AFT President Randi Weingarten is calling for a moratorium on the tests under the new Common Core education standards until teachers have been given adequate preparation to teach what students need to know to tackle them. She says that the high-stakes nature of the tests makes implementing them too soon potentially a problem for both teachers and students. A delay would allow for mid-course corrections where needed and would allow for aligning the standards, school curricula, teacher training, instruction and assessments.

The standards, Washington Post reporter Lyndsey Layton writes, "set common goals for reading, writing and math skills that students should develop from kindergarten through high school graduation. Although classroom curriculum is left to the states, the standards emphasize critical thinking and problem solving and encourage thinking deeply about fewer topics."

Weingarten said in an AFT press release:

If we're able to step on the accelerator of quality implementation, and put the brakes on the stakes, we can take advantage of this opportunity and guarantee that deeper, more rigorous standards will help lead to higher achievement for all children.

All but five states have adopted the new Common Core Standards, but a number of them are looking to give students assignments and tests based on the new standards before they have been implemented and before teachers have the time to successfully make transition. 

Weingarten emphasized the moratorium is not meant to stop the tests, but is designed to make sure that students, teachers and schools are ready to successfully achieve the new Common Core goals.

The fact that the changes are being made nationwide without anything close to adequate preparation is a failure of leadership, a sign of a broken accountability system and, worse, an abdication of our responsibility to kids, particularly poor kids....These standards, which hold such potential to create deeper learning, are instead creating a serious backlash as officials seek to make them count before they make them work. They will either lead to a revolution in teaching and learning, or they will end up in the overflowing dustbin of abandoned reforms.

Recent polling shows, while most teachers support the new standards, 75% say they have not been adequately prepared to understand them or put them into practice.

Can you imagine doctors being expected to perform a new medical procedure without being trained in it or provided the necessary instruments—simply being told there may be some material on a website? Of course not, but that's what's happening right now with the Common Core.

AFT created a petition calling on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and state education commissioners to delay the tests until teachers are properly prepared.