David Cummings and Common Core Leaks: We're All Still Waiting for Answers

It has been a month since the Board of Education ended its investigation into the leaked Common Core assessments, but our community is still waiting for someone to be held responsible.  While the inquiry refrained from casting judgement on any one individual, comments I've seen here on Patch and in other forums continue to raise board member David Cummings as someone with access and perhaps the motivation to release the tests publicly.  Clearly, investigators thought he had at least some role in the scandal.

We shouldn’t be so quick to let the issue, and Mr.  Cummings' culpability, disappear.  Here’s why:

• Mr. Cummings is represented by the American Federation of Teachers - a major teacher union - in his day job as an adjunct professor.

• As a board member, Mr. Cummings negotiates with the local teacher union, and is responsible for making policy via-a-vis them.

• Both big teacher unions - the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association - are very strongly opposed to the Common Core curriculum and are pressing their cause in Montclair. I've read on Montclair Schools Watch that they have union operatives here (one named Maia Davis) who are fighting against the district. Having worked in a union shop myself, it wouldn't be surprising to see Mr. Cummings wrapped into this stuff and get pressure.

I think we should maintain a great deal of skepticism when a union-affiliated Board member like Mr. Cummings finds himself so close by when the Common Core assessments show up exactly where they are not supposed to.  Certainly, the leak of the assessments helped to achieve the union's objectives.

Despite those ties, though, the case was simply abandoned by the board with no verdict except admonishments to maintain basic controls when accessing confidential data.  Given the open-ended nature of the investigation, we the public have been left holding the bag, and denied any of the accountability we ought to be able to expect from our public officials. To me, this is troubling, and I am disappointed that the board ended this investigation without bringing clarity to this issue and without delving deeper into the suspicions around Mr. Cummings.