New Senate Education Chair May Give Reformers Pause

So says State of Politics:

Incoming Senate Education Committee Chairman Carl Marcellino has backed a number of education-related bills over the years as well as measures designed to reform the Common Core standards and teacher evaluation system.

Marcellino on Friday was the announced appointment of Majority Leader John Flanagan to chair the education panel, which will take up a number of high-profile school-related issues in the remaining post-budget legislative session.

In a Facebook post earlier this year, Marcellino expressed opposition to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education measures included in the budget.

“Let’s be clear. I do not support the Governor’s education reform proposals,” he wrote. “His plan is bad policy and bad for education. If it was up to me alone, these concepts would be off the table completely, but it takes the Senate, the Assembly and the Governor to craft a final budget. We must negotiate. Our Senate one house budget did not accept his plan and clearly states our intention to modify his flawed design.”

Marcellino also introduced a bill to delay the teacher evaluation deadline for districts until June 2017 and has backed legislation to release the questions and answers to the state Common Core tests.

State of Politics concludes:

Marcellino’s introduction of these bills could give those in the education reform movement some pause: Flanagan, as education committee chairman, was seen as generally supportive of Common Core-based standards.

I dunno - I'll reserve judgment until we see how Marcellino proceeds from here.

But it would be interesting if the new Senate ed chair was a little less reformy than the old one.