State education chief suspends LI Town Hall meeting
Photo credit: Newsday / Audrey C. Tiernan | Dr. John B. King, Jr., State education commissioner, speaks at an event at Hofstra University. (Feb. 2, 2012)
New York's education commissioner said Saturday he had called off Long Island's only Town Hall meeting on the Common Core curriculum and state testing after "special interests" hijacked the first such forum.
The meeting had been scheduled for Tuesday in Garden City and was sponsored by the state PTA.
Commissioner John B. King Jr. also put on hold the other three Town Hall meetings planned across the state, which for the first time would have let parents and teachers ask him about testing and the Common Core.
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Hundreds of people attended a pair of at times adversarial and boisterous forums earlier this month -- a debut Town Hall in Poughkeepsie in the Hudson Valley and an event in Whitesboro, near Utica.
King, in a statement, said he had been looking forward to speaking with parents.
"The disruptions caused by the 'special interests' have deprived