Another Andrew Cuomo Lie In His Education Ad

Last night I posted how people shouldn't be fooled by Andrew Cuomo's new education ad.

In the ad, Cuomo claims the following:

“Education is the gift we give our children, and they deserve the very best,” Cuomo narrates in the ad. “Over the years, I’ve helped my kids by just being there. That’s why I want real teacher and school evaluations; to stop over-testing our children; not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready. I want to invest $2 billion dollars to build the new technology classrooms of tomorrow. And I still believe the best education equipment is the kitchen table, and the best teacher is the parent.”

In yesterday's post I took on the "not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready" line.

There is no five year moratorium on anything in New York State.

The budget agreement last spring brought a two year moratorium on using test scores from the Common Core assessments for students:

As part of the state budget approved in March, Cuomo and the Legislature approved a number of changes to the state's implementation of the Common Core, including a two-year pause on using standardized test scores as the basis for promoting students to the next grade level.

In addition, the legislature passed a bill shielding teachers who teach students who take the Common Core assessments from the worst effects of having those scores used in the state test component of Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system:

ALBANY – Legislative leaders and Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck a deal Thursday that would largely hold teachers harmless from poor student scores on Common Core-based exams for two years.

A bill introduced Thursday would essentially exclude Common Core test results from some teacher evaluations through the 2014-15 school year, which starts July 1, shielding them from the negative consequences of a poor review caused by the scores.

Both the moratorium for students and the moratorium for teachers run through the 2014-2015 school year - this year - and then things go back to the way they were before, with districts able to use the test scores to hold children back.

Nothing actually changes for teachers because Cuomo never signed the so-called teacher safety net into law - teachers still have the CCSS test scores used in their APPR teacher evaluation ratings without the shield devised in the legislature bill.

So when Cuomo says he has pushed to "not to use Common Core scores for at least five years, and then only if our children are ready," he is looking voters directly in the eye and lying to them.

That's Pathological Lie #1 in the ad.

Here's Pathological Lie #2 in the ad:

That’s why I want...to stop over-testing our children

Right before that lie, Cuomo brags about bringing "real teacher and school evaluations" to the state - which in practice means he added to the batteries of tests that were already in place so that teachers and schools could be evaluated using student performance and test data.

Cuomo's vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system (vaunted in his own mind, at any rate - nearly everybody else seems to hate it) works this way:

A) 60% of a teacher's rating comes from "subjective measures," like classroom observations and student surveys
B) 20% comes from "state measures," based upon state tests that students take
C) 20% comes from "local measures," based upon local tests and assessments devised by districts.

There was an immense amount of testing even before the new APPR teacher evaluation system was put into place, but that "immense amount" has now gone to "insane amount" in many schools.

For example, some districts have students taking "pre-assessments" early in the school year and "post-assessments" later in the year in every grade in every subject in order to evaluate their teachers via Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation mandate.

These local tests and/or performance assessments come on top of the state tests mandates - math and ELA Common Core tests in 3rd-8th grade, Regents exams in high school - the field testing that is done by NYSED to try out new test items on students, and the PSAT test that sophomores and juniors take at their schools in some districts that are used as pre-assessments for APPR as well.

Cuomo is once again looking voters directly in the eye and lying when he says he wants "to stop over-testing our children."

His APPR teacher evaluation system has taken the Endless Testing regime that was already in place pre-APPR and shot it up with steroids.

That Cuomo feels the need to lie so blatantly twice in this election ad shows you how desperate he is feeling in this election.

It would be interesting to see what his internal polling is telling him that he felt the need to dress up all in white, pull his daughter into the ad to help her with her "homework" (or maybe it's her taxes - she looks old enough to be filing a 1040A form) and claim there's a five year moratorium on Common Core consequences when there isn't anything of the sort while saying he's against "over-testing" even as he pursues policies that force "over-testing."