Governor Cuomo’s Common Core task force held its first meeting on Long Island–the epicenter of the Opt Out Movement–and it got an earful. Parents, teachers, even superintendents turned out to tell the task force that testing should be delinked from teachers’ job ratings; that testing was overwhelming the school calendar; and that the Common Core should go.
Jeanette Deutermann, leader of the opt out group on Long Island, predicted that opt outs might double (from 220,000 in 2015 to 500,000 in 2016), if real changes do not happen.
The reporters pointed out that the hearing was very different from the one conducted by State Commissioner John King in 2013, when the audience was angry and rowdy, and King canceled future public meetings.
Lesson: ignoring parents makes them angry. Patronizing them and condescending to them will energize the opt outs.
PS: when I opened the article, I read it in full. When I went back to open it again, it was behind a paywall. Hope you are lucky.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Regarding the infamous Poughkeepsie meeting — reference above, here’s the video:
60,498 people have watches this video to date.
King is a liar. In the infamous Poughkeepsie town hall, he claimed that his kids’ Montessori school teaches the Common Core. Subsequent posts to this blog proved this a lie.
Here’s a couple lies debunking John King’s “my kids private Montessori school teachers the Common Core” lie:
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/11/03/montessori-teacher-to-john-king-montessori-is-not-about-testing-and-common-core/
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/30/montessori-schools-are-not-same-as-common-core/
He later claimed that “special interests” had taken over this town hall, and so he was cancelling the town hall. One of the parents at that town hall was furious and wrote this:
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/17/john-king-the-object-of-righteous-anger/
“On October 10, 2013, SED Commissioner John King spoke at the Spackenkill School District in Poughkeepsie, NY. This was the first of several forums on the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) that NYS adopted on July 19, 2010.
“It has been widely seen in social media that Dr. King’s presentation was not well received by the audience. However, his perception of what transpired is not shared by those in the audience. He is quoted in Newsday as saying, “The disruptions caused by the ‘special interests’ have deprived parents of the opportunity to listen, ask questions and offer comments. Essentially, dialogue has been denied.”
“Au contraire. If you take the time to watch the video (http://youtu.be/swWm9b_LUAU), you will see that Dr. King dominates the first hour and 40 minutes. At that point, audience members were allowed to speak for a whopping 23 minutes. Between speakers, Dr. King was defensive and tried to control the “dialogue”. A dialogue is supposed to be a two-way conversation where both sides speak and are listened to. The audience did their part by listening to him. King failed to do his part.
“What “special interests” is he talking about anyway? Parents and teachers are not special interests. Pearson, inBloom, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, et al, are special interests and their interests are money, not children. He tries to depict the audience as having been infiltrated by an angry mob with an agenda. If you take the time to watch the video, you will see that the entire audience was filled with parents and teachers who have legitimate concerns for their children. Their frustration and yes, anger, were delivered to the man it belongs to.
“Some have expressed concern about this anger – that it may come across as unseemly or unprofessional. I say that their anger can be defined as “righteous anger”. In John 2:13-22, Jesus shows his righteous anger toward the “money-changers” doing work in his Father’s home. This is the way many of those adversely affected by the reform movement feel. The work we do is sacred. What could be more sacred than working with children? In Matthew 18:6, Jesus talks about the special care given to children; woe to those who would harm one hair on their heads.
“The parents in the audience were angry, very angry. It is justified and righteous. Dr. King has harmed a lot of children with his dictates and mandates. He has aligned himself with the “money changers” and they have assembled themselves in one of our sacred places – our schools. He has violated a trust that we have in education and he needs to suffer the consequences.
“Dr. King is a failure and if he were evaluated with one of the tools in which we evaluate our teachers, he would rate as “ineffective”. Please join the many parents from across the state who will be demanding King’s resignation this week. Please call Governor Cuomo’s office (518-474-8390) and demand his resignation. Take back the schools from the corporations and give them back to our teachers and students. They deserve it.”
————————–
John King is also a manipulator with his use of words. When it was brought up that his own kids were flourishing in a private Montessori school, he didn’t call it a private school; he called in a “non-public school”… as in “non-public schools are part of the community of schools in New York state”… as if the having the words “public” and “school” back-to-back in the description would subliminally make those parents find a common bond with him.
And of course, no discussion of John King would be complete without the parody of his reaction to the parents’ resistance to Common Core:
I think the Common Core roll-out goes to a fundamental problem among ed reformers- they don’t really “get” the public part of public schools. They view it as a problem to be solved – first the solution involved rolling over the public and now the solution involves engineering “buy in”.
The public in “public schools” is not a problem to be isolated and solved. It’s not a problem at all. It’s the nature of the thing- it’s woven all the way through.
“now the solution involves engineering “buy in”. . . .”
In other words how to manipulate a process to appear that all have an input when in reality no one except those conducting the “engineering solution” have any real input. That type of “professional development” has been going on for almost two decades now in our public schools. Get everyone together into small groups, placing some of your own people in each group so as to get the desired “message” written on a poster size paper, pin the papers on the wall and “OH, Look, at the solutions, just what we wanted.” But they won’t say that, they’ll say “Thanks for the input and now that you have all agreed, even though no vote or real discussion took place, we expect all of you to do X, Y & Z.” Seen that crap go down way too many times.
Manufactured consent = deception at its finest with the majority of the GAGAers consenting.
“The public in “public schools” is not a problem to be isolated and solved. It’s not a problem at all. It’s the nature of the thing- it’s woven all the way through.”
Exactly, Chiara!
BEWARE: The statement(s) of regret from education reformsters like cuomo about too much testing and their Jonnie come lately, push to end year of ending, high stakes testing. They already have rolled out throughout the country, competency based, proficiency based, blended learning and a myriad of other computer bases curriculum that is continually stealing your child/students personal data and assessing them daily/constantly. So when they say to get rid of the end of year testing, know these greedy, heartless bastards already have a sinister plan to continue their profitization of public school and steal YOUR TAX $$$$$$$. just sayin
AGREE, Paul.
Charter schools aren’t a big enough market for “blended learning”- there just aren’t than many Rocketships- so the big push is directed at public schools, which of course have enormous buying power and reach hundreds of millions of budding consumers:
Chiara,
When was that fb post from?
TIA,
Duane
Uh-Oh.
Baby Andrew just got Mommy’s pacifier pulled out of his mouth at a task force meeting, and he is crying and wetting his diapers.
Hungry and soiled, I wonder if anyone out there, such as the billionaires, real estate moguls, and condo developers who fund him, will really feed him and clean him up?
Don’t cry, baby Andrew. Investigation is coming your way, as it did to Sheldon Silver. Maybe Preet Bahara will snatch you from your stroller and fling you into a jail cell, where you always did belong.
Don’t cry, baby Andrew.
Just run for your life now that your career is being ruined . . . .
“Kabuki Theater”
The parents of our public schools
Can save us from “reformer” rules
They may well be our last best chance
To save us from Kabuki dance
Recent interviews on NY1 with Myrll Tisch and Campbell Brown are stomach turning. Why is it that the absolute OPPOSITE is true of everything they say?!
“The Oppobots”
The Oppobots
Oppose the truth
With lots and lots
Of lies to boot
Tago! 😉
Question of the year: are the governor and Chancellor slow or evil? What possible good can come from focusing on how poorly our students are performing by deliberately designing tests to fail 70%? And at the same time, focusing on the few bad teachers that need to go? Instead of the vast majority that have dedicated their lives to our children’s learning? They can’t possibly believe that it’s just a matter of magically finding teachers that can turn around the huge problems causing student underperformance. It’s a straight out cover up for not truly dealing with the huge underclass depression and stagnation