Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Cuomo's Flip-Flop On The Common Core Task Force And Teacher Evaluations

We've already seen one flip-flop from Governor Cuomo this week on the Moreland Commission (which he once claimed would have investigative and prosecutorial powers but yesterday claimed was nothing more than an exercise in public education - as if the public needed to be better educated about how corrupt Albany politicians are!)

Now we learn, courtesy of Politico NY, about another flip-flop from Cuomo - this one of teacher evaluations:

After learning that Gov. Andrew Cuomo may be looking to minimize the impact of test scores on teacher evaluations, the Common Core task force will likely weigh in on the controversy, recommending either the decoupling of the two or a moratorium on the use of the scores, according to a source familiar with the panel. The task force had not been asked to consider the evaluation process, and until now, it has not focused on it. When Cuomo put together the panel in September, he charged its 15 members with reviewing the Common Core learning standards, calling for a "total reboot" of the state's education system. The recommendations are due to the governor this month prior to his State of the State address in January. 
Members of the task force told POLITICO they were confused by comments made in a New York Times story last week on Cuomo's possible retreat from the politically fraught linkage of test scores and teacher evaluations, because the administration's statement made it seem as though they were looking at the evaluation system when, in fact, they have not been. "We're not focusing on that now ... we're focusing on what the task force was brought together for," said task force member Sam Radford III, president of the District Parent Coordinating Council of Buffalo. http://politi.co/1O2pfrb

When Cuomo first called for conveing the task force, he made it clear that evaluation revisions were not part of the task force's work.

Now all of a sudden, it seems they are - at least if you're reading the whoosing air coming from the various trial balloons Cuomo keeps sending out about what's going to happen with teacher evaluations.

I remain skeptical about all of this.

As always with Cuomo, it's safe to say "Keep your hand on your wallet and watch him closely."

8 comments:

  1. Cuomo will not succeed in breaking the public school monopoly by decoupling teacher evaluations from test scores. Closing schools and teacher harassment are two major reform tools and both are linked to test results. How will charter schools proliferate if Cuomo maintains the positions of unionized, pension liabilities also known as teachers?

    Abigail Shure

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  2. yeah cuomo might not break the union but the law case of friedrich vs california might do it...at this point i believe cuomo is banking on the case and what it might do to our union.

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    1. Leaders at NYSUT & UFT are already destroying the union all by themselves. Even my local officers are collecting salaries and sitting on their fat rear-ends.

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  3. Charter schools enroll something like 5% of all public school students (or is it all school age students?) The politicians side with the charters because of the billionaire's contributions. If NYSUT/UFT was worth a damn, they would bury the movement. Unfortunately, our unions stink.

    I have no doubt that last April's APPR law will be dramatically changed. It has no support among teachers, administrators or school board members. The legislators/Cuomo knows this is a lose-lose situation for them.

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  4. Mulgrew and Weingarten destroyed the UFT.
    Their greed, their narcissism, and their self absorbed manipulations destroyed the UFT.
    Don't use Friedrichs vs. California as a convenient excuse. The inconvenient truth is that Weingarten and Mulgrew destroyed the UFT.

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    1. I get it now, Weingarten and Mulgrew destroyed the UFT.

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  5. Cuomo is flip-flopping like a dead rat hanging from an electrified fence.

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  6. We keep huffing and puffing about the Governer. But, he's just a figurehead. The only ones who can change the law are the Assembly members. Time to hold them accountable for voting for this in the first place. Our union gave them the green light, but, they should have known the UFT doesn't really speak for us. We need a grass-roots effort to unseat them (our union won't do it).

    Let's circulate a list of every assembly person who voted for the APPR bill, and include the date of their next election. Let's go after them by circulating this list in social media. If they want to hang on to their seat, they better introduce and pass a bill to *completely* unwind this shit.

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