Why is NYSED's John King an Urbanphobe?

New York State Education Department commissioner John King has apparently and scheduled twelve more public meetings on the Common Core State [sic, more like Gates] Standards.

But already there is bad news that he is omitted big city locales-- New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers.

Why is he avoiding big cities? Did the Poughkeepsie experience give him too much of a scare? Why his reservation? The pollution? The traffic?

Or is it that the Buffalo parents are fighting mayoral control (See "Why a mayoral takeover of Buffalo schools is so unpopular"), the Buffalo teachers fighting a terminations tie-in coming from the evaluations (see older post, "Buffalo Teachers (BTF) President Rumore: CCSS, Evaluations Driving Down Teacher Morale"), while on the other hand commissioner King is trying for a state takeover of the district?

Another post this summer:

And in Buffalo, the Teachers Federation has talked lawsuit to protect APPR side agreements with their school district not to link evaluations to teacher termination. (See Buffalo Teachers Fed.'s Evaluations Suit - MOU Too Embarrassing for Mulgrew to Let NYC Teachers See) And yet, here in New York City, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president Michael Mulgrew agreed to a plan with a quota to terminate seven percent of teachers yearly, even before John King imposed the plan on the city. Contrast that with "Buff. Teachers Fed. Motion Slams APPR Toxic Stew of SLOs, LMAs, Overwork." Other countries? Linking students tests scores to teacher evaluation, advancement or punishment is RARE. See my post from late June, "International Studies of Teacher Evaluation: Student Tests Seldom Cited, Portfolios Carry More Weight." And statistics show, time and again, between districts of different levels of poverty in the United States, and between the United States and other countries, that student test scores rise and fall with levels of income.

Or is he avoiding New York City because he's afraid that liberal parents along with Movement of Rank and File Educators (UFT) members might chafe at his characterization of Common Core skeptics as Tea Partiers?

When these new town hall fora happen watch King and his handlers cherry pick the questions and otherwise control the audience by forcing them to submit their comments ahead of time.