Comedian Louis C.K. hates the Common Core – angrily ranting on Twitter that the stress of prepping for the tough standardized tests left his two elementary-school age daughters in tears.
“My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and common core!” the stand-up comic and cable TV star griped Monday night.
The intense preparation required for the tests – championed by politicians like Gov. Cuomo and some education experts as the best way to raise academic performance – is all-consuming, he said.
“It’s this massive stressball that hangs over the whole school. The kids [and] teachers trying to adapt to these badly written notions,” he wrote.
“I sit with my kids as they [do] their [homework] they devour knowledge. When it’s hard they step up. Their teachers are great,” he continued. “But it’s changed in recent years. It’s all about these tests. It feels like a dark time. And nothing is going in anymore.”
He tweeted blurry photos of some of his daughters’ homework questions – and mocked the confusing wording.
“A huge amount of my third graders time is spent preparing for and answering questions like this,” wrote the 46-year-old comic, who was born Louis Szekely, about a particularly confusing math word problem.
But when some of his Twitter followers challenged his gripes, he defended his kids’ teachers, adding “[T] hese questions btw were not written by her teacher. they were on a standardized test. written by person or whoever the hell.”
He ended the rant with a self-deprecating disclaimer.
“Okay I’m done. This is just one dumb, fat parent’s POV. I’m pissed because I love NYC public schools. mice, lice and all,” he wrote.
The Mexican-American funnyman then signed off with a shameless pitch for his FX comedy show.
“Ok last thing: LOUIE comes back on FX Mondays at 10pm starting May 5th. 2 episodes every night for 7 weeks. Okay bye gang,” he tweeted.
State education officials signed on to the tough new standards, and New York students took the tests for the first time during the 2012-2013 school year – faring poorly.
Fewer than 30 percent of public- school students in grades 3 through 8 passed the state math exams, while roughly 26 percent passed the exams in reading.
Common Core is used by 44 other states and Washington DC., but New York was one of the few states to have changed its exams to reflect the new standards before changing its curriculum — meaning kids and teachers had less time to prepare to meet the higher benchmarks.
The current school year was the first time elementary- and middle-school instruction was aligned with the tests.
Parents, teachers unions and students alike have blasted the early rollout of Common Core testing.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who is running for governor on the GOP line, announced that two of his kids would opt out of the tests when they were administered earlier this month.
The National Education Association and New York State United Teachers both stopped supporting Common Core standards earlier this year, and Cuomo has also backed off, saying teacher evaluations shouldn’t be based yet on the test scores because of the turbulent rollout.
C.K., who lives in Manhattan, and his ex-wife, the artist Alix Bailey, have joint custody of their two daughters. He declined comment through a rep.
Neither city nor state education officials immediately responded to requests for comment.