NEA, AFT should be helping us resist, not comply with, the common core

My comment on: “NEA, AFT Partner To Build Common-Core Tools,” (Education Week, Dec 17).

From the article:
The two national teachers' unions have won $11 million to build an online warehouse of instructional tools for the Common Core State Standards. Student Achievement Partners, whose founders led the writing of the standards, is also a grantee. It will work with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association and their teachers to build the tools and post them on Student Achievement Partners' website.
(For the rest: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/12/nea_aft_to_build_common-core_w.html)

My comment, posted on http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/12/nea_aft_to_build_common-core_w.html)

This is all wrong. The unions and the Helmsley Foundation should be helping us resist the Common Core. Are they aware that the common core state (sic) standards mean a massive increase in testing and will be very expensive, at a time when money is very tight? My estimate is that the common core will require about 20 times the amount of testing that NCLB requires, with more subjects and grade levels tested, interim tests, and maybe even pretests in the fall.

Are they aware that there is no evidence that increased testing will boost achievement, and that there is no justification for the common core in the first place? There is strong evidence that the major reason for low school achievement is poverty. According to UNICEF (Innocenti Report 10), the US child poverty rate is now 23%, the second highest among 35 “economically advanced” countries. Poverty has a devastating impact on school performance.

The billions to be spent on unnecessary and excessive testing could be used to protect children against the effects of poverty.