Another public forum in the suburbs of New York City, and another nearly unanimous display of outrage towards the policymakers in New York state.

Commissioner John King has made clear again and again that nothing said at these public forums will change his course of action.

He will stick to the Common Core and the testing no matter what parents and teachers say.

And so will the Board of Regents.

Of course, this display of disdain toward the public only serves to raise the temperature, and speakers were plenty heated by the knowledge that no one was listening.

According to the report linked here,

“They’re mad as hell — and they’re not going to take it anymore.

A Common Core forum held at Eastport-South Manor Tuesday night brought out scores of parents, educators and students who echoed a common refrain of disappointment, despair and anger over a curriculum they said stands to dim the light of learning in their children.”

Many were outspoken:

“Setting up kids to fail is damaging to their self-esteem,” said Kathleen Hedder of the Rocky Point Board of Education. “How can you accurately rate progress if no one understands the rules and the game has changed mid-stream?”

Added Jan Achilich, director of special education at the Remsenburg-Speonk Union Free School District, added, “What you are doing is tantamount to physically throwing them into a rushing river without a life preserver.”

The Blue Ribbon school, she said, where music and dance have long been celebrated, is “now a place where anxiety and stress shadow our days.”

Concerns were raised about special education students who cannot keep up to a cookie-cutter standard.

Achilich asked King to reevaluate the current situation.

Others blasted King.

Julie Lofstad of the Hampton Bays Mothers Association lashed into the commissioner. “Can you explain why our children aren’t as important to you as Mattel?” she asked. The toy company, she said, recalled toys that were “potentially harmful. Why don’t you recall the Common Core? Why aren’t you willing to admit the Common Core is flawed, and needs to be fixed, or the program scrapped?”

A local school board president said,

“This is a program that breaks the children, not educates,” he said. “It is destroying our children. Allow our teachers to teach, not be proctors.”

“Shame on you,” said Chris Tice of the Sag Harbor school board. “Please tell us specifically how you are going to fix this and give us a timeline.”

King responded by saying there was a “great gap” between the evening’s conversation and what is happening in classrooms that he’s visited, where children are writing and reading more challenging texts — his words were met by a loud outcry from the audience.

The standards were adopted in 2010 and would be phased in over seven years.

“They won’t be here in 2017 and neither will you,” one audience member yelled. 

John King again made clear that he disagrees with the public. They are wrong, he is right. Period. ”

He disagreed that Common Core instruction was “less joyful” and said he saw kids happy in their classroom. “Joy and rigor in learning aren’t opposites.”

The article does not mention the appearance of any members of the Tea Party or (as Frank Bruni put it recently in the New York Times) “left-wing paranoiacs.”

The speakers were parents and teachers and school board members in the local communities.