weekend, the New York State United Teachers held a no-confidence vote, calling for his resignation. Critics have been frustrated by his implementation of new tests and teacher evaluations
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In his speech — which was introduced by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan — King announced that $16 million of the state’s Race to the Top funds would go toward evaluating which local tests are necessary and which can be canned.
Dive Insight:
After mounting tensions with critics, King’s speech was a necessary action showing that he would not back down but would, in fact, continue to push for many of the same reforms.
While the plan to reduce the number of unnecessary tests is a great one, it is unclear what will be deemed “unnecessary” and it feels a bit like semantics. For example, the Common Core-aligned exam may seem unnecessary to some, that’s probably not going anywhere.
His speech came one day after New York education officials announced that state-mandated test scores will no longer be the central factor when deciding to promote or hold back students in grades 3 through 8.