On Tuesday, June 4th, Troy and I had the unique opportunity to attend a forum during which questions could be asked of the State Education Commissioner, Dr. John King.

The forum was held in a conference room at the Capital Region BOCES, and was also simulcasted across New York State to groups of students in other districts. Questions came from these students as well as students live in the conference room. Dr. King also answered several questions received through social media during the hour.

In his opening statements, Dr. King, a soft-spoken man of greater-than-average height, touched on subjects ranging from Regents testing to teacher evaluations to technical partnerships with private corporations.

I personally was able to ask two questions of Dr. King: first, what student input did he look for before enacting and adopting the teacher evaluation system? And second, as the teacher-student relationship is the primary relationship in the school system, why aren’t students’ opinions a significant part of the evaluation system?

His responses for both touched upon the use of the survey given to students towards the end of the year (which many readers surely remember taking recently during their homeroom) as a method of student input, though he did not provide a specific example of student input in the initial enacting and adoption of the evaluation policy.

Troy spoke about the correlation between smaller class sizes and better quality of education. Dr. King responded by citing research that shows how small class sizes are more important in the earlier developmental stages than in the high school years. In times of financial constraint like ours, he pointed out, districts must efficiently allocate money for teacher hiring, which makes hiring a priority in kindergarten and other such lower grades.

The most interesting part of the experience was listening to questions from other students. The concerns voiced by the students from all across the state are nearly the same concerns of students and teachers from this district. We all touched upon the issues of class sizes, unfair teacher evaluations, lost class time due to test taking, and college readiness. Coming to the realization that we are in a collective struggle to better our educational system was truly the highlight of the forum, as we now know we can progress and make change together.