Staten Island Democratic Club Calls for John King Resignation

Loretta Prisco introduced this resolution last night at her Staten Island Democratic club, a progressive club on SI. It was passed unanimously. I'm not big on the calls for King to resign. He is helping the movement against ed deform with every word he utters. I would focus on Merryl Tisch and put pressure on the Democrats in the State Assembly, in particular Shelly Silver. But any anti ed deform resos are always welcome.

Whereas, State Commissioner of Education John King has led an assault on public schools by initiating high stakes testing, forced co-locations of schools, closing of schools, the evaluation of teachers based on the  results of standardized tests,  advocating for charter schools at the expense of traditional public schools, and,

Whereas, State Commissioner John King has cancelled four town hall meetings at which parents and educators could seek information about high stakes testing,  common core, and inBloom, a system which would gather personal data on all children to then be made available to vendors, SIDA calls on the NYS Board of Regents including our representative Regent Cea to join the statewide move  to ask for John King's resignation.

Here's some more calls from a parent:

Quick action alert! For more information, go to nysape.org

1. Send quick faxes to local electeds here: 

https://mac.nysut.org/faxlegislators/widget/issue/182#issuesheadline_mobile

2. My quick letter is below. Feel free to copy/adapt it. It went to  17 regents (plus two extra addresses), and 6 officials (some with two different email addresses).

And, here's the fill form for Sheldon Silver:

http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/Sheldon-Silver/contact/

To the Board of Regents,

After the sham of a town hall on October 10 in Poughkeepsie, in which parents and teachers weren't allowed the allotted time to ask questions and air their opinions, and after John King canceled his appearances at the four remaining town halls in NY State, I demand that King should resign his position as New York State Education Commissioner.

His calling concerned stakeholders "special interests" is laughable.

*New Yorkers deserve a COMPETENT leader who listens to and engages his or her constituents
*New Yorkers deserve a COMPETENT leader who can handle the concerns and dissenting opinions of educated involved New York parents.
*John King has let abusive testing and data sharing practices dominate the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards.
*John King runs away from the public.
*John King calls concerned parents “special interest groups."
*John King is not competent to be the NYS Commissioner of Education; he hasn't had sufficient experience teaching in a classroom setting.

A copy of this letter is also going to my elected officials.

Sincerely,
Edith Baltazar
Public School Parent
District 3, Manhattan