Sunday, May 18, 2014

What NYSED Commissioner John King Finds Disturbing

From Chalkbeat:

King spoke at length in defense of the Common Core learning standards during a panel discussion at the conference, which was hosted by Schools that Can, a national nonprofit that helps district, charter, and independent schools collaborate.

At one point, when assessing different arguments that he has heard educators make against the Common Core, he noted that some say the standards exceed students’ intellectual capabilities at certain ages.

“Sometimes I feel like ‘developmentally inappropriate’ is being used as a euphemism for ‘harder,’” he said.

Some Twitter users seized on that comment. The user @perdidostschool, for instance, turned it on the state’s Common Core curriculum materials: “‘Rigor’” is often a euphemism for poorly-written EngageNY modules,” the tweet read.

Luckily for King, if not his critics, he also said during the talk that he tries to avoid checking his Twitter account too often.

“There are angry tweets sometimes,” he said. “I try not to look at those, because they’re disturbing sometimes.”

As we know from the Poughkeepsie debacle, what NYSED Commissioner King finds disturbing is anybody who doesn't agree 100% with his education reform agenda.

He doesn't like tweets pointing out problems with the state's reform agenda, the Common Core, the State Education Department's CCSS implementation or the EngageNY modules.

Too bad.

That he says "I try not to look at those" let's you know he very much looks at them.

In other words, they're hearing the criticism at SED even though they make believe like they're not.

I think it was Michael Fiorillo who pointed out that Nixon's people used to say the president never heard the protests outside the White House over the war, he was too busy watching football and engaged in doing the business of the country to hear that stuff.

But we know now from the tapes that the Nixon people were obsessed with the protests, looking for ways to retaliate against the protesters, looking for ways to silence them.

King, Tisch, Cuomo and Company like to make as if the widening parent/teacher protests over Common Core, the Endless Testing regime and the APPR teacher evaluation system that mandates so much of the extra testing don't matter to them one whit.

But you can be certain these protests do matter, they're paying attention and they're worried about them.

In the end, that's what King finds most disturbing about the critical tweets.

They're emblematic of the growing revolt over his reform agenda and he can't ignore that no matter how hard he tries.

7 comments:

  1. Maybe the tweets are not developmentally appropriate for King aka too hard. Add a little rigor with a pinch of grit and he will enjoy a peaceful existence in Never Never Land.

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    1. He just wants to hear 100% agreement. That's what we saw at Poughkeepsie.

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  2. King is worried about the truth being known. He can't take the truth. King is hiding from it by shrouding himself in his narcissism. King is incompetent and the implementation of the Common Core in New York has been an unending disaster. How did King become commissioner of education? Obviously, not due his merit, or his ability or his intelligence. He was appointed as a crony of Meryl Tisch who herself is indeed a lifetime crony of Sheldon Silver. Cronyism is the hallmark of gross incompetence and negligence. Need I write more.than emphasize: "Their ascent to leadership is risible." !

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    1. I'm sure he thinks very highly of himself, but the truth is, they sometimes like to get men or women of color to carry out the corporate reform agenda because it gives them some cover. Thus we see people like King, Kaya Henderson, Beverly Hall, et al. carrying it out. And of course Barack Obama is the greatest example of that lately. It's not a mistake that "Hope & Change" turned into corporate deform.

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  3. Great, another "non profit". What is a non profit anyway. All the non profits I am aware of, especially New Visions for Schools, all make millions upon millions. What's up with the vocabulary word non profit?

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    1. Yeah, great point about these "non-profits," many of which are arms of for-profits and steering $ their way (as we saw w/ Pearson) or are just corporate-shillers.

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  4. Opponents of Common Core need to grasp what Cuomo is trying to do with his technology bond issue. That money will play a big role in making NY schools ready for PARCC testing. Opponents need to call out Cuomo and ush before the election to assure that the Bond Issue funding does not come with specifications for what it must be used for (PARCC). I fear that CC opponents are being played here--being asked to vote for a technology scheme that permits CC testing to be expanded at secondary level. Technology is important for our schools--every district has needs--be wary NYSED is going to mandate using funding to upgrade to meet PARCC system requirements. We need to know what mandates will accompany the passage of the Technology Bond Issue.

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