Common Core, like most other testing, is another time and money-wasting bureaucratic response to basic inequality. Here's what these results show: The Haves have, and The Nave-Nots don't. We don't need to measure Las Lomitas, Portola Valley, MPCSD other than group subsets of whatever small population of low-income or disabled students they have. The only scores here that really tells a story are from M-A. They teach us about averages. When you add high test scores and low test scores you get middling test scores. Because half of M-A comes from Ravenswood. That's where you can see what a lifetime of ineffective practices will do to a kid. Those students don't need tests -- they need better teaching methodology starting with universal pre-school so all kids will enter kindergarten on a level playing field. There are statistics to back that up -- not a bunch of bureaucrats who wave sticks with no clue about the real world inside classrooms. And please don't start preaching about poverty and drugs and parents who don't care. They care plenty, but they don't have the means to work with their kids or hire tutors. So we can either find the money to educate the entire public effectively or pay the high cost of prison.

I saw YES to "Common Core NOT Common Sense"! I was sure that this silly Common Core was just another educational fad - and it is. And our precious kids are paying a huge price for this nonsense. What a shame.

Real learning cannot be measured on computers. It is impossible to ever quantify the passion for learning that a good teacher ignites and encourages in each student.

Common Core forces teachers to "teach to the test", which is wrong. Far too much time is wasted preparing students for these unnecessary tests.

I have read that many teachers have found that Common Core many times presents students with material they are simply not old enough to grasp.

Class sizes should be much, much smaller. The more individual attention a student gets, the better he or she will do -- as long as proper help is given to every parent and caregiver who needs it.

Common Core is a very bad idea, and should be dumped ASAP.

This highlights the dichotomy we have in Menlo Park. While I live in the MPCSD catchment area and will donate to the MPAEF, this year I will also be donating to the Ravenswood Education Foundation. We live in the same city, we can all do more.