ICE PAC (Parent Action/Education Advocacy Committee

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From New York State Allies for Public Education:

Last month, NY State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia asked the Board of Regents to approve a new $225,000 grant from the Gates Foundation for “enhanced communication” efforts around the standards, testing and data collection --  to convince parents that State Ed is on the right track in all these areas. 

The new standards that the NY State Education Department has adopted are still developmentally inappropriate and little different from the last set of standards. There is still too much emphasis on flawed high-stakes testing.  Moreover, NYSED has failed to enforce the state student privacy law, passed in 2014-- though the legal deadline for implementation was more than four years ago.  Meanwhile, NYSED’s own data system has been audited twice by the NYS Comptroller, and found to be highly insecure and vulnerable to breaches.

PLEASE CLICK HERE to TAKE ACTION and DEMAND that the Regents give back the Gates funds. Instead of trying to sell parents us on State Ed’s  policies, include parents in authentic decision-making on all issues affecting our children, including standards, teacher evaluation, and privacy. The State Education Department should also be barred from any effort to expand student data collection until the 2014 student privacy law has been fully enforced and the SED’s own data system made secure.