Edward Vos (The Post-Journal, March 17, 2016) phrased it well: “The truth about lies is that they cause us to distrust people. We lose faith when we discover a lie. We lose confidence in people we want to trust.” Tragically, we have lost all confidence in people we need to trust.

Who they are, along with their treachery, is disclosed. They cheated our children and inflicted on them what they never would have accepted for themselves: inferior, dumbed down education based on junk standards and crappy curricula. Shame on all of them. No amount of whitewash covers the stench of what they did.

Who are these people? They are the Board of Regents, Gov. Cuomo, former commissioner of education (now U.S. Sec of Education) King, current commissioner Elia, the New York state Legislature, and many superintendents and boards of education (including Jamestown). They were lawless when they adopted the Common Core curriculum and standards. They trounced on our country’s exceptional and unique foundation principles and history for the myth and mush of diversity and multiculturalism. They were incompetent in knowing what constitutes excellence in education. They willingly overthrew our historic purpose of college: the transmission of knowledge by the greatest minds in history. They implemented ELA and math curricula that lacked any research validation; they had no knowledge if these programs worked.

In a May 2015 letter to Cuomo, and copied to Jamestown Board of Education, Board of Regents, the director of state operations, and the New York state Legislature, I provided 2014 grade-level failure rate data for the state and Jamestown. New York state tests grades 3-8 showed dismally high state failure rates: two-thirds of students failed. Jamestown’s failure rates were tragic: nearly eight out of every 10 students failed. Focus on failure rates puts the problem into acute perspective.

State failure rates: math: low, 57 percent (grade 4); high, 78 percent (grade 8); average, 64 percent; ELA: low, 64 percent (grade 8); high, 71 percent (grade 5, 6, 7); average, 69 percent.

Jamestown failure rates: math: low, 73 percent (grade 3); high, 82 percent (grade 6, 8); average, 78 percent; ELA: low, 73 percent (grade 8); high, 84 percent (grade 6); average, 80 percent. Forget career and college ready; the large majority of New York students are not high school ready.

Superintendent Mains knew of Jamestown’s calamitous results, yet he made this wildly ridiculous statement: “JPS staff has worked diligently to adapt to this new way of teaching that will better prepare students to succeed, and have risen to higher expectations. Our focus is learning: we see every child learning every day.”

New way of teaching? Hogwash. Lies, Mr. Mains and board of education. Your credibility is in the tank. Remember New Math and its “new” way of teaching? An absolute disaster for students who became math dumb lifelong. Children taught with EngageNY Mathematics will find themselves in the same dilemma. The weak ELA curriculum will result in widespread ignorance. The great works of literature, tragically, will be unknown.

Did average failure rates improve in 2015? In a word, No. State: math: low, 52 percent (grade 4, 5); high, 78 percent (grade 8); average, 62 percent (down two percentage points; meaningless); ELA: low, 65 percent (grade 8); high, 71 percent (grade 7); average, 69 percent (same as 2014).

Jamestown: math: low, 72 percent (grade 4); high, 86 percent (grade 8); average, 78 percent (same as 2014); ELA: low, 70 percent (grade 8); high, 86 percent (grade 5); average, 80 percent (same as 2014). Jamestown, do you understand the tragedy awaiting our children?

The governor convened a task force which recommended creating “new” NY standards but ones based on Common Core. More experimentation. In a letter to the governor (Jan. 14, 2016), I provided data showing that Massachusetts, before signing on to Common Core, ranked number one in the country. Massachusetts scored significantly higher than New York every testing year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). A former principal said, “NAEP is a truth teller…[It] is what it was intended to be – a national report card by which we can gauge our national progress in educating our youth.”

In 1997, Massachusetts wrote the strongest and most specific standards in the country, in contrast to the weak and boilerplate Common Core standards now used in New York. The state also created the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). With strong standards and curricula, Massachusetts students truly became college ready. Hard copies of the ELA and Math Massachusetts standards were sent to Governor Cuomo; digital copies were sent to the Board of Regents and key members of the Legislature. Why not use Massachusetts’s standards, whose worth already is proven, they were asked?

If educational excellence and trust are to be restored to public education, they only will come about through continued and increased dissension by we the people: more opt outs, plus other forms of defiance. We must persevere until the stench is eliminated and excellence and trust are reclaimed.

Deann Nelson is a Jamestown resident.