It's time for PK O'Neill to take some responsibility
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Wed, 02/04/2015 - 2:22am
Assemblymen PK O'Neill kicked off his tenure as Carson City's elected representative in the State Assembly by sponsoring a 'symposium' on the Nevada Academic Content Standards (NACS) for English Language Arts and Mathematics.
These standards were approved by Gov. Jim Gibbons and the State Board of Education in 2010. Referred to nationally as 'Common Core', they were developed by a bi-partisan consortium of governors and superintendents of public instruction to better prepare America's kids for college and the real world of work. Since taking office in 2011, Gov. Brian Sandoval and Supt. Dale Erquiaga have implemented NACS in all grades over the past four school years, an enormous undertaking which will come to fruition at the end of the Spring semester.
All this has been a significant challenge for students and teachers alike, not to mention the parents who've often found themselves perplexed by what they find in their children's homework assignments. But these are world class standards that demand more from everyone. Instead of just imparting knowledge, they are designed to teach children how to seek out knowledge on their own and to think critically.
Needless to say, these are revolutionary changes, and like most revolutions, they have spawned organized resistance from people who have trouble coping with change. It was certainly time for the Nevada Department of Education (NDE) to schedule some public forums to bring the public up to date on how NACS implementation has been going, so when Assemblyman PK O'Neill scheduled a symposium at the legislature with teleconferencing statewide, I thought that's what would be happening.
But instead of taking ownership of the event, Mr. O'Neill turned everything over to a group of radical anti-Common Core activists who brought in two touring 'experts' from California and Massachusetts who made total fools of themselves. The teachers the NDE brought in to provide the expected presentation were not even allowed to speak, and as the spectacle unfolded it became obvious that the audience was made up almost exclusively of political activists eager to demonstrate how rabidly opposed they were to Common Core.
Assemblyman O'Neill had told the press that he was hosting the event because their were 'legitimate questions' that NDE had yet to answer, but O'Neill never even took the microphone. Instead he wandered around the hallway and the back of the room the whole time while in furtive discussions with Maurice White, Chair of the Carson City GOP central committee. White later accused Dr. Steve Canavero, the main NDE representative, of disrupting the meeting and called for his dismissal.
That could not be more absurd. Dr. Canavero was ambushed by what amounted to an ugly mob, and deserves credit for not leaving immediately when the true nature of the event became apparent. It's long overdue for Assemblyman O'Neill to offer Dr. Canavero his sincerre apologies, and he should have immediately distanced himself from Maurice White's outrageous comments, but so far he's made no public statements on the matter.
I'm sure the Nevada Department of Education and Gov. Sandoval have learned by now what happens when you put your trust in PK O'Neill, who doesn't seem able to take charge of a situation or to take responsibility for the consequences when things go out of control.
His constituents should take note as well.
Previous posts in this thread:
http://www.carsonnow.org/reader-content/01/20/2015/k-12-education-standa...
http://www.carsonnow.org/reader-content/01/16/2015/its-time-real-common-...
http://www.carsonnow.org/story/01/15/2015/all-we-got-out-common-core-sym...
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