NYS Education Commish 'Suspends' Tuesday's Common Core Forum

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.

Emotions ran high at the first Town Hall held Oct. 10 at Spackenkill High School in Poughkeepsie (see video). Anna Shah, 41, a parent in the Spackenkill district, said "the meeting ended abruptly after five speakers presented, leaving at least 75 who were denied the chance to speak," according to a Poughkeepsie Journal report.

King said "the disruptions caused by the 'special interests' have deprived parents of the opportunity to listen, ask questions and offer comments," according to a Newsday report.

King, who assumed office in 2011, is the fourteenth commissioner of education for New York State. He is the youngest person to ever hold the position.

A statement on the New York State PTA Facebook page reads: "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."

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."

Individualized score reports for children in Grades 3-8 that took the New York State English Language Arts (ELA) and math exams last spring were expected to be mailed to parents in late September.

As anticipated, since implementation of the new Common Core standards, scores were generally lower as a whole across New York State, including Garden City, according to superintendent of schools Dr. Robert Feirsen.

"This doesn't mean our scores were poor," Dr. Feirsen said. "In fact, in a couple of cases, we had the number one or number two ranking in New York State so collectively we did pretty well. Relatively, there's been some change."

Dr. Feirsen said those changes stem from more rigorous exams based on Common Core standards as well as changes in "cut scores," used to rate a student's proficiency level on a scale of 1-4. "This resulted in more students, percentage wise, in Level 2 or Level 1 than in previous years," he said.

In Garden City, 324 third graders took the ELA test - 51.9 percent scored in Level 3; 9.6 in Level 4; 27.2 in Level 2; and 11.4 in Level 1. The mean scale score was 323. There were 329 eighth graders that took the math test - 42.6 scored in Level 3; 14.6 in Level 4; 37.7 in Level 2; and 5.2 in Level 1. The mean scale score was 324. For a full overview of Garden City school district test scores, click here.

Strysko said the biggest losers in this "whole mess" are the children. "Clearly he knew he was going to face the same sort of resistance from parents in this area and decided he did not have to deal with it so he cancelled. I was looking forward to attending to possibly get the answer to a question raised in my own family but it appears nothing would have been accomplished anyway," she said.