Cuomo To Be Honored In Washington D.C. As "Champion Of Charters"

May's going to be a banner month for Andrew Cuomo and the charter entrepreneurs.

First he's hosting a ritzy education reform vacation getaway/conference in Lake Placid for charter entrepreneurs and other reformy types and now we learn that he's to be honored by the National Alliance for Public (sic) Charter Schools in D.C. alongside other charter heroes like sex criminal/Sacramento mayor Kevin "KJ" Johnson and for-profit college shill George Miller:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s support of charter schools in New York City and across the state has earned him the honor as a “Champion for Charters” from a national group at a event next month in Washington.

Cuomo was able to overstep New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the state budget approved March 31 by allowing charter schools to co-locate at public schools, and he secured continued aid for the schools in the city and across the state.

“This year Governor Cuomo stepped in to support the charter school community in New York City at a critical time,” the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools said in a news release yesterday. “He negotiated a budget deal with state lawmakers that guarantees future New York City charter schools rent-free space in under-used public school buildings or funding to offset the cost of renting a building.”

The event will be May 6 at the U.S. Capitol. It’s unclear whether Cuomo will attend; he rarely leaves the state.

He will be honored along with Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, and Illinois senator Mark Kirk, a Republican, as well as Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star.

Within the Beltway, the kind of support Cuomo has shown for charters and disdain he's shown for traditional public schools is hip and cool.

But of course back in NY State, where Cuomo is facing a state-wide rebellion over his education reform policies, anger over his support for the Common Core and the Endless Testing regime, outrage over his tax cap that starves public school districts of needed funds even as he throws more and more state mandates onto them and rage over his budget that steals funds from public schools and hands them off to the already-wealthy charter entrepreneurs like Eva Moskowitz, that support is not such a slam dunk.

It wil be interesting to see if Cuomo attends his honor ceremony in the same month that he chairs the education reform conference in Lake Placid.

Given his suddenly shaky re-election prospects, with a US attorney bearing down on him for what he did (or didn't) do in the Moreland Commission investigations, with his "liberal" base pissed at him for the budget, the tax cap and his education policies, the unions pissed at him for his anti-union stances, and upstaters pissed at him over the SAFE Act and other things, I bet he'll think twice about doing two pro-charter/pro-reform events in the same month, especially considering those folks are already supporting him politically and financially.

But we'll see - Sheriff Andy has been floundering a bit of late, ever since US Attorney for the Southern District took him on publicly over the Moreland mess, so he may just decide he needs the bask and glow of the charter folks to salve his wounded ego.