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Read Why Westchester County Executive Astorino Boycotts Common Core

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. -- Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino released a statement regarding why his family is again boycotting the Common Core testing.

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino tells why his family is again boycotting the Common Core tests.

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino tells why his family is again boycotting the Common Core tests.

Photo Credit: Skip Pearlman

The statement is as follows:

My wife, Sheila, and I are again withholding our children from this year’s controversial Common Core tests, joining tens of thousands of other New York families in withholding their children from tests roundly criticized by experts for being age-inappropriate, experimental and potentially harmful to traditional classroom studies.

I said three years ago that Common Core was going to be a disaster for New York, and that has sadly proven true. 

The governor scoffed at the legitimate complaints I and other parents made about these tests, and now he’s backtracking to try and score political points. 

But don’t be fooled by the tinkering around the edges that Mr. Cuomo has done with Common Core. 

The fact that these tests will not count for at least four more years proves that this is still an experiment and that our kids are the guinea pigs.

My wife and I are big education advocates. Sheila is special ed teacher by training, and I began my public service as an elected school board member. We support higher New York classroom standards developed at the state and local level with the support and input of parents, teachers, and educators. 

New York was developing just such a curriculum. It's now referred to as the “lost standards” — when the Obama Administration dangled billions of federal dollars before states — as long as they implemented the experimental Common Core that was devised by Bill Gates and others who sent their children to private schools.

Our children are not guinea pigs for some national experiment, nor are yours. 

They deserve an excellent education, with high and demanding standards. 

Anything else is unacceptable. 

Common Core is just a power grab by federal bureaucrats to control content, textbooks, and curriculum at an enormous cost to taxpayers.

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