Sheldon Silver,
an assemblyman who rose from the Lower East Side of Manhattan to become
one of New York State’s most powerful politicians, was found guilty on
Monday of federal corruption charges, ending a trial that was the
capstone of the government’s efforts to expose the seamy culture of influence-peddling in Albany.
After
a five-week trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the end came
rather quickly and unceremoniously for Mr. Silver, 71, a Democrat who
served more than two decades as Assembly speaker before he was forced to
resign from the post after his arrest in January.
Mr.
Silver, who must automatically forfeit the legislative seat to which he
was first elected nearly 40 years ago, was convicted on all seven
counts of honest services fraud, extortion and money laundering filed
against him.
When
word came that the jury had reached a verdict, Mr. Silver fidgeted in
his chair, clenched his jaw, shook his head, sighed and cast furtive
glances toward Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the
Southern District of New York, who had taken a seat at the rear of the
courtroom just before the verdict was read.
After
the fourth guilty pronouncement by the jury forewoman, Mr. Silver’s
shoulders sagged visibly inside his baggy navy blue suit.
Mr. Bharara released a succinct statement after the verdict: “Today,
Sheldon Silver got justice, and at long last, so did the people of New
York.”
No, the people of New York haven't gotten justice yet.
Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is still on trial for corruption, though with the wiretaps and boatloads of evidence against him and his son, I would think convictions in the Skelos trial are a done deal.
That leaves only the third man in the room, Sheriff Andy Cuomo, not yet under indictment and/or convicted.
US Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into Cuomo on a couple of counts:
First for the Moreland shutdown in return for the budget deal with the former Assembly Speaker, now-convicted felon, Sheldon Silver, and the under-indictment and soon-to-be convicted former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
The head of the Moreland Commission was feeding Cuomo's office everything that was going on - including the dirt they were digging up on Silver and Skelos - but Cuomo made the deal to shut down the commission anyway in return for a budget deal.
Had Bharara not picked up the investigation, Silver would have continued on in power, as would have Skelos.
Now with Silver convicted on all seven counts, that makes the budget shutdown and the subsequent tampering Cuomo did with the commissioners all the more suspect.
And then there's the investigation into Cuomo's donors in the Buffalo Billion Project who seem to have had the bidding process rigged for them.
That investigation is ongoing, and while we don't know of any public evidence of wrongdoing by anybody in the Cuomo administration, we also don't know what the feds have behind the scenes.
Remember, nobody knew what they had on Silver or Skelos either until the indictments.
None of this means an indictment of Cuomo administration officials or Cuomo himself is imminent.
But the conviction of Shelly Silver on all seven counts ought to give Cuomo pause considering all the smoke around the Moreland Commission shutdown and the Buffalo Billion Project.
Several prominent Democrats said they were “shocked’’ — a word that
was repeatedly used — at Cuomo’s criticism of de Blasio for appearing in
public with Astorino. The governor cited Astorino’s opposition to
abortion, among other things. But that didn’t stop Cuomo from standing
with Pope Francis in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in September, despite the
pontiff obviously being anti-abortion.
“That was one of the most amazing statements I’ve ever heard,’’ said a
prominent Democrat who has known Cuomo for years, noting that the
governor in the past has claimed he was committed to cooperating with
his political opponents.
“It’s like the old ugly Andrew is back, the way Andrew used to be and
had promised after 2002 that he wouldn’t be anymore,’’ the source
continued, referring to Cuomo’s repeated pledges of new-found humility
after his defeat in the race for governor that year.
Another key Democrat — known to virtually all party activists — said
prominent Democrats had become increasingly unhappy with Cuomo’s
“belittling’’ of de Blasio.
“Cuomo’s MO of pretending to be high-minded while belittling de Blasio has become a tedious trick,’’ said the source.
“Since [Cuomo’s] sagging polls are in part due to people
understanding he’s a nasty piece of work — Astorino’s use of ‘scorpion’
is dead-on — perhaps he should try governing and see if that works.
“De Blasio is tricky in his own way but looks like an alter boy
compared to Andrew,’’ the source, who has known Cuomo for years,
continued.
Astorino, in the wake of Cuomo’s attack on de Blasio, compared the
governor to a “scorpion,’’ saying, “Unless he is angry, unless he is
biting somebody, he can’t function.’’
“This guy needs some serious help,” he told Albany’s Talk 1300 AM radio.
Dicker also reports that Cuomo's hand-picked challenge to de Blasio in a primary - Congressman Hakeem Jeffries - is starting to have "second thoughts" about running against de Blasio because his Cuomo connection would be an albatross to him in a Democratic primary.
Dicker has a source say that Jeffries is "starting to resist" Cuomo, trying to distance himself from the governor and appear to be his own man instead of a Cuomo shill.
Quite frankly, that's probably Jeffries or a Jeffries shill trying to change the perception that Jeffries has been completely co-opted by Cuomo.
Nonetheless, it's telling that this stuff ended up in the paper (along with the return of the "Old Ugly Andy" meme from 2002)
It means that some Dems, finally, are pushing back against Cuomo's bullying.
Whether this continues or not when Cuomo pushes back, however, remains to be seen.
In April 2014, former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi was ousted by AFT President Randi Weingarten and UFT President Michael Mulgrew in a coup that saw the entire leadership of NYSUT, other than Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, whacked from office.
The recent surprise retirement of the state teacher union’s top
lobbyist came amid pressure from Michael Mulgrew, head of the city
teachers union, sources said.
Mulgrew, whose members make up a major segment of the state union, is
said to have grown disenchanted with Steve Allinger during the
legislative session.
Mulgrew didn’t deny he played a role in Allinger’s departure.
“We have to get work done, move fast, and everyone has to be on the same page,” he said.
Union insiders say the Allinger situation is part of a larger schism
that has left state teachers union President Karen Magee isolated from
the rest of her union leadership halfway through her first term.
Sources said Mulgrew is also unhappy with Magee, though he denied it.
The two unions, Mulgrew said, “are moving together in a much more
coordinated effort than we were before. All (Magee’s) positions have
been good. She’s taking the right path on things.”
If Magee's isolated from the rest of her union leadership (i.e., Andy Pallotta, Mikey's Man at NYSUT), it can't be because Mulgrew thinks she's not standing up enough against Cuomo and his ed deform juggernaut.
Hell, nobody rolled over to Cuomo more than Mulgrew and the UFT in the last legislative session.
In any event, it sure didn't long for another UFT-engineered whacking at NYSUT, did it?
So says Fred LeBrun, writing about that NY Times piece that reported Andrew Cuomo is said to be thinking about "decoupling" test scores from his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system:
We're being told Gov. Andrew Cuomo is prepared to contradict himself and reverse course on tying public school teacher evaluations to student test scores.
The
suggestion has been planted that behind the scenes the governor is now
pushing for a significant decoupling of test scores to teacher
evaluations.
It seems even a total delinking is under discussion,
a 180 degree shift from his imposed law passed this spring hardwiring a
teacher's survival to student scores on state mandated Common Core
driven tests.
...
If what we're being told is true, this reversal by the governor would
be a long overdue triumph of common sense over ideological idiocy.
If.
We'll
believe it when we see the law changed. A recurring observation about
our sitting governor is that he can't be trusted. He'll say anything,
but what he means and really hopes to achieve is often hard to decipher
and more often than not, a study in misdirection.
LeBrun points out that the best way for the governor to change education policy is to go back to the Legislature and have the law changed - but Cuomo won't do that:
In the Times story, Malatras tellingly dismisses the strategy of
asking the Legislature to change the language of the law when it comes
to setting the percentage and makeup of test scores counting for teacher
evaluations.
''There's just no need to go back to the Legislature,'' Malatras told the Times, because the State Education Department
(SED) ''has the ability to dial up and dial down all sorts of things in
the regulations.'' This is the opposite of what we're hearing from the
Board of Regents and State Ed, which have said repeatedly the language
of the Cuomo statute gives them very little wiggle room for maneuvering.
So what's Cuomo doing?
Perhaps another one of those head fakes that is made to fool you into thinking he's making substantive changes when he's really not making substantive changes:
Now the buzzword being sent up the flagpole by the governor, through
Malatras, is ''moratorium.'' Putting a moratorium on the use of test
scores in evaluations. But a moratorium is merely a sophisticated pause,
and not substantive change.
Fred LeBrun, an astute observer of Albany politics in general and Andrew Cuomo in particular, is skeptical too.
Here's the reality: Cuomo wants to make it look like he's pushing for substantive policy changes to education in order to assuage the 220,000+ who opted their children out of the state tests last school year.
He also wants to continue to make his hedge fund manager/education reformer donors, the ones who paid him for the education reform agenda he's pushing, happy.
So, a head fake from the governor is in order - talk a good game about substantive changes to education policy, but make sure the education laws that are now on the books, including APPR, are not changed, but rather "tweaked" via NYSED dictate.
No matter - if Cuomo thinks parents and teachers will be fooled by a "moratorium" on using test scores in APPR or tweaks to Common Core (like renaming the standards but keeping the "core"), he's got another thing coming.
As LeBrun writes:
The governor in the past has recognized this when he's called for a ''complete reboot.'' The old boots need to be thrown out.
Now
we wait to see what the governor's task force has to say, which is the
governor in thin disguise, and what the newly invigorated Board of
Regents and the state Assembly come up with. Which better materialize
into new law that rewrites Common Core and teacher evaluations.
Because you can be sure Opt Out will not be fooled.
Three months into the school year, Detroit Public Schools is facing a
teacher shortage and also seeing what union officials say seems
like an unprecedented number of midyear retirements and resignations.
In
early November, there were at least 170 teaching vacancies. DPS
spokesman Michelle Zdrodowski said Wednesday that the number has been
reduced to 135 by reorganizing some teaching assignments based on
enrollment numbers from the fall student count day.
The
shortage has pushed other academic staff, such as instructional
specialists and school service assistants, into teaching roles. About
115 substitutes have been assigned to fill empty spots.
The problem isn't new. In late September 2014, there were more than 100 vacancies.
The problem is expected to get worse because of some vaunted new education reforminess coming down the pike:
Teachers are facing an expected spike in health care costs and
heightened uncertainty about the future of the district itself. Gov.
Rick Snyder has proposed sweeping education reforms for Detroit
that could potentially take effect in 2016.
Those factors — plus
stagnant pay — have pushed some teachers who were on the fence about
retiring to finally take the plunge, said Patrick Falcusan, financial
analyst and retirement counselor for the Detroit Federation of Teachers
union.
"Virtually every day, somebody calls me and wants to quit
or retire," he said. "A number of teachers aren't coming back after
Christmas.
"What is driving this is the concern (about
education reforms) and whether the new school district is going to be
part of the retirement system. Some people just want to get out while
there's still a DPS, while there's still an HR department, while there's
still a payroll department to process stuff."
Starting salary as a DPS teacher is $36,683.
Teachers haven't gotten a salary step increase since 2011-2012.
And soon they'll be paying more for their health care and perhaps losing their pension benefits.
I can't imagine why teachers would be leaving, retiring, resigning, etc.
The U.S. labor movement today faces perhaps the gravest threat to its
existence since the creation of our modern system of labor law and
collective bargaining in 1935.
In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, now before the U.S.
Supreme Court, the plaintiffs challenge the “fair share” requirement
that public-sector workers in unionized jobs who choose not to join
their union must still pay their fair share of the cost of union
representation and services.
They argue that agency fees should be abolished because money is
speech, and requiring nonmembers to pay fees to unions therefore
violates their First Amendment rights. That is patently false.
Agency-fee payers can choose not to have their fees spent on unions’
political activities.
Let us be clear: Friedrichs isn’t about the First Amendment; it is
about undermining this country’s labor unions because we are the last
great defenders of working people and the middle class. The far-right
forces behind the lawsuit despise unions because it is our collective
voice and collective action that prevent them from further enriching
themselves at ordinary Americans’ expense. They don’t just want to
abolish agency fees; they want to abolish our unions and undo the
decades of progress we have made.
Let us be clear: Mulgrew's upset not because Friedrichs threatens to undermine the "last great defenders of working people and the middle class" in this country but because it threatens to undermine the gravy train that the current leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT ride on.
With the Friedrichs decision looming, you'd think the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership would become more responsive to rank and file, especially since they might have to beg members to stay with the union and continue to pay dues post-Friedrichs.
But instead, they continue to do whatever the hell they want, from endorsing Hillary Clinton long before the presidential primary season started to telling New York State legislators who voted for Cuomo's poison pill budget that imposed a receivership law for "failing" schools and upped test scores to 50% of a teacher's evaluation that it was all right for doing so.
Quite frankly, I see the words someone wrote that Mike Mulgrew signed his name to about Friedrichs and I roll my eyes because I know that they know that they don't give a shit about any of the stuff Mulgrew says he does.
Al they care about is maintaining power, maintaining control, and maintaining the gravy train.
It's a shame they're not taking the Friedrichs threat seriously and thinking about ways to become more responsive and responsible union leaders.
Alas, it seems that the leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT is incapable of that.
Mr. Cuomo has asked the mayor for a public apology for his comments,
but the mayor has declined, according to people familiar with the
matter.
State Sen. Ruben Diaz, a Bronx Democrat, said the mayor
has to mend fences. “He needs to be humble for a little while and
swallow his pride and work with the governor, and work with the
Republicans, for the betterment of New York,” Mr. Diaz said.
Now the truth is, even before de Blasio went public in late June/early July with his frustrations over the governor, Cuomo was doing everything he could to slam de Blasio.
There was the public criticism of de Blasio, coming from Cuomo himself that was couched as coming from a "Cuomo administration insider."
There was the working with Eva Moskowitz to undercut de Blasio on education policy, even setting up a simultaneous rival charter school "rally" as de Blasio was holding his own rally in Albany on pre-K.
There was Cuomo working with state Senate Republicans to undercut de Blasio's agenda in Albany on a myriad number of issues.
Quite frankly, the only that has changed post-de Blasio criticism of Cuomo is that Cuomo got more aggressive in public with the feud and has worked double time to gather allies around him in the fight against de Blasio or take former allies of de Blasio's and turn them into allies of his own (like City Council Speaker Mark-Viverito or Public Advocate James.)
So Cuomo may say a public apology will end this feud but the reality is, it won't because the feud existed before de Blasio's public criticism (at least on Cuomo's end) no matter how de Blasio tried to accommodate Cuomo.
I've had it with the media coverage of this - it's enough,
Cuomo's a sociopath, he shouldn't be in charge of anything, let alone New York State, and the news media need to stop carrying barrel-fulls of his water on this "feud."
The issue should be framed like this: Andrew Cuomo was damaged as a child, we're not sure how, but it has adversely affected him as an adult and as a result he has this obsession to be the most powerful man in the room, a drive to undercut the "lesser beings" in the room with him, and act like an asshole at all times.
Cuomo's a child-man and it's time to stop indulging him and his "feud."
Less than a year ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York proclaimed that the key to transforming the state’s education system was tougher evaluations for teachers, and he pushed through changes that increased the weight of student test scores in teachers’ ratings.
Now, facing a parents’ revolt against testing,
the state is poised to change course and reduce the role of test scores
in evaluations. And according to two people involved in making state
education policy, Mr. Cuomo has been quietly pushing for a reduction,
even to zero. That would represent an about-face from January, when the
governor called for test scores to determine 50 percent of a teacher’s
evaluation.
There's some conjecture on just what this "reduction" will be:
The
idea that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is pushing for the changes comes from
several different avenues. According to one of the education policy
makers, Mr. Malatras said in a conversation that the administration
wanted to decouple test scores and evaluations. The other person
reported having spoken with people who had similar conversations with
the administration.
Two
members of the Board of Regents, the body that sets state education
policy, said they had heard that Mr. Cuomo was pushing for a moratorium
on the use of test scores in evaluations. The two board members,
Kathleen M. Cashin and Betty A. Rosa, both said they would heartily
support such a change.
There's a big difference between "decoupling" tests scores from evaluations and having a "moratorium" on test scores being used in evaluations, so as always with this stuff, the devil is in the details.
Cuomo, through shill Malatras, is claiming nothing has been determined yet, that they're waiting for findings from the vaunted Common Core Review task force that Cuomo announced in September - but that's jive of course.
Cuomo has controlled every commission, panel and task force he's put together, from the two Moreland Commissions (one after Sandy on utilities, one on corruption that has him under federal investigation for witness tampering and possible obstruction) to the other two education commissions he put together (just ask Todd Hathaway who disagreed with the findings of the task force he sat on but had his name signed to the pre-determined report nonetheless!)
So what Cuomo wants, Cuomo's Common Core Review task force will find.
And it looks as if the governor, reeling from the bad press and bad polling on education, has perhaps decided the suitcases full of cash he gets from ed deformers aren't enough to keep him pushing ed deform policies in toto:
In
New York, Mr. Cuomo’s push to give test scores more weight in
evaluations helped propel a widespread test refusal movement this year,
centered on Long Island. More than 200,000 of the nearly 1.2 million students
expected to take the annual reading and math tests did not sit for them
in 2015. At some schools, as many as 75 percent of students opted out.
Long
Islanders tend to be swing voters, and education is a top concern of
theirs, given the high percentage of school-age children and the role
that local schools’ reputations have on real estate values, said
Lawrence Levy, the executive dean of the National Center for Suburban
Studies at Hofstra University.
“Considering
how his numbers fell off in suburban communities in the last election, I
thought that the governor had to pay close attention to the desires and
the demands of these suburban swing constituencies,” Mr. Levy said.
One final point to make on this - there's a likelihood that all they're going to do is call for a "moratorium" on test score use in APPR or a "moratorium" on the "penalties" teachers would suffer for low scores:
“A
moratorium is under consideration,” said State Senator Carl L.
Marcellino, a Long Island Republican, chairman of the Education
Committee and a member of the task force.
The
Board of Regents would quite likely approve a moratorium or any other
step to reduce the role of test scores in evaluations. Until recently, a
majority of the board supported tying test scores to evaluations, but
the Legislature elected several new members this year who are critical
of that policy.
This "moratorium" could come based upon the 50% test score criteria Cuomo imposed in the budget or it could be lowered to something like 20% (which is apparently what NYSED MaryEllen Elia thinks it ought to be.)
In any case, the "big changes" to education policy Cuomo promised look to be coming.
Whether they're substantive changes or more jive made to look like substantive changes remains to be seen.
Having watched Cuomo closely now for a few years, I remain skeptical.
But the low approval numbers in the polling, the especially low education numbers in those polls, the high opt out rates (with the numbers set to go even higher this year if the status quo continues) and the even higher "hardship waivers" districts got on Cuomo's vaunted new APPR teacher evaluation system with the 50% test score component seem to have weakened some of Cuomo's resolve to continue to scapegoat teachers for all the ills in the education system.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino—the 2014 Republican
candidate for governor—today suggested Gov. Andrew Cuomo suffers from
“insecurities,” and offered to help connect Mr. Cuomo with therapy.
Mr. Astorino was responding to comments Mr. Cuomo made
earlier today, in which the Democratic governor argued that Mayor Bill
de Blasio should not appear beside the socially conservative GOP
politician at a press conference calling for greater federal
infrastructure investment this evening. Mr. Astorino blasted the
governor, a resident of Westchester’s Mount Kisco, and said he would be
willing to connect him with local mental health resources to deal with
his inner demons.
“You know, it seems to me that the statement that the governor made
was completely out of line, number one, and just from my observation, it
seems like the governor has some insecurities,” Mr. Astorino told the
Observer at the presser in Penn Station. “Since he’s a constituent of
mine, I’d be more than happy to set him up with our Department of
Community Mental Health if he actually needs some help on this issue.”
“I am going to work with the mayor whenever we can see eye-to-eye and
can advance an issue that’s important,” Mr. Astorino continued.
Cuomo, btw, works with many Republicans, including former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, now on trial for corruption, and former deputy state Senate Majority Leader Tom Libous, soon to be under house arrest after being convicted of lying to the FBI.
And for years Cuomo has touted his bipartisan bona fides - in fact, he just touted them in a speech at Harvard the other day decrying how Washington can't get along anymore because it's too partisan.
So the phrase that comes to mind after reading about Cuomo's criticism of de Blasio for standing with Astorino on the infrastructure issue is, "full of shit."
As for Astorino's claim that Cuomo suffers from insecurities and needs mental health help, that's a keen and accurate assessment of our sociopathic governor from his former opponent.
After just two hours of deliberation, jurors in the corruption trial of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are already showing signs of stress and confusion.
In one note, a juror said she had a "different" view from others, felt pressured and wanted to be excused.
In a second, a juror asked if there was any Assembly code of conduct prohibiting Silver's actions.
Lawyers and Manhattan U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni are discussing how to respond, just hours after jurors in the closely-watched trial began deliberations at 10:55 on Tuesday morning.
I dunno, I'm not a lawyer but it seems to me that signs of "stress and confusion" in a jury are not good for the prosecution.
High Achievement New York, a group that has been supportive of Common Core, is launching a six-figure radio campaign aimed at boosting support for the education standards.
The campaign, set to run through December, is being launched as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s task force convened to study and potentially recommend changes to the standards is concluding its round of public hearings.
In the ad, two Buffalo teachers discuss their support for the standards, saying they “are working” for students.
“But opponents want to pull the rug out on teachers,” says teacher Lucy Mendola in the spot.
Teacher Heather McCarthy adds: “Help us strengthen New York Standards, not dismantle them.”
The ads will be targeted for audiences in New York City, the Capital Region, Buffalo and Rochester.
This isn't the first time pro-Common Core ad buys have run.
Perhaps Hedge Fund, er, High Achievement New York wants to juice the numbers even more by directing people to that survey.
Then they'll point to the survey to say New Yorkers don't want any changes to the Common Core.
Perhaps this is all part of Cuomo's plan to make it look like changes are coming to the state's education policy when no real change is coming.
Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some coordination between the group and the Cuomo administration, since the backers of High Achievement come from the same place as his donor class, and Cuomo has been known to coordinate with ed deformers before (see here, for example.)
A top-level state Senate staffer scurried out of the corruption trial of former Majority Leader Dean Skelos on Monday after being accused of coaching a witness on the stand.
Welquis “Ray” Lopez, 61, was summoned to the bench during a
break in the proceedings and threatened with ejection by Manhattan
federal Judge Kimba Wood.
“You’ve been nodding your head up and down and back and forth in what
looks like a signal to the witness,” Wood said during testimony by a
former Long Island politician who admitted serving as the bagman for an
alleged payoff of Skelos’ son and co-defendant, Adam.
“If you nod your head one more time, I’m going to have court security escort you out of the courtroom.”
Sources described the former Rockville Center Republican chairman as
“very close” to Skelos (R-LI), who gave him a $140,000-a-year “special
adviser” job in 2011.
Despite Skelos’ resignation following his May arrest, Lopez remains
on the state payroll as a $162,750-a-year adviser to interim Majority
Leader John Flanagan (R-LI).
The last five state senate majority leaders have been indicted and several are already in jail - looks like John Flanagan, with these kind of shenanigans, wants to be the next.
Gov. Cuomo vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have
provided fare relief to commuters who have to take two buses and a train
to reach their destination.
MetroCards now allow one free transfer between a subway and a bus or between two buses during a two-hour period.
As part of their commute, most of these riders have to take two buses
before reaching the subway and are paying two fares, said the bill’s
sponsors, Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz (D-Bronx) and Sen. Martin Golden
(R-Brooklyn).
The MTA claims the second transfer would cost a bundle, Cuomo claims riders can buy an unlimited card and it's all good.
But not everybody can afford an unlimited card and as for the MTA's claims that the second transfer will cost them too much money, well there is this:
But Dinowitz says Cuomo and the MTA are leaving riders in the lurch —
especially those who cannot afford the monthly outlay for an
unlimited-ride card.
“The MTA is not known for putting out accurate numbers,” he said.
“It’s just not fair for people who, through no fault of their own, have
to take three rides and are in a two-fare zone.”
Glenwood Management, the real estate developer at the center of two
former legislative leaders' federal corruption trials, gave half a
million dollars in 2011 to an advocacy group that focused solely on
supporting Gov. Andrew Cuomo's agenda.
Evidence federal
prosecutors released Sunday in the trial of Sen. Dean Skelos itemizes
the contributions that various Glenwood holdings made over the past
decade.
...
On Oct. 24, 2011, a total of 10 different Glenwood holdings each made
out a $50,000 check to the group, according to the federal evidence.
The next day, one of them wrote a separate $50,000 check destined for
Cuomo’s campaign committee.
On the same day that the holdings of Glenwood — whose principal owner Leonard Litwin was identified by Forbes in 2007 as the world’s 891st richest individual — made the donations, Occupy Wall Street protesters focused on assailing Cuomo for being too close to the “1 percent.”
Glenwood and Litwin gave Cuomo’s committee
$1 million during the last election cycle, more than any other donor.
They also gave his 2014 running mate, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, $19,700 and
the New York State Democratic Committee $450,000.
The $500,000
given to the Committee to Save New York thus brings the total from the
developer that went to support the governor during his first term to
$1.97 million — about 32 times the campaign contribution limit imposed
on donations from most individuals.
Funny how that worked - give money to Cuomo PAC that Cuomo says isn't his PAC but functions as an ancillary to his campaign, then get favorable policy (i.e., legalized casino gambling) in return.
Sheriff Andy said he rode into Albany to clean the corruption cesspool up but the more you learn about the doings up in the state capital, the more you realize Sheriff Andy's up to his neck in the cesspool too.
Dunno how far the feds are digging into Cuomo and his donors either as part of the Silver and Skelos corruption trials (and Mahoney points out Glenwood is at the center of both) or as part of the Buffalo Billion investigation.
But it seems to me if the feds get a conviction on Silver in a case where no specific quid pro quo has been shown (though that is no done deal, as can be seen here), there's some smoke around Cuomo and his donors too.
Yesterday somebody told me that NYSUT leadership is upset about this post from Sullio that succinctly and devastatingly explains how the NYSUT leadership runs things at the union.
The gist of the post is that leadership doesn't care what rights and protections teachers have lost, doesn't care how the rank and file feel about these lost rights and protections, and doesn't care to do anything to rectify these lost rights and protections because membership dues are required by law so why should they care?
Apparently NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, who was never once mentioned in Sullio's post, is upset because he says the post compares him to a gangster - this despite the fact that the mob is never mentioned in the post either.
The only reference to the mob is a brief clip from the film Goodfellas that explains how, when you're paying protection money to the mob, it doesn't matter what happens during the week that might make those payments inconvenient - you've got to come up with the protection money no matter what.
You know, kinda like how teachers have to pony up their union dues every month no matter how many rights and protections disappear because the NYSUT leadership is either complicit with the education reform movement that seeks to destroy the teaching profession or is totally incompetent to stop them (take your pick on which but I lean toward Choice #1.)
Pallotta wants the state attorney general to look into the blog post and filed a discrimination complaint
because, you know, what better things can NYSUT spend time, money and
energy on then attacking a blogger who accurately depicts how NYSUT
runs its operations.
With the Friedrichs case to be heard this year by the Supreme Court and the likelihood coming that the U.S. will be made into a "right-to-work" nation where union dues cannot be compelled from government workers after that case is decided, you'd think NYSUT leadership would be busy re-thinking their "Top-down/Fuck the rank and file cuz' I got mine" way of running things, but given Andy Pallotta's concern over a blog post, that's apparently not the case.
I dunno, perhaps Pallotta has the sads because NYSUT leadership is about to lose a few cars off their union gravy train post-Friedrichs, perhaps he's not a fan of Goodfellas and prefers Casino instead (though I dunno why, since Casino seems so derivative of Goodfellas.)
Either way, Pallotta ought to grow up and worry less about blog posts and more about what's going to happen to NYSUT once the Supreme Court says members no longer are compelled to pay dues.
If I were him, I might be thinking, "Hey, maybe we have to start serving our members and actually protecting their interests," but given the nonsense we've seen from NYSUT so far this year, it doesn't appear that's where the leadership's heading.
Instead they appear to be going down the road of "We'll try and exert even tighter control and destroy any opposition and/or criticism" even as their political House of Cards comes tumbling down around them.
I'm no professional political strategist like Andy Pallotta, but something tells me that strategy will be about as effective as NYSUT's strategy against Andy Cuomo's toxic education reform agenda.
I dunno, I'm not a defense lawyer and I'm thankfully not on trial on corruption charges, but once the wiretaps were deemed admissible as evidence in the Skelos' trial, I think I might have looked for a plea deal.
You can make a pretty good argument that Shelly Silver going to trial rather than looking for a plea deal made sense because the alleged quid pro quo schemes in his case are complex, require detailed explanations and even then, there's no slam dunk "That's definitely a crime!" moment as you hear the evidence.
I think the preponderance of the evidence in the Silver case, taken as a whole, leaves a fair observer with the impression that Silver was trying to hide where his outside income was coming from and what he was (or wasn't) doing to obtain it and those attempts at secrecy got more desperate as disclosure laws were changed over time and he risked exposure.
Whether a jury finds any of that rises to the level of a crime, well, that's hard to say, but here are the instructions the jurors will get from the judge on that point, per Joshua Saul at the NY Post:
Essentially the Silver trial comes down to whether the jury buys the Silver defense argument that "friends will do favors for friends."
The Skelos case, on the other hand, has more moments of "Holy Cow, I can't believe that just happened!" than you often get in high profile trials of politicos.
It's all there - the threats and intimidation (some overt, some implied)
of some pretty big players in New York by Dean and Adam, the payoffs
Adam received for essentially doing nothing other than having the state
senate majority leader as his dad, and Adam and Dean themselves conspiring
on the phone.
We're only a few days into the Skelos trial, but the more you hear from Dean and Adam via wiretap and the more testimony you get from the prosecution witnesses, the more difficult it is to see how a jury comes in with anything other than guilty verdicts.
Earlier this week we learned that Adam Skelos' lawyer asked about a plea deal from the feds though nothing ever came from it after the feds returned communication.
I have to think Adam didn't like what he heard from the fed side about what a plea deal would entail but given how bad the evidence is here for him, I wonder if that wasn't a mistake for him.
Six in 10 school psychologists said the Common Core learning standards, which includes state exams for students in third through eighth grades each April, has increased students’ anxiety.
The
anxiety hasn’t, for the most part, led to physical ailments, the school
psychologists said, but the new Common Core testing has translated into
students feeling more stressed.
“This report should make all
education stakeholders — from state policymakers to local teachers to
parents — aware of the profound impact that they can have, both positive
and negative, on student test anxiety,” Timothy Kremer, executive
director of the School Boards Association, said in a statement.
...
The report contended that the test anxiety is more common at the
elementary-school level, saying students more often showed
“internalized” symptoms such as excessive worry and withdrawal rather
than demonstrating “externalized” symptoms, such as increased
irritability, frustration and acting out.
One of the goals of the education reform movement is to create a compliant class of dutiful order-takers - nothing like having kids internalize symptoms of worry and withdrawal to do just that.
I would argue that at older ages, the children are beginning to act out.
I have been told by counselors that they're seeing increased cases of alcohol use, drug use, eating disorders and self-harm like cutting themselves.
That's anecdotal of course, but I've seen some of this in my work too.
Exacerbating all of this is how teachers are forced to make every class "rigorous" and "text-based," with children given very few opportunities to express their own thoughts or feelings through art, writing or speaking.
Finding candidates to fill this role, especially good candidates,
may be more difficult than policymakers are willing to admit. Despite
their clear interest in public service, the students I meet betray
little enthusiasm for teaching as it now exists. And I see even less
indication that major trends in public education—standardization, the
proliferation of testing, the elimination of tenure and seniority, and
expansion of school choice—have made teaching any more attractive as a
career option. Prospective teachers, much like the young educators
already working in schools, are especially skeptical of accountability
measures that tie a teacher’s job security or pay grade to student test
scores. And many are bothered by the way teachers are blamed for much
broader social problems.
As a result, today’s college students,
including those currently marching on campus, are significantly less
likely than their parents to see teaching as a viable way to become
agents of social change. Of all age groups, voters 18-29 are the most
pessimistic about the teaching profession. Only 24 percent are “very
likely” to encourage a friend or family member to become a K-12 teacher
today.
...
In a
comparison across 14 professions, teaching ranked last among respondents
who felt that their “opinions seem to count,” or included workplaces
with “an environment that is trusting and open.” Three out of four
teachers complain that high stakes testing takes too much classroom time
away from actual teaching. Nearly 9 in 10 teachers feel that linking
teacher evaluations to students’ test scores is “unfair.”
...
“All teachers do now is read from scripts and administer tests all day,”
a Senior psychology major at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro told me last spring.
Why would anyone in their right mind go into teaching these days when you are evaluated via test scores (often the scores of students you don't even teach!), you can be "drive-by evaluated" at any moment by an administrator who will come into your classroom for fifteen minutes and rate you using a rubric that you cannot possibly fulfill in that fifteen minute snippet of teaching, your seniority and tenure protections are stripped from you, your pay is increasingly tied to "student performance" as measured by standardized tests and you have no autonomy to teach what you want to teach or how you want to teach but must read from pre-approved EngageNY scripts that suck the soul and life out of education?
Seriously, why would anyone want to go into that king of "profession"?
I'm not sure if education reformers, whose goal has always been to destroy public education and privatize schools, wanted to create teacher shortages and disdain for teaching among young people or not.
I know they wanted to drive down perceptions of teachers within the culture (thus the decades long "Teachers Are Criminals!" public relations extravaganza in the media) and I know they wanted to diminish teacher autonomy, work protections and compensation so as to exert more control over schools while simultaneously lowering labor costs.
But if they thought that young people wouldn't notice how shitty a job teaching is these days and decide they'd rather do anything but that for work, they were mistaken there.
Teacher shortages are already a problem in many states (google the phrase "teacher shortage" and you'll see) and they are only going to get worse in the near term as the economy continues to improve (and it is - the Fed is finally going to raise interest rates next month for the first time in nearly a decade) and the job market gets better.
It will be interesting to see how the education reform movement responds to widespread teacher shortages.
Reformers may think technology will replace the human teacher, but I have a hard time seeing that working well over the long haul state-wide.
And the way things are going now, they're going to have an awfully hard time finding enough younger people to become teachers to replace the retiring older ones (or fleeing ones!)
After years of failed attempts to negotiate a new contract with the
Buffalo Teachers Federation, the School Board is now taking its latest
offer directly to teachers.
The move underscores a lack of faith
that negotiations are headed toward any kind of resolution, and suggests
the district could be close to pulling the plug on talks with an
outside mediator. That would put the district in uncharted waters, and
some have already suggested the issue will likely wind up in court.
In
a letter emailed to teachers Thursday, the board attempts to make the
case for contractual changes it is seeking. The most significant
include:
• Increasing the school day from six hours and 50 minutes to seven hours and 30 minutes.
• Increasing the number of work days from 186 to 189 each year.
• Requiring teachers to pay 12 percent of their health insurance premium, as opposed to paying nothing now.
• Allowing principals to transfer and assign teachers based on educational needs, not seniority.
• A 10 percent salary increase for teachers, plus an additional 1 percent each of the next three years.
“Without
the changes the District has proposed, a system of failure will simply
be perpetuated, and the consequences of continuous failure could be
devastating,” the board’s letter states.
The decision to take its
offer directly to teachers is the latest turn in a lengthy and
contentious negotiation process to revamp a contract that expired more
than a decade ago. Attorney Terry O’Neil, who is negotiating for the
district, said board members do not believe union leaders are accurately
relaying their offers to teachers and wanted to present the information
themselves.
“We went to the teachers and said ‘Here are the options, just so you know,’ ” he said.
These are the "options"?
Longer school day, longer school year, loss of seniority rights and paying 12% of health care?
Dunno about all the teachers teachers in Buffalo, but my response to a "Fuck You!" proposal like this would be "Fuck you too!"
The 1% "increase (10% + 1% for each additional year over the next three) is more than eaten away by the health care costs and the extra time/work.
This is what the district went around the union to offer to teachers?
Uh, thanks, but no thanks.
Seems many teachers in Buffalo feel the same:
Buffalo Teachers Federation President Philip Rumore said his office
had been fielding calls all day from teachers angry about the board’s
letter.
“The letter outraged the teachers,” Rumore said. “It was like rubbing salt into an open wound.”
Buffalo teachers are working under the longest expired contract in history.
The district, backed by the powers that be, are offering a "Fuck you!" contract in order to continue the logjam in negotiations, giving them the excuse to take the mess to court and try and circumvent the Triborough Agreement:
Some have already suggested the case could end up in court and test
the Taylor Law, the state statute that sets rules for municipalities
when bargaining with civil service and teacher unions. Many argue that
the law and its accompanying Triborough Amendment – which allows for
expired contract terms to remain in effect until a new deal is reached –
have long given these unions a clear edge in negotiations.
“This
is a perfect illustration of how the combination of the Taylor Law and
the Triborough Amendment can create problems,” O’Neil said. “We’ll have
to assess where we’re headed and whether we’re headed for litigation.”
So this battle in Buffalo is something to watch statewide, not only for how the contract negotiations play out but also to see if there is a weakening of the Triborough Agreement that maintains expired contracts in effect until a new contract deal is agreed upon.
I wouldn't be too surprised if that isn't the ultimate goal of the powers that be here - to weaken Triborough while maintaining the punitive Taylor Law that punishes municipal unions for striking.
From the Politico NY morning email update on education:
SURPRISE GUEST IN THE DEAN SKELOS TAPES: CAMPBELL BROWN:
From phone call between Adam and Dean Skelos Dec. 14. 2014:
“AS: What are you up to?
DS: Um going into the city. Meeting with some billionaires.
AS: Who are you meeting with?
DS: On school tax credit stuff. Campbell Brown.
AS: Oh. Ok.
DS. A reporter, former reporter.
AS: Dad, you gotta take these names down….All I need is contacts. I’ll take care of the rest.”
(Dean laughs)
Some billionaires and Campbell Brown meet with crooked Dean Skelos over "school tax credit stuff".
Love it.
Maybe they could have gotten exactly what they wanted on the "school tax credit stuff"" if they had provided Adam Skelos with a no-show job at Families for Excellent Schools.
The
recordings were admitted into evidence during the testimony of Senator
Avella, who gave the jury a primer on the Senate. A prosecutor in the
case, Jason A. Masimore, then questioned him about legislation that the
government has alleged was part of three schemes under which Senator
Skelos used his position to obtain more than $300,000 in payments for
his son.
Mr.
Masimore, using emails and other documents along with the tapes, walked
Mr. Avella through some of the evidence that prosecutors say shows how
the schemes worked. He asked the senator if he would have voted the way
he did on certain bills if he had known that Senator Skelos supported
them, and that his son had in some ways secretly benefited from them.
In
one instance, he showed Mr. Avella a draft agreement under which Adam
Skelos would have received $1 per barrel of fracking waste water treated
by a company, AbTech Industries, that paid him as a consultant. Mr.
Avella said each fracking well produced tens of thousands of gallons of
contaminated water a day.
The
prosecutor then asked if Mr. Avella, a leading opponent of fracking,
had known that Senator Skelos had asked his staff to set up a meeting on
the subject between AbTech and state officials. He said he had not, and
when asked if that would have mattered to him as a state senator he
said, “Without question.”
“Given
the fact that this is one of the most significant environmental
considerations that the State of New York has probably had to decide in a
hundred years, that influences being made on behalf of a family member
is inappropriate and, in my opinion, absolutely disgraceful,” he said.
The son used an anatomical term to refer to Mr. Cuomo, and asked, “How do we beat him, Dad?”
“We will,” the senator replied. “I’m going to run against him.”
“I
wish you would, Dad,” the son said, his mood seeming to lift, adding
with coarse language that he “would be so proud” if the senator soundly
defeated Mr. Cuomo.
“You
watch what I’m going to do in the next couple of years with him,
especially starting this year,” the senator said. “No more, you know,
buddy-buddy and all that stuff,” he continued, and then referred to the
governor with an expletive.
Today Glenwood bagman Charlie Dorego is expected to continue his testimony and explain how Glenwood doled out millions in campaign cash to politicians through LLC's:
Mr. Dorego, as part of his testimony, gave jurors a brief primer on
limited liability companies, or LLCs, explaining that each of Glenwood’s
20-plus buildings was owned by such an entity, and that each of those
was in turn owned by the Litwin Family Trust. Prosecutors are expected
to show during the trial that Glenwood used the LLCs to shower millions
of dollars in campaign contributions on political candidates, including
Senator Skelos.
Dorego, btw, just got finished testifying in the Shelly Silver corruption trial - how's that for synchronicity? - and Governor Cuomo's biggest donor was Glenwood, so the other two "men in a room" in Albany are coming up in this trial too.
Speaking of Silver, the prosecution rested their case yesterday and Silver's defense is not expected to call any witnesses, just introduce documents to the jury that will try and bolster their argument that Silver's financial dealings were not quid pro quo crimes but simply business as usual in Albany.
Something tells me that much hinges upon on the Silver case.
Given the evidence in the Skelos case, it's difficult to see the prosecution not getting convictions in the trial.
But the Silver case is much more complex and Silver could walk.
If that happens, the feds may be a little more circumspect in how they work through the Buffalo Billion Project investigation and the remaining Moreland cases (including looking into Cuomo's shutdown of the commission in return for a budget deal.)
But if they get Silver, well, if I were Sheriff Andy, I'd be worried about them going for the trifecta.
A Perdido Street School blog commenter on this post about Andrew Cuomo taking credit for Sheldon Silver's indictment despite Cuomo's having shut down the Moreland Commission before the panel could finish the Silver investigation:
Hopefully, Silver will take credit for Cuomo's Indictment.
He disbanded his own anti-corruption commission before its
work was done, but Gov. Cuomo claimed Tuesday a law he approved spurred
corruption charges against one of New York’s state legislative leaders.
While addressing students at Harvard University on Tuesday,
Cuomo was asked why five legislative leaders in a row were indicted on
corruption charges — including former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who are currently on trial in
federal courts.
“We have passed all kinds of laws, more transparency and disclosure laws than ever before,” Cuomo said.
“One of the state leaders was indicted because of one of the laws that I passed that required more disclosure,” he added.
Had the US attorney not picked up the Moreland files and pursued the cases the commission was looking into, Sheldon Silver would not have been indicted.
In fact, there is an argument to be made that, since the head of the Moreland Commission was feeding Cuomo's office everything that the commission was doing, and since the commission was looking into both then Assembly Speaker Silver and then state Senate Majority Leader Skelos, Cuomo knew Silver and Skelos were both targets and made a deal to shut the commission with them anyway in exchange for a lukewarm package of ethics reform and a budget deal.
Takes a lot of chutzpah for Cuomo to claim he's the reason Silver was indicted when Silver wouldn't have been indicted had not Preet Bharara intervened.
As the battle over potential changes to the controversial Common Core standards begins to take shape in New York, an official in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is reacting cooly to a package of preliminary recommendations being made by Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.
The commissioner, who outlined the recommendations on Monday ahead of the department’s task force to revise and study the standards, suggested
-Extending the current freeze on the reporting of test results for grades three through eight on permanent records through the 2018-19 school year
-The creation of an advisory council for computer-based tests.
-Spending $10 million to create Native Language Arts examinations that would allow those learning English to take the tests in Spanish
-An additional $2.9 million for alternative assessments for students deemed to have severe disabilities.
-The creation of a “teacher portal” that would enable educators across the state to receive additional resources in the rollout of Common Core in history and science.
-A proposed five-year spending plan for teacher and principal professional development.
The Cuomo administration official, however, was not impressed.
“SED’s recommendations only offer more of the status quo and are just thinly veiled requests for financial resources by a state agency,” the official said.
Cuomo is throwing Elia and NYSED under the bus on Common Core (and he will throw her and SED under the bus every chance he gets in order to distance himself from the mess he in part created through his education reform agenda - just as he did with John King and SED)
No surprise here - Cuomo's M.O. has been to try and avoid responsibility for the mess he helped create with his APPR teacher evaluation system and his pro-testing, pro-CCSS agenda.
That said, the Cuomo official is right that the SED "package of recommendations" is nothing other than minor tweaks to a broken machine.
A "teacher portal" and five years of extra PD?
An "advisory council" for computer-based tests?
That's the best Gates Foundation genius Elia could do?
Not much to these recommendations, is there?
If this is the best Elia can do, she's going to be out on her Gates Foundation-favored ass sooner rather than later.
Cuomo's already turning on her and using her as a scapegoat for unpopular policies and Elia shows no willingness to actually call for changes to those policies or comprehend how deeply unpopular they are.
Parents will provide NYSED all the feedback they need on the April "survey".
And:
When Elia proclaims that
everyone loves the CC and it's still full speed ahead with the bullshit,
she'll add another 200,000 to the opt outs in April.
And:
Amazing, anyone who has kids
knows that number is a complete fabrication. It insults parents,
teachers, the public and students. They must have used Common Core math
to arrive at that figure.
I think the insulting treatment from Cuomo, Elia and company over education policy will end up backfiring on them too.
Cuomo rigged his CCSS public hearings for minimal attendance by having them in small spaces at times that are so close to school hours that many people can't get to them in time to sign up and speak (see here and here.)
Elia rigged the NYSED Common Core survey to make it as arduous, complex and jargon-laden as possible so that only the most committed would finish it (see here.)
Now she's claiming 71.5% support for CCSS when polling from Siena shows widespread opposition to the standards (see here and here.)
The powers that be continue to play games with parents and teachers, on the one hand saying that they're "listening" to the dissatisfaction over Common Core and Endless Testing (see Cuomo's approval numbers on education here and here) while doing all they can to ensure the status quo with the other.
But as the commenters noted, their gambits won't work - when the education policies of Endless Testing and Common Core do not change, parents and teachers will not be fooled by rigged surveys, rigged Common Core hearings, or "sample" pro-Common Core social media messages.
A state-backed survey soliciting detailed critiques of the Common
Core has drawn responses that are largely supportive of the standards,
according to the state Education Department.
The state Board of Regents heard an update Monday on the department’s “AimHighNY” survey, which was launched in October as the state began a review of its first five years with the oft-debated, more-stringent education standards.
So far, about 71.5 percent of the feedback elicited through the
survey has been “supportive of the standards,” according to the
department’s presentation. The remaining 28.5 percent was not
supportive.
The survey is geared toward teachers, administrators and others who
deal with the standards every day. Indeed, the majority of the 5,500
survey takers — 62.2 percent — have been teachers. Parents have made up
21.6 percent of the survey pool, with administrators coming in at 6.9
percent.
The way they rigged this is to make the survey an arduous process:
Survey takers can’t just leave general critiques of the standards;
Instead, they have to be about specific aspects of the Common Core, down
to the grade level, subject matter and detail.
“I started and stopped after 5 minutes. A person would need to be
totally familiar with every standard and the curriculum used in a school
to be able to complete this survey. This is another slap in the face to
the parents, because they will not be able to answer the questions.”
-Lorri G.
“This survey is set up horribly and only asks questions about each
SPECIFIC standard, and takes over half hour to complete. The important
thing to point out to the media is that the standards are copywritten
and cannot be changed. Just another false move on NYSED’s part to make
it seem like they are listening. Smoke and mirrors.” -anonymous New York
parent.
“It’s horrible!!! It is so drawn out and confusing. Just like Common
Core. It would take hours to literally answer each question for each
grade level for each course and section of each module. They set this up
to fail just like common core. They figure no one will take the time to
fill it out so it will look like every thing is fine and dandy.” –
Monique Armann
“Yet this is open to all, but “all” are having a difficult time
navigating the specific and individual standards within the survey.
Heck, teachers have a difficult time with them and we have to deal with
them on a daily basis in the classroom. Elia, is more or less laying
down the gauntlet. “Here’s your chance, teachers. You said the Common
Core State Standards are narrow, inappropriate, misguided, ineffective,
imposed, relentless, demoralizing, overly complex, nontransparent,
inadequate, and unreliable (I may have left out one or two). You may
address the standards, individually, in your free time, but beware, if
you stray from addressing the standard in any way, we’ll reject it out
of hand. Also, did we mention your cookies must be in order on your
device? I know we said you can come back to your information, but…well,
no. Oh, and you can’t change your mind once you’ve submitted anything.
No, why would we let you do that? Really, teachers, we don’t expect you
to do this. We’ve made it very difficult for everyone. But, in the end,
we will be able to shrug our shoulders and say, we gave NY a chance to
respond. Argue that.” -Kristin S.
“I wish I had good news, but I’m skeptical about the survey. The
survey seems to have been developed, in my opinion, to be cumbersome and
burdensome… I don’t believe you can go back and I believe that if you
do not complete the survey in one sitting then you are out of luck, and
have to start over from scratch.
Frankly, I have serious concerns about the survey because beyond the
substance of the questions and its format, the survey appears to require
parents to comment on each specific standard. Given the fact that many
parents are not educators, I’m not sure that this is a fair question to
ask of the “public” at large. How many parents are incredibly familiar
with common core standards and the impact they are having on our
students? I’m sure parents are probably not as familiar or
knowledgeable about each and every standard and corresponding sequence
that follows, so the set up of the survey seems to expressly disqualify
the average parent from participating at the outset.
More troubling, it explains that information or comments that do not
directly relate to a standard will be disregarded. So, for example,
generalizations about how the cc curriculum is developmentally
inappropriate and is adversely affecting students and children, which
the average parent absolutely and positively has legitimate experience
with, is likely to be summarily dismissed.
Also of importance, the fact that the survey privacy disclaimer
explains that if you choose to complete the survey and submit a response
to be considered by the committee, then you are consenting to allowing
nysed to data mine your Info and collect information beyond normal
procedure- for example nysed specifically explains that they will be
tracking your IP AND web use both before and after you take the survey,
and collecting information about the sites that you have visited before,
after, and during the survey. I have some ideas about why they’re doing
this.
Regardless, this is definitely more incentive to urge families to refuse
the test, and gives me great concern SED is being less than genuine in
putting the survey forward to the public.”
Get the word out there that the 71.5% support NYSED is claiming for Common Core based upon the survey is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
Cuomo's having his Common Core "review" hearings held during school hours (or right after school) in an attempt to limit criticism and NYSED has created a Common Core survey that is long and complicated in order to rig the results.
But polls in New York show how deeply unpopular Common Core is (see here and here) - those NYSED couldn't rig.
In the Bridgegate scandal, much has been made of what New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie knew and when he knew it. But the other governor who
also runs the Port Authority, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has long
downplayed his knowledge of the scandal.
Documents filed Tuesday night by Bridgegate defendant Bill Baroni suggest that was a deliberate strategy.
Cuomo wasn't asked about the politically-motivated lane closures on
the George Washington Bridge until three months after they occurred. "I
don't know anything more basically than what was in the newspapers. This
basically is a New Jersey issue," Cuomo told upstate radio station
WCNY.
But now a new set of emails suggests that Cuomo's top appointees at
the Port Authority were, two months before those remarks, actively
discussing how to respond to the burgeoning scandal with top Cuomo aide
Howard Glaser.
One of the suggestions? That Pat Foye, the Port Authority executive
director, produce two different memos — one for the governor's office
and a fake one that might some day be made public.
"How about the following — he types a detailed memo that he produces
on his home computer, gives a hard copy to the 2nd floor and then type
up a general memo for his files."
“Second floor” is Albany-speak for the floor of the state capitol where Cuomo and his top staff have their offices.
The email, penned by David Garten, the chief of staff to Port
Authority Vice Chair Scott Rechler, goes on to say: "that way we have a
thorough documented account, it's in the 2nd floor's hands...and then a
general memo at the PA in case we get subpoenaed."
...
The newly-released emails suggests a level of communication with the
governor's office about the scandal that Cuomo has never acknowledged.
Glaser is described as speaking with both Foye and Rechler, though it's
unclear what Glaser relayed to Cuomo.
Cuomo's press office did not respond to inquiries about what he
learned from Glaser. Glaser also rebuffed email and phone inquiries.
Two sets of memos, one real and one phonied up in case there's a subpoena.
Want to bet that's not the first time the geniuses in the Cuomo administration have come up with that strategy for something politically and/or criminally dicey?