Parent Kamala Carmen says consortium model already achieves Portrait outcomes

Sure is.

My name is Kamala Carmen, and I'm the parent of two children, both now in their early 20s.

I believe that my children graduated from their New York City public 6 through 12 school, having fully attained the attributes distributed around the portrait of a graduate wheel.

That they did so is arguably a foregone conclusion since they attended a consortium school, and the practices and approaches of the consortium model, as you heard today, very intentionally aim for the outcomes called for by Portrait of a Graduate.

Moreover, even their prior schooling was pointing my kids in this direction.

Brooklyn New School, their progressive public elementary school, in many ways resembled what a consortium school for younger children might look like.

It, too, used an inquiry approach to nurture students'curiosity, encourage collaboration with peers, and foster independent critical thinking.

It, too, lived by the maxim, more teaching and learning, less testing.

I'm thrilled that at long last, New York State has moved to decouple the Regents exams from graduation.

I know that this change raises alarms for some parents and pundits who worry that this means that standards will be lowered or feel panic about what will replace the Regents.

I'm here to tell you that I opted my children out of nearly every state test in elementary and middle school.

It would have been all, but the opt-out movement wasn't really a thing until my older child was in sixth grade.

Because of the consortium's waiver, my older child took only the ELA Regents.

My younger child didn't even take that due to COVID cancellation.

Far from lowered standards, what I saw at both my children's school were environments that helped them prepare.

work that was far more challenging and detailed and meaningful than what the state tests or the regents would have asked of them.

They didn't need any external replacement assessments.

They just needed schools where teachers were honored as professionals with plenty of opportunities to advance their own learning and practice, and students were not seen merely as data points with no agency in shaping their learning.

The actual threat to high standards is...

Hello?

The actual threat to high standards is not the diminution of the regents'exams, but the imposition on schools of the bland corporate curriculum products of New York City Reads and Solves and the incessant and invasive screeners students today are surveilled with.

I am relieved my kids graduated before that sad state of affairs came to pass.

And that's, again, the outside.

We don't need outside curriculum for millions of dollars.

Testing, testing.