The students and teachers of New Jersey are experiencing many new legislative actions governing the educational system in this state. New Jersey students and their teachers have become subject to reckless new policies enacting new mandates at a swift pace without the establishment of carefully planned implementation guidelines. This current path of our educational system is creating a shaky foundation for educational policy that will affect our future generations of students and teachers. It is time to call a halt to the creation this unstable foundation in order to analyze what the state and our children really need, and plan based on these priorities.

Senator Jeff Van Drew has proposed legislation (S2973) that would establish a task force to evaluate the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in New Jersey. The establishment of this task force would also delay the use of assessments developed by Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) until the task force submits its final report. This task force would be charged duties that include the following;

a) an evaluation of actions taken to date regarding the implementation of CCSS and a timeline of subsequent actions

b) a comparison of the CCSS standards for mathematics and English language literacy to the standards that existed prior to the implementation of the CCSS

c) a full-cost estimate, including costs already incurred by districts as well as future costs to be incurred

d) an analysis of students' performance on assessment including an assessment of the changes in the achievement gap between racial and ethnic groups and different economic groups

e) a study and evaluation of personal data mining and a student's right to privacy.

This legislation creates a moratorium on recent educational changes and is the logical partner to the NJEA's call to create a moratorium on the implementation of the new teacher evaluation system. We must take a stand as a united force as members of the NJEA and request that our union leadership immediately convene open meetings with membership to discuss the impacts of the CCSS, PARCCS testing, TEACHNJ and support of Senator Van Drew's bill.

Sign this petition to demand that our union leadership represent our concerns and seed solutions to the detrimental high stakes testing being forced upon us, our students, and our schools.