SHERBURNE – A team of parents, teachers and community members turned out to the Sherburne-Earlville Central School (SECS) Board of Education meeting on Monday to protest the newly implemented and increasingly controversial Common Core Curriculum, New York State’s latest attempt at education reform.

The group, self-dubbed the SECS Parent Advocate Group (PAG), took the spotlight during the public comment portion of Monday night’s meeting to warn school board members of the drawbacks and frequently unintentional repercussions they see in the Common Core. In addition, they asked the school board for its support in overturning the Common Core, which is being fully implemented across all subjects for the first time this year.

Although the mission of the Common Core is to make students college and career ready by making information relevant to the real world, the PAG says the negative implications of the Common Core have been overwhelming for parents, teachers and students alike who struggle to keep pace with the new standards. Many parents at the meeting said their child is being overtested and overworked while others said they feel disconnected from their child’s learning and their child’s needs are being brushed aside.

Currently, 45 states have opted into the Common Core Curriculum, the roots of which go back to a 2009 federal stimulus bill that provided funding for the “Race to the Top” initiative between states. To be eligible for federal funding, each state was required to adopt the Common Core. As extra incentive, states that adopted the Common Core have also been exempted from many provisions of the preceding No Child Left Behind education program that was implemented in 2001.

Said Julie Bigger, a spokesperson for the PAG, the Common Core is an “unproven and untested set of standards” that uses children as “guinea pigs” for the expansion of nationwide controls over educational issues.

Bigger shared with school board members the PAG’s belief that the Common Core in New York State was passed hastily, “behind closed doors and clouded in secrecy,” and that there is “no proof” it’s for the students’ benefit.

Bigger also pointed to the implications of nationwide control over education and the flaws the PAG sees in the state testing system that doesn’t allow teachers to examine end-of-the-year testing results until the following September, when students have already been moved up to the next level.