Twitchy.com: New York’s education commissioner gets an earful on Common Core [video]
Apparently shortly afterward, the State Ed. Commissioner cancelled the remaining Town Hall Meetings on Common Core, including the one scheduled for October 30th in New Hartford.
According to a post on the NYS PTA Facebook page this morning:
While our goal was to provide an opportunity to learn and share, based on review of the initial October 10 meeting, the Commissioner concluded the outcome was not constructive for those taking the time to attend. Please know that NYS PTA will continue to work with all education and child advocacy partners to keep our members updated and informed on education, health, safety and welfare issues affecting children and families.My guess is the "sharing" was anticipated to go one way -- and did so for well over an hour -- but the parents insisted on "sharing" what was on their mind when it was their turn, and were in no mood to give the Commissioner more time when he insisted on interrupting during the public's time. The public outcry clearly was not what the Commissioner wanted to hear. In the end, the public was only given 23 minutes to speak.
Public hearings are an important opportunity for government to get feed back on how well it is doing, and to make course corrections when it is on the wrong track.
It will be revealing in coming weeks whether NYS government will respond to the public concern and ditch the Common Core, or if it will forge ahead with this terrible program dictated out of Washington because it "knows better."
1 comment:
Watching the video of the Poughkeepsie Schools meeting (and I've heard from residents I know who are in it that the Pok district has a lot of other dynamics going on) I was struck with the anger in the crowd. It did get out of control. State Ed obviously needs to adjust their sights when planning such meetings. They are walking into a crowd already upset by arrogant school personnel, changes in schooling that appear to take place willy nilly and escalating property taxes to pay for it all. I heard comments about mandates, poor communication and the like. I'm not sure I heard any comments specific to Common Core deliverables. This issue really deserves to be argued on facts rather than all the emotion surrounding it. Thank you, Strike, for helping us to find those facts.
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