Garden City Parents Upset NYSED Commissioner King Canceled Town Hall Meeting On Common Core Concerns

From Patch:

New York State education commissioner John King has "suspended" Tuesday's roundtable discussion on the new Common Core standards until further notice.

The Garden City School District, in conjunction with Nassau PTA, was hosting the forum at the high school. Parents and educators from across the county were invited to attend. King also called off three other forums scheduled to take place this month.

...

Garden City Mom Maureen Strysko said she is more than disappointed. "Disgusted is more like it. If you watch the video of the parent comments at the upstate meeting, it is apparent that Commissioner King is not interested in parental input," she told Patch.

"He spoke for over an hour and a half but did not give the parents the same courtesy they extended to him. When it was his turn to listen, he couldn't help but defend some of his points that were made earlier ... Even though the parents already heard it all and they were supposed to be able to comment, he would not just listen and then ended the session after 23 minutes - far short of the hour they were promised."

John King can hide behind the SED building curtains all he wants, he can decide he'll only attend reform-friendly forums where he'll be kept safe from unruly parents looking to challenge him over his radical education reform agenda, he can issue press releases saying parents are in the thrall of "special interests," he can call the cops on teachers who write statements about him on Facebook - but none of this will save him in the end.

The Poughkeepsie performance, coupled with his disastrous press release defending the cancellation of future parent town halls by saying they had been co-opted by "special interests," will ensure that he no longer can fly under the radar and impose his radical reform agenda across the state at will.

In other words, he is now very much damaged goods.