Whether you have a child or grandchild attending a New York State public school, are a teacher, or are simply a concerned citizen, you have no doubt heard of the controversy surrounding the implementation of new learning standards known as Common Core.

My office has been flooded with correspondence on this matter, and I have spent a great deal of time attending various public forums devoted to this issue. The senate education committee, of which I am a member, also conducted five hearings across the state, gathering extensive testimony from a broad cross-section of educational stakeholders. Now, a new report, with recommendations for change has been released.

First, some background. Common Core Learning Standards were adopted in New York by the Board of Regents in 2010. In the 2012-13 academic year, the State Education Department began aligning curriculum and assessments to the implementation of these new learning standards in all grades, Pre-K through 12. The implementation has been flawed and a significant subject of controversy and criticism for parents, teachers and administrators.

The senate education committee was the first official body to hold public hearings to allow stakeholders to express their concerns and offer recommendations for making improvements. The five hearings produced over thirty hours of testimony, 115 witnesses and close to 1000 pages of written testimony which were all included as part of the official record.

The committee heard a variety of concerns from witnesses that included the over-testing of students, inadequate professional development funding for teacher training, incomplete and missing modules (i.e., curriculum), the use of test questions that were neither age-level nor developmentally appropriate, and the security of student, teacher and principal data that will be stored on the statewide Education Data Portal (EDP).

The newly released report from the senate education committee includes an overview of the testimony and strong recommendations of administrative action that can be taken immediately by the State Education Department (SED) to address concerns regarding the department's flawed implementation of Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS). Those administrative actions include:

Expediting waivers from the federal government (US Department of Education) to relax onerous and rigid testing restrictions placed on certain students, such as students with disabilities and English Language Learners (ELL);

Producing all missing or incomplete curriculum modules immediately;

Aligning assessments proportionally to curriculum actually implemented;