With six weeks to go in the state’s legislative session, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top lawmakers met in private Wednesday to talk about what issues they can feasibly tackle.
...
Among the topics discussed Wednesday: Potential changes to the state’s latest education reforms, which were passed as part of the state budget on April 1 and have sparked outrage among teachers and parents.
“We still have six weeks to go, and if there’s things we think we can fix, we’ll look at that,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, told reporters after the meeting.
Flanagan, the former head of the Senate Education Committee, said teacher evaluations were part of the discussion with Cuomo.
...
“We’re looking at this from a parent viewpoint,” Flanagan said. “I think at the end of the day, everyone refers to it about teacher evaluations. It’s about students and parents. Certainly, teachers play a critical role. But when we do anything, I think it will be on a laser-like focus on how to help parents and students.”
State of Politcs reports this:
A bill introduced this month in the Democratic-led Assembly would alter the education measures approved in the $142 billion state budget.
The measure would revise key deadlines for teacher evaluations, alter the funding linkage for the adoption of new evaluation criteria on the local level and provide modifications to the evaluation language itself.
The bill comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed for the education reform measures in the budget, linking the policy to an overall boost in education aid, which most Democrats in the Assembly reluctantly accepted.
You can go to State of Politics and get the details.
I'm skeptical anything substantive is happening here.
Seems to me the heavy hearts in the legislature want parents and teachers to think they're taking action on concerns over the state's education regime, but I don't think extending the deadline of the evaluation system, providing more money for testing or setting up a kangaroo committee at SED to review the tests for grade appropriateness is substantive.
It simply delays some parts of the reform agenda and provides cover for other parts, but it doesn't actually address the concerns over the effects of high stakes testing on children, teachers or schools.
As I think you have stated on this blog before. Some of these criminals, err pubic servants, must pay a political price. Until someone loses a seat in the criminal organization called the NYS legislature, no one is going to do anything substantial.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder sometimes what could be done with a more militant union stance. Thing is it may not be possible, our unions public action power has atrophied. Today the Union depends on lobbying these fools and confidence men/women. You can not out lobby billionaires.
RBE, I know John Flanagan extremely well and I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. You are smart to be skeptical. Unless Flanagan has found religion, which I seriously doubt, expect nothing worthwhile to come of this. He already said he would like to give school boards an extra month to finalize the evaluation plans under the new law. That's it. He didn't say anything about changing the parameters of the law itself. Part of that worthless bill is a blatant attempt to give the Senate veto power over the election of members of the Board of Regents. Clear to me that he wants to do everything possible to save Merryl Tisch. Tisch and Flanagan are both darlings to the charter school crowd.
ReplyDeleteThe bill linked to in SoP was sponsored by Nolan. It would make test qusstions public and create a BoR committee to review test questions before the exams are published. Looks like they want to avoid any pineapples rockin' the shirt sleeves.
ReplyDeleteIt also tries to improve the junk science, er, VAM model by adding more considerations of socio-economic characterists when examining test scores. (That's tough to explain but it's basically more junk added into the science).
As I've written before, any time now I get a fundraising letter from the Democratic Party, I reply NO, not until Cuomo and Obama etc ....etc....stop attacking public schools and teachers. The Democrats just sent me another appeal "We miss you" or something stupid like that. GOOD. The more people who cut off the money flow, the better. Maybe the Democrats will finally get the message: Cuomo has got to go. -John Ogozalek
ReplyDeleteCuomo is not the only one who must go.
ReplyDeleteHeard excerpts of what seems to be amazing documentary, American Empire: An Act of Collective Madness. This is a must see for everyone of us interested in the present and future of our nation. Tells you things that you will wish were not true, things upon which the entire fabric of our government/society hinge.
How we are being raped and pillaged by the 1% as they control all aspects of our lives.
Did you know that the federal income tax was created in 1913 to pay the interest on the money the federal government borrows from the federal reserve? The federal reserve is a private entity, created by a group of bankers in 1910 behind very closed doors, yet it has control over our government, not the other way around.