Help Andrew Cuomo Out With Some Easter Egg Hunt Ideas

From the Associated Press:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A traditional open house event at New York's Executive Mansion that is typically held on New Year's Day is being postponed until March.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says Wednesday that the event will be postponed until Easter Sunday because Jan. 1 will mark the first anniversary of his father's death. His father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, died last year at 82.

The governor said in a statement that he wanted to continue the open house tradition but also wanted to commemorate his father's loss with his family.
 
He said the event will instead be held on March 27.

Visitors will be welcome to tour of the mansion in downtown Albany, as well as participate in an Easter egg hunt.

I have some ideas for Sheriff Andy's Easter Egg Hunt:

@CuomoWatch He should switch it to Sandra Lee's house, make it April 15 and open it to the tax assessor.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) December 31, 2015

And:

@CuomoWatch Or, if sticking w/ Easter Egg hunt, have the kids search for donations from Glenwood Management LLC's.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) December 31, 2015

You can add your own ideas to the comments section if you like.

Let's help Sheriff Andy out for his Easter Egg Hunt Open House - unless it's his Easter Egg Hunt Open Prison Cell, that is. 

Preet Bharara To Address State Legislature On Ethics - In Kentucky

In the Daily News:

The state legislature wants to hear ethics reform ideas from the corruption-busting U.S. Attorney who got convictions against former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, it's the Kentucky State Legislature who asked to hear from Preet Bharara — not the Empire State's.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney — who has wrangled convictions against a dozen current and former state officeholders since 2009 — will address Kentucky legislators Jan. 6, the same day New York’s legislature resumes its session.

Bharara seemed to have some fun with the invite on Twitter, writing that he was “(h)onored by invitation to address entire state legislature about public corruption next week," without mentioning where.

Still awaiting word on whether the US attorney personally addresses the proverbial "Third Man in the Room" in Albany if/when he charges him with corruption.

Newsday Editorial Says State MUST Get Kids To Take Their State Tests This School Year Or Else!

The shrillness of the deformers continues:

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week of actions it may take, including financial penalties, if the percentage of students taking the tests falls below 95 percent. Of course, in New York in Spring 2015 that percentage fell to about 80 percent, and to about 50 percent on Long Island. The timing serves notice to those who have supported opt-out to oppose excessive testing and test prep and the fear they claim comes from tying student scores to teacher evaluations: students must take tests so that schools, districts and states can be assessed. Washington will not budge on this.

In New York, education reformers also have taken a huge step back, decoupling tests from teacher evaluations for four years and promising new achievement standards and better exams. Now the state must convince unions, parents and teachers that they have been accommodated as much as possible, and must get students to take the tests this spring. And they must get participation percentages up in districts that get little federal funding, because the whole state could lose funding if New York participation doesn’t reach 95 percent.

If poorer districts with generally low opt-out numbers lose federal money because richer districts with high opt-out percentages pull down the state numbers, Albany can and should make up that shortfall. It should take state aid away from high opt-out districts and award it to high-needs districts where nearly all the kids take the exams.

The threat that money will be taken away by the feds is as much jive this year as it was last year.

Does anyone really think that the Obama administration is going to take away school aid because of opt out in an election year?

Please...

The desperation of the deformers is clear as they use FEAR to try and stem the opt out movement.

The curtain has been pulled back on the Endless Testing regime and exposed for the empty compliance measure it is.

Deformers are desperately trying to get people back to believing that there's some meaning to the state testing regime.

If FEAR over their own kids won't work, then they'll use FEAR over the funding.

But given the political realities of the Obama administration thankfully sunsetting next year with an election held in November, their threats are empty ones.

That won't stop the fear-meisters at Newsday from trying to sow discord, of course.

But we can call this Newsday editorial what it is - fear-mongering - and the Newsday editors who published what they are - fear-meisters.

Kathy Hochul To Attend Fundraiser From Anti-Union Group Linked To Safety Violations, Workplace Fatalities

Remember when AFT President Randi Weingarten made robocalls for bank lobbyist Kathy Hochul when Hochul was running for lieutenant governor and was having some problems dispensing with her opponent, Tim Wu, in the polling?

Here's how Hochul pays Union Prez Weingarten back - by attending a fundraiser for her boss, Andrew Cuomo, given by an anti-union group with links to construction firms with histories of safety violations and worker fatalities:

The attorney for a campaign against union construction labor is co-hosting a fundraiser for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

On Monday afternoon, the founding partners of Gotham Government Relations invited powerbrokers to a Jan. 7 fundraiser for Cuomo at the home of Brad and Cheryl Gerstman in Roslyn, on Long Island.

The hosts are listed as the Gerstmans and David and Heather Schwartz. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul is scheduled to make an appearance, according to the invitation. It’s not clear whether Cuomo himself will attend.

...

State records indicate their firm lobbies for 400 Times Square Associates LLC, which is reportedly using non-union labor to develop a hotel at 577 Ninth Ave., where a construction worker recently died.

As of last month, Gerstman was also an attorney for the Rinaldi Group, a building contractor whose license was pulled for running unsafe job sites. The city launched an investigation into Rinaldi after a worker perished at a Rinaldi construction site in Midtown.

Gerstman is also frontman for BuildingNYC, a group launched this month that advocates against union construction labor.

There's so much wrong here.

First, that Cuomo doesn't have the guts to attend himself shows you what a coward he is - if he wants the anti-union money with the blood on it, the least he can do is show up at the fundraiser to take it with his own hands.

Second, as many of us expected with Hochul's past as a bank lobbyist, she is happily anti-union and demonstrates this with her attendance at this anti-union group's fundraiser.

Third, Cuomo's been making a lot of hay recently with liberals, pushing for some prison reforms, pushing for a minimum wage hike and the like, but liberals ought not to be fooled by any of this.

Nothing's changed with the anti-union/anti-worker Cuomo, clearly, or he wouldn't be taking the blood money from the anti-union group linked to construction firms with histories of safety violations and worker fatalities.

As for Hochul, let's just note that if there suddenly is a vacancy n the governor's mansion and she gets elevated to governor, she's squarely shown her anti-union/anti-worker bona fides.

Regents Exam Scores Still Part Of APPR Teacher Evaluations

Remember that jive about there being a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR that upset the deform shills at the Wall Street Journal yesterday?

As many of us have suspected, there's a lot less than meets the eye to the "moratorium":

The moratorium removes state-provided growth scores based on the state standardized, Common Core-aligned third- through eighth-grade math and English language arts exams from the calculations for teacher and principal evaluations.

...

The Regents exams and fourth- and eighth-grade science tests would still be factored in.

But wait - I thought there was a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR?

Turns out it's a special Cuomo "moratorium" in which some state test scores are still used - you know, like Regents scores for high school teachers.

The devil, as always, is in the details, so we'll see for sure in January when Cuomo gives his state of the state/budget address - assuming he's not under indictment, that is.

Lemmy

Sad to hear that the seemingly indestructible Lemmy Kilmister was not indestructible after all - he followed Philthy Animal Taylor, who died in November, into the great beyond today.

I loved Motorhead when I was in high school and still have a soft spot in my heart for the band up through Another Perfect Day in 1983.

That 1983 Motorhead album with Brian Robertson replacing Fast Eddie Clarke isn't a very popular one in the catalog, but I've always loved it - some of my favorite Motorhead songs are on that album, including Die You Bastard, Back On The Funny Farm, Dancing On Your Grave and Shine.

Motorhead isn't often on my playlist these days but listening again to Another Perfect Day and the live album No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, I'm reminded how powerful the band was.

You won't see the likes of Lemmy Kilmister again on this planet - seriously, the man was one of a kind.

RIP Lemmy - No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith
 

Teacher Accountability Systems Need Accountability Too

Some drivel in the Wall Street Journal this morning that Cuomo is caving on "accountability"  for teachers - they're very sad about the proposed "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR.

Somehow the lawsuit Sheri Lederman brought against NYSED for APPR never makes it to their accountability argument.

You may remember Sheri Lederman, the teacher who received a 14 out of 20 on her state test score VAM one year, which fell to 1 out of 20 the next despite her students getting very similar scores to the year before.

The next year, btw, Lederman's test score VAM rose to 11 - so for those scoring at home, it went from 14 to 1 to 11 in three years.

How is it that "teacher accountability" exactly?

There are these jive assumptions in the deform narrative that test score VAM's and the Danielson rubric are "objective" measures of teacher performance.

They're not.

NYSED's test score VAM is so unreliable that when Lederman sued, they twice tried to get the lawsuit dismissed rather than expose how they devised the score.

As for Danielson, the so-called "objective" rubric used for teacher evaluations, ask teachers about the scores they're getting in their Danielson evaluations and many will tell you there is nothing "objective" about the process.

Administrators can use the Danielson to focus on whatever they want to focus on and claim a teacher is deficient in something while ignoring other areas that might raise the overall Danielson score.

To claim there is anything "objective" in a classroom evaluation is to make believe that the so-called judgment of the evaluator comes down from the Mount, along with Moses and the Ten Commandments.

If an administrator wants to give a good evaluation rating to a teacher via the Danielson, he/she will, and if he/she wants to nail somebody with it, they can do that too.

The truth is, the Danielson was devised to give districts the tool to "document" when they want to get rid of teachers, but that doesn't mean the documentation itself is based in reality.

If we're going to talk about teacher accountability, we ought to talk about accountability for the teacher accountability system as well - the assumptions that it is based upon must stand up to scrutiny.

Clearly NYSED wasn't too confident they're test score VAM would stand up to that scrutiny, since they tried as hard as they could to avoid explaining it (or the bell curve they use for APPR) in court.

As for Danielson, I'm now starting to think that every observation should be taped so that teachers have the video to use if they need to counter claims made by administrators in their Danielson evaluations.

There is an awful lot of talk about so-called teacher accountability from politicians, from the media, from ed deformers - but the system that measures so-called teacher accountability almost always skirts its own accountability and lives in this fantasy world where it stands as some objective measure of performance.

Today's drivel in the WSJ is just one more example of that.

Seasonal Sentiments In The Age Of Cuomo

On the road for a bit today, but thought I'd leave you with a couple of seasonal sentiments before I go - the first from Bill Nojay:

"Is the governor on the target list?” asked Assemblymember Bill Nojay about Preet Bharara and @NYGovCuomo. https://t.co/cfM39BfEHv

— Louis Flores ✍ (@maslowsneeds) December 26, 2015

 Which leads to this nice sentiment:

Coming to a precinct near you soon @fud31 @RichAzzopardi @NYGovCuomo @JonCampbellGAN @powellnyt @ZackFinkNews pic.twitter.com/vKUJevcqdM

— Randy Credico (@Credico2016) December 26, 2015

Keep your eye on the investigation into Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Project and donors - with subpoenas having gone out to Cuomo donors and state entities involved in what appears to be a rigged bidding process, that strikes me as the area where has he the most vulnerability.

This was the Buffalo News story into that back in September:

Federal prosecutor Preet Bharara’s investigation into the Buffalo Billion is part of a larger probe into other development projects, including the Buffalo Schools Construction Project, sources close to the investigation said Friday.

The first hint of an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney came in the form of subpoenas demanding information on several large-scale state initiatives, many of them with close ties to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany.

Sources said the subpoenas went out across the state and seek documents and records regarding the bidding process on those projects, as well as any communication between state officials and private contractors.

...

Bharara’s office declined to comment on the new investigation, but stopped well short of refuting the New York Post’s initial account of the investigation.

“I’m not saying the story is baseless. I’m saying we can’t comment,” James M. Margolin, a Bharara spokesman, said Friday.

The Post, in its story, said Bharara’s office is looking at multimillion-dollar state contracts that led to the construction of high-tech, drug-development and clean-energy businesses.

“It’s a comprehensive look at the bidding process,” a source told the Post. “They’re looking at communications between contractors and state officials.”

We haven't had any leaks about the Buffalo Billion Project investigation in a while.

We'll see if the silence continues into the new year or if the leaks come again, signaling a new phase for the investigation.

Again, this may not end in an indictment and perp walk for Cuomo.

But given how defensive the Cuomo administration is about the investigation (see here and here), you know they're worried about something.

Cuomo Not Off The Hook In Corruption Probe

Joseph Spector has a piece on US Attorney Preet Bharara in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, including what might be coming next from him:

Bharara’s convictions of Silver and Skelos — two of the three most powerful figures in New York — has led to speculation about his own political future and whether he is targeting the state’s other most powerful leader in New York: Cuomo, the Democratic governor.

Bharara’s office is still believed to be investigating Cuomo and his staff’s role in the demise of — and the potential tampering with — a corruption-busting panel that Cuomo empaneled in 2012 but shuttered a year later.

Bharara earlier this month didn’t let Cuomo off the hook when asked directly whether Cuomo is next on his list. He has criticized Cuomo’s decision to disband the Moreland Commission, but Cuomo has defended the move.

“I’m not going to talk about any investigations that we have open. We have lots of investigations open,” Bharara said on WNYC radio. “I think that people like to talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

...

“Everybody in Albany that I talk to, Democrat and Republican, all the speculation is where does he go next? Is the governor on the target list?” said Assemblyman Bill Nojay, R-Pittsford.

And:

Bharara’s convictions have led to a new round of calls for ethics reform at the Capitol, and Bharara himself has joined the chorus of those clamoring for change.

In the WNYC interview Dec. 14, Bharara talked about the entrenchment of long-serving leaders, such as Silver who was the speaker for more than 20 years. He also mentioned the problem of lawmakers having outside income and the difficulty of trying to recoup their pensions after they are convicted; the pensions are protected by the state Constitution.

“He’s going to turn out to be a major historical figure in New York,” Blair Horner, the longtime legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “He may end up single-handedly changing Albany’s political climate.”

Whether Silver and Skelos, who are planning to appeal, are the capstone to Bharara’s corruption crusade or a precursor to more cases remains to be seen.

Bharara’s “stay tuned” line — which he also used in his first Twitter message Dec. 10 — seems to be part joke, part warning.

As he said on the radio: “The first line of defense against bad conduct is the institution itself. And it seems they are doing a pretty poor job of self policing.”

No new ground broken in the piece that I can see, but it does serve to remind us that the Moreland shutdown and Buffalo Billion probes are still ongoing.

With subpoenas going out to both state entities and Cuomo donors involved in the Buffalo Billion Project bidding process, I think the Buffalo Billion and Cuomo donor probe is the bigger problem for the Cuomo administration over the Moreland closure.

Something to watch for as they start the new legislative session in Albany.

Jeb Bush Loves Pitbull

There are lots of reasons to dislike Jeb Bush - here's another one in this NY Times piece about Bush's alleged "sense of humor":

Jeb Bush had grown fond of Pitbull, the Miami performer gone global, who seemed to share his zeal for education policy. But Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, had a question: Why the stage name? 

The artist replied that a friend had suggested it years ago while they were en route to a pit-bull fight.

“Well,” Mr. Bush replied at their meeting early this year, “good thing you weren’t on the way to a cockfight.”

Hey, great - Bush is pal's with misogynistic rapper/charter school entrepreneur Pitbull and can make penis jokes.

What a dick.

There - I can make penis jokes too.

One of the delights of this presidential season so far is to see that the more money Bush and his surrogates spend on pushing Bush as a candidate, the more people dislike him and his poll numbers plummet.

If he sticks around much longer, he's going to be in Jindal territory.

Cuomo Plans A Merry Christmas For Himself: No Closing Of The LLC Loophole

Michael Gormley in Newsday:

ALBANY — In the wake of the corruption convictions of two of the State Legislature’s top former leaders, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Monday he will push a new package of ethics in the coming legislative session.

But Cuomo said he believes that a top reform priority of good-government groups — closing the so-called LLC loophole — would be ineffective, even if passed by the legislature, because of a federal court ruling.

An element of state campaign finance law allows companies to exceed their $5,000 corporate limit by creating limited liability corporations. Through the LLCs, often with names that mask the parent company’s identity, corporations can contribute in total more than $100,000 to candidates and their political parties.

One of the companies that uses this loophole the most — the Manhattan real estate firm Glenwood Management — contributed to former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). Silver and Skelos were convicted this month on corruption charges. The company and its founder were mentioned in each trial, although they were not accused of wrongdoing.

Glenwood is also one of Cuomo’s biggest donors, providing his campaign with more than $1 million. Cuomo said that he’s never been influenced by donors and that he’s unsure if any legislators were influenced.

How much has Cuomo taken through the LLC loophole?

The NY Times reported that Cuomo received about $1.4 million in donations through LLC's from January 2015 to June 2015 - which, extrapolating out, is a nice chunk of change every year.

Pro Publica reported in July 2014 that Cuomo had raised 6.2 million dollars from LLC's for the first three and a half years of his administration - this, despite claiming more than once that he planned to close the loophole through a push for reform.

One of his flying attack monkeys explained the contradiction between taking millions through the loophole yet claiming to be against it this way:

In a statement, Cuomo spokesman Matthew Wing offered this to explain the apparent contradiction: "The Cuomo campaign is following existing campaign finance laws, while the Governor is leading the charge to reform them, including closing the loophole for LLCs."

This is the same game Cuomo's playing now, claiming to be against the loophole and moving to close it while undercutting those claims with his every action.

Pro Publica reported that the Moreland Commission had been investigating LLC donations until Cuomo closed down the commission in return for a lukewarm ethics reform package and budget deal agreement with then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos - now both convicted on corruption charges.

Closing the LLC loophole was of course not part of that lukewarm ethics reform deal Cuomo got in return for closing down the Moreland Commission.

As noted in Gormley's Newsday piece, crooked real estate outfit Glenwood Management was the governor's biggest donor, giving money directly to Cuomo as well as steering it to Cuomo-linked entities like the State Democratic Party and his friends at the shadowy PAC the Committee To Save New York - but Glenwood wasn't the only real estate company to utilize the LLC loophole:

Another real estate developer, the Extell Development Co., has also given extensively to Cuomo through LLCs, including two donations last year that were flagged by the Moreland Commission.

Two LLCs affiliated with Extell gave the governor a total of $100,000 on Jan. 28, 2013—two days before Cuomo signed legislation that granted a tax break to Extell's One57 skyscraper in Manhattan, as well as properties owned by four other developers. Two other LLCs with ties to Extell gave Cuomo another $100,000 six months later. (The contributions were first reported last year by The Daily News.)

Other companies besides the real estate interests have utilized the LLC loophole with the govenror as well:

Since the governor took office, Time Warner Cable has contributed more than $60,000 to him through its LLC; LLCs affiliated with Cablevision have given $110,000. Two liquor distributors, Empire Merchants LLC and Empire Merchants North LLC, have given over $120,000. And two LLCs affiliated with the Ultimate Fighting Championship have contributed $115,000 to Cuomo, plus tens of thousands of dollars more to state legislators and political committees.

Cuomo has not proposed any legislation to legalize professional mixed martial arts events in New York, the only state that bans them. But almost a year after he received a $50,000 check from one of the LLCs, Cuomo seemed to come out in favor of overturning the ban.

"I think we need economic activity, especially in upstate New York," he said in a radio interview in 2013. "I think this is a major endeavor that is televised, that is happening all over the country at this point. You're not going to stop it from happening. And I'm interested in the potential economic potential for the state."

No wonder Cuomo plays this sham with LLC loophole closure - he's sucking up an awful lot of money via the LLC loophole that he wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

It's not like Cuomo, an unpopular governor with a job approval rating below 40%, is raking in millions from little people looking to support a politician.

He's raking in the big bucks from powerful interests looking for influence in Albany and since they can only give so much directly, the rest has got to be steered to him through various LLC's that hide who is giving the money and where it's coming from.

No wonder his actions belie his statements on the LLC loophole - there's just too much money to be made here for the governor to want to truly close the LLC loophole.

Dunno if Preetmas is coming this year, next year or ever, but given how criminal and corrupt this governor is, how he plays this sham game of claiming to be a "reformer" on the one hand while taking all these corrupt and/or hypocritical actions on the other, we surely need it to clear away this last man in the room.

Cuomo's facing criminal charges on corruption might not clean up the cesspool that is Albany, but it surely will clean up the part right at the center, where Cuomo himself stands.

Cuomo's An Ass Even During Christmas

Governor Cuomo sent Mayor de Blasio a passive-aggressive Christmas greeting this year:

In an interview with the New York Times, de Blasio reflected on his rocky 2015, taking responsibility for his mistakes and saying, "I want to do better." "It's pretty obvious that some things worked as we hoped, and other things didn't," the mayor continued. "I'm sober about the fact that, you know, you try a lot of things in leadership and you don’t expect every single one of them to work. You just got to keep learning."

Asked if he regrets publicly feuding with Cuomo, de Blasio said, "I'm satisfied it was the right approach," adding, "There's certainly been some good work we've done together with the governor and with Albany in recent months." Cuomo spokesperson Dani Lever responded, "We wish the mayor a Merry Christmas. Here's to learning from mistakes and a better 2016."

Apparently there's not one day where Cuomo or the flying attack monkeys who do his evil bidding aren't looking to stick in the proverbial knife.

In any case, here's wishing everybody an early Preetmas in 2016.

What The Clinton Shills Don't Get: Few Trust Hillary Clinton

Had some fun on Twitter with a Clinton shill calling me a liar for this post here entitled "Hillary Clinton Vows To Close Every Public School In The Country."

His message was basically the same one that I've seen elsewhere on the Internet as the "Clinton Wants To Destroy Public Education" meme has rolled along and Clinton shills have begun to push back on it - Clinton doesn't want to close all the schools that are rated "below average," as she said wanted to in the Iowa clip, she simply misspoke.

But the thing that Clinton shills and apologists don't get here is this - given Clinton's elasticity with truth and honesty, given her past fondness for school closures, DFER, charter schools, and the Common Core, given the fondness her pals at the Center for American Progress (basically a Clinton administration in exile ready to roll into power as soon as she's elected) have for this same stuff, given her shillery for Walmart in the past and given the fact that she's a Clinton and no one believes a word these people say, it doesn't matter what she really meant.

See, couple the Clinton administration's ed deform policies in the past with the betrayal that many felt when Barack Obama doubled down on the Bush ed deform policies of NCLB with his Race to the Top program and you have an entire generation of teachers out there not going to cut these lying politicians any slack when they "misspeak" or say stuff that sounds kooky (as Clinton did.)

The larger issue here for me, and why I even blogged the thing in the first place (if you notice, it's almost all Cuomo/NY all the time here at Perdido Street School blog these days, so I'm not doing much 2016 presidential race stuff) is that it was the perfect crystallization of the mistrust many teachers have for Democratic politicians in general and Clinton in particular.

That people didn't give her the benefit of the doubt over this "misspeak," that even now she needs the shills to go around defending her, goes to show you just how little trust or affection she has among many rank and file educators these days.

How do you know when a Clinton's lying?

You don't have to try and figure it out because they're ALWAYS lying.

Hillary Clinton Vows To Close Every Public School In The Country

I know, seems like crazy talk - and yet, here it is, in plain English:



The Federalist, a conservative Internet outlet, puts the Clinton comment in perspective: 

According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, there were just over 98,000 public schools in the U.S. as of the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent year for which complete data are available. Under Hillary Clinton’s proposed education plan to shutter all average and below average schools, that would mean that nearly 50,000 schools would have to be shut down, assuming that the median and average national school performance were roughly equal. Nearly two-thirds of those schools targeted by Clinton’s proposal–over 30,000–would be elementary schools.

Well, that's how the plan would play out initially.

But then, after you've closed half the schools in the country, you'd have to re-calculate the whole thing, as Mercedes Schneider points out:

A numeric average is a relative statistic. If I have a set of numeric values and I calculate an average using the set, by definition, some individual values will fall below average, and likely, some will be right on the average. If I remove these below-average and average values, the original average does not remain fixed– and if I average the remaining originally-above-average values, some will newly be below average, and likely, some exactly average.

...


Of course, closing “below average” and “average” schools only leads to a recalculated average among remaining schools– some of which would be “below average” upon recalculation– and some of which would likely be exactly average.

In short, by the end of the evaluation process, if we keep closing schools that are "less than average" we will end up with just one school left.

But even then, that school wouldn't be above average, since it would be the only one left.

As Schneider notes, under the Clinton education plan for closing schools, that one would have to go too.

An entire school closure plan for the country -  that, it seems, is what Hillary Clinton intends.

That would be the Obama administration's Race to the Top policies on super steroids.

Now perhaps she misspoke, perhaps she's tired from all the time and energy spent on the campaign trail, perhaps she doesn't understand what the word "average" means in the way that she used it.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps she is the same pro-charter, pro-privatization shill who sat on the board of Walmart for all those years getting set to do to the country's public school system what George W. Bush and Barack Obama could only dream of doing.

I'll say this:

I don't trust her, I don't like her and I wouldn't vote for her for any reason.

After this latest Clinton mess, I am so glad my union, the American Federation of Teachers, already endorsed her during this summer, a full year+ before the election.

One final point:

Since her pal, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said multiple times he wants to "break" the public school "monopoly" and called for the "death penalty" for "failing" schools, perhaps Clinton can hire him as secretary of education to carry out her closure policies?

Given the destruction Clinton plans for the public school system, Cuomo sounds like he would be perfect for the job of Head School Closer.

Assuming Cuomo's not in prison, that is...or Hillary isn't, for that matter...

Cuomo Says He Won't Give Back Bribes, Er, Donations He Took From Crooked Glenwood Management

Cuomo digs in on the Glenwood money:

Gov. Cuomo said Monday voters will just have to trust him to do the right thing when asked why he won’t return more than $1 million from a real-estate firm involved in two of Albany’s biggest corruption scandals.

“Yes, I received significant funds, donations from that company. And I was their opponent as a matter of policy,” Cuomo said during a WNYC radio interview. “I was advocating for rent reforms.”

He shrugged off the $1.2 million that flowed into his campaign account from Glenwood Management and its employees as irrelevant to his decision-making.

“If I believed that I could be influenced by a million dollars or a thousand dollars or 50 dollars, then I’m in the wrong place and I should resign immediately,” he said.

“If you can be influenced by the money, then forget the denomination. You just have the wrong person in the office.”

Cuomo claims he doesn't know why Glenwood gave all that money to him or to others in Albany:

Cuomo claimed he had no idea why Glenwood would donate $14 million to elected officials and party committees over the past decade, if not to push its agenda.

“Why do people donate? A lot of reasons. They think he’s their best candidate, they don’t like the other candidate. They like the smile. Who knows?” he said.

“You have to do your job and exercise your judgment . . . absent who supports you, who doesn’t support you. If you can’t do that you can’t be in that position in the first place.”

He has no idea why Glenwood donated all that dough?

He should read the NY Times piece by William Rashbaum from Saturday:

The contributions seemed to pay dividends for Glenwood and the real estate industry as a whole in the form of a seat at the table — sometimes quite literally.

With a law that governed rent regulations set to expire in 2011, Mr. Dorego testified that he and other real estate executives were called to two meetings with state leaders in June, one at the governor’s office in New York City and one at his office in Albany.

At the meeting in Albany, Mr. Dorego testified, he and other executives met first with Mr. Cuomo in the governor’s office. And then they were summoned by Mr. Skelos, who sought to reassure them. Everything, Mr. Skelos said, “seemed to be falling in line.”

And:

Mr. Dorego told the jury the company reaped an estimated $50 million to $100 million in savings over an unspecified period from one state program alone, a real estate tax-abatement law called 421-a. The State Legislature must renew the law periodically through a process essentially controlled by the two legislative leaders and the governor.

Mr. Dorego testified that the law’s continued renewal was an “absolute necessity” for Glenwood. Without it, he said, the cost of city real estate taxes — the largest component of a luxury high-rise’s operating budget — would make building such towers unfeasible, in part because lenders would not finance them.

For that reason, Mr. Dorego told the jury, keeping the State Senate in the control of Republicans — who, in his words, “were more business-oriented and had more of an interest in making sure business thrived in the city” — was “the No. 1 priority” for Glenwood’s political strategy and “Mr. Litwin’s No. 1 concern.”

Glenwood also benefited from another state-administered program, using it to obtain more than $1 billion in low-interest, tax-exempt bond financing since 2000, to buy land and construct eight buildings it has put up since 2001, according to testimony at Mr. Silver’s trial. Each application to the program, under which a developer must set aside 20 percent of a new building’s units for low-income housing, must be approved by an obscure state agency, the Public Authorities Control Board.

The three-member board is made up of the governor and the two legislative leaders, or their designees. All applications require unanimous approval, giving each member a potential veto as well as, prosecutors suggested, power and leverage.

Glenwood also depended on the governor and the legislative leaders to renew favorable rent regulations that determine when a developer or landlord can shift rent-stabilized apartments to market-rate rentals.

The governor also makes it sound like he didn't ask for all that Glenwood money - again, he ought to read the Rashbaum NY Times piece so that he can understand that information is already out there publicly:

The biggest beneficiary of Glenwood’s giving: Mr. Cuomo, who, in the last election cycle, received more than $1 million from limited liability companies, or LLCs, connected to the company. 

More:

When it came to the governor, Glenwood was considered such a reliable contributor that his fund-raisers suggested to the developer that it spread what would become a multiyear million-dollar donation “into biannual installments,” according to documents uncovered by investigators from the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that Mr. Cuomo created in 2013, but abruptly disbanded nine months later.

Glenwood also funneled money to Mr. Cuomo indirectly: On a single day in 2011, 10 of the company’s LLCs combined to give a total of $500,000 to the Committee to Save New York, a group of business interests that spent $16 million to support Mr. Cuomo’s agenda during his first two years in office.

Cuomo obviously thinks his excuses will work with voters - many of whom aren't paying that close attention to this anyway - and perhaps he's right about that.

But these excuses aren't working well with at least one editorial board which keeps drubbing him day after day - and that's the NY Post.

Here's their latest editorial:

Gov. Cuomo’s excuses for keeping money from a tainted firm prove one of two things: He’s not interested in cleaning up Albany’s reputation for sleaze — or he’s completely tone-deaf.

Asked Monday if he’d take The Post’s advice and return $1.2 million in donations from Glenwood Management, the real-estate firm implicated in the Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos trials, Cuomo declined.

ADVERTISING

Why?

“If I believed that I could be influenced by a million dollars or a thousand dollars or fifty dollars, then I’m in the wrong place, and I should resign immediately,” he said.

Well, Silver and Skelos claimed they weren’t influenced by Glenwood money, either. But in Cuomo’s case, no one’s even accusing him of that; the question is whether it’s right to keep money from a tainted firm.

Doing so signals a tolerance for corruption — and sends an unhelpful message to Albany’s entire political class.

Officials from Glenwood were said to have conspired with Skelos and Silver in their corrupt schemes, even if they themselves were never indicted. So how can the state’s top pol justify keeping their cash, especially if he hopes to rid the capital of sleaze and restore public trust?

Remember, the gov has more than $12 million in cash on hand. So returning Glenwood’s donations will hardly cripple him.

Nor, by the way, is the issue legislative “reforms,” as Cuomo suggests. One idea has been a ban on lawmakers’ outside income; a city panel Monday backed such a ban for local pols in exchange for higher pay.

But schemers always find ways to skirt reforms. What’s needed are pols who are beyond reproach — and prove it by their deeds. Cuomo so far has little interest in that. So how can he expect anyone to think he’s cleaning up Albany?

Now maybe editorials don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but news coverage does (just ask de Blasio what he thinks the Post coverage, in part, did to his poll numbers), so if they keep at this they can do some damage to him.

But the real danger is that the guy who took Silver and Skelos down - US Attorney Preet Bharara - is watching this and thinking "OK, I got convictions on two  of the three crooks in a room who ran Albany but now the third one remains as intransigent as ever in his corruption."

Why Cuomo refuses to return the money is beyond me.

He can raise more, it would show a good faith effort toward cleaning up the corrupt culture in Albany and would provide leadership at a time when Albany politics needs it.

Instead he's digging in his heels and saying a) he's not going to give the money back and b) he has no idea why he was Donor # 1 for Glenwood, the firm at the center of the Silver and Skelos corruption cases, but it surely wasn't for any corrupt reasons.

Preetmas can't come soon enough.

MaryEllen Elia Says You'll Be Able To "Touch" All The Wonderful Changes Coming In Education

MaryEllen Elia, on the propaganda trail:

ALBANY — Substantive changes will be made to testing, teacher evaluations and the Common Core learning standards in New York State, state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia said in a television interview set to air Monday night.

“We’ve already started it,” Elia told WCNY’s Susan Arbetter on "Connect:NY," which airs on PBS.

...

 She said she understands the concerns of test refusal groups, which have said they will keep urging parents to opt their children out of the state and local exams linked to the teacher evaluations until they see change.

“I understand people saying, ‘Let me see it. I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to make sure it’s there.’ Well, they’re going to be able to see it and touch it. That’s what we’re doing,” she said.

Uh, huh.

Sure you are.

So far, here's a rundown of the wonderful changes we've gotten in education policy.

Changing the Common Core but keeping the "instructional focus" the same.

De-linking state tests from teacher evaluations for four years, but elevating "local" tests to take their place.

Dunno how delusional Elia is, but if she thinks rhetoric and tweaks are going to fool anybody, she's kidding herself.

Cuomo Hides From The Press

Bill Mahoney has a Capital NY piece that details how Andrew Cuomo has shifted from doing interviews with local Albany radio to national venues more friendly to him (like CNN, where his brother, Chris Cuomo, joins him for the Brady Bunch Hour From Hell Show.)

Nick Reisman adds some interesting commentary to the piece via twitter:

FWIW, Cuomo hasn't done a "gaggle" or Q and A with the Albany press corps since October. https://t.co/kgJp40K4sC

— Nick Reisman (@NickReisman) December 21, 2015

Gee, what started in late October, went through November and ended in December?

Oh, yeah, I remember - the Silver and Skelos trials, from pretrial motions to verdicts.

What else happened around that time period?

Oh yeah, I remember - news that Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Project was under federal investigation and his donors, along with state entities involved in the bidding process, had been subpoenaed.

You know, the kind of stuff Chris Cuomo doesn't ask him about much on CNN.

No wonder Cuomo hasn't made himself available to the press, except on a limited basis and often with friendly outlets.

Why Won't Andrew Cuomo Give Back The $1.2 Million He Took From Crooked Glenwood Management?

This NY Post editorial about Andrew Cuomo's refusal to return donations he got from Glenwood Management ought to generate an irate phone call or two - it manages to compare Cuomo unfavorably to Bill de Blasio and then says he isn't much better than "Client #9".

It's pretty brutal - here it is in full:

Last week, Mayor de Blasio laid down a marker, ridding his campaign of funds from Glenwood Management, the real-estate firm deeply involved in Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos’ crimes.

What about Gov. Cuomo?

His campaign doesn’t want to return the $1.2 million that Glenwood and its affiliates donated over the last decade.

Even though it has more than enough cash on hand — at least $12 million, as of the last filing.

How much longer will Cuomo let de Blasio be the better, bigger man when it comes to standing against corruption?

It’s a simple equation: Everyone knows Albany is filthy and needs to change. The first step in doing things differently is to do something important differently — like returning tainted cash, even though you have every legal right to keep it.

Don’t forget: This governor rode into office Jan. 1, 2011, vowing loudly to clean up Albany. The state was then reeling from multiple indictments and convictions of lawmakers, as well as the resignation of Eliot Spitzer after his exposure as “Client 9” in a sordid prostitution scandal.

Andrew is hooker-free, but Albany looks worse today. We’ve just seen the conviction of the two guys who, on Jan. 1, 2015, were running the state Senate and Assembly.

And they got convicted because US Attorney Preet Bharara grabbed the anti-corruption ball after Cuomo shut down his own Moreland Commission.

Back in July 2013, the gov launched the commission to probe for crimes across state government, calling it a “powerful step” to address Albany’s “corrupt culture.”

Ten months later, in March 2014, Moreland was reportedly about to issue important subpoeanas — and Cuomo shut it down.

Worse, he waved off critics with this claim: “It’s my commission. I can’t ‘interfere’ with it, because it is mine. It is controlled by me.”

OK. But Bharara moved in, seized the Moreland files — and rapidly sent two legislative leaders to jail.

Andrew looks like a pretty lazy cop.

Fine, the governor hasn’t taken Glenwood money since news broke of its role in the Silver-Skelos crimes. So what?

The firm now stands revealed as central to the dirty dealings of two of the “three men in a room” — yet Man No. 3 won’t inconvenience himself to show “this is not me.”

How does that make him that much better than Client 9?

Andrew doesn't look like a pretty lazy cop - he looks like a crook.

Why won't Cuomo give back the Glenwood money?

Yeah, it's a lot of money, but he can raise more.

Somebody on this blog wrote in comments that he may be loathe to return the cash, having done the crooked deeds to get it.

That's as good as any rationale I can see.

Makes no sense he won't give the money back because the attacks over keeping the Glenwood money aren't going to go away any time soon.

Crooked Cuomo Keeps Bag Money - that's the message out of this.

Newspapers Aren't Fooled By Cuomo Anymore

Nice to see the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle isn't fooled by Governor Cuomo on ethics issues:

In the late hours of Friday, Dec. 11 — the very day Skelos was found guilty of corruption — the governor took a pen in hand and vetoed two bills that would have increased government transparency. Reporters had gone home from the capitol and the slow weekend news cycle had begun.

The next day, the governor issued a strange executive order, putting his own, weaker reform into place while claiming to "lead by example in advancing transparency and efficiency in government." He also promised to encourage state legislators to embrace more comprehensive reforms, a pledge he has made before, with little to show for it.

Then Cuomo embarked on a celebratory tour, burying news of his actions beneath a dog and pony show about the $500 million Upstate Revitalization Initiative awards. On Monday, he was in Rochester, where he was christened "the savior of Upstate" by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman. The governor talked tough with reporters, promising to hold recipients of the economic development money accountable, and touting the extreme importance of transparency.

Anyone who believes in a healthy democracy should flabbergasted by all of this.

The two bills struck down by the governor were designed to strengthen New York's Freedom of Information law, or FOIL. These were measures introduced at the request of the state's Committee on Open Government; five of its 11 members are appointed by Cuomo. Virtually every public interest group in New York backed the legislation. Yet, in justifying his vetoes, Cuomo called the language in the bills "radical," "myopic" and "seriously flawed."

Reinventing Albany, a New York City-based good government organization, quickly issued a comparison between the alternative reform put forth in Cuomo's executive order and the two vetoed bills. It shows the bills would have had considerably more impact.

The fact that the FOIL vetoes, and the lame executive order, came in the wake of two of our state's biggest political scandals shows a shameful and extraordinary lack of commitment to increasing government transparency and accountability. But it is hardly an isolated incident.

Cuomo has failed to deliver on his promises to close the LLC loophole, a major flaw in campaign finance laws, while he has continued to benefit from millions of dollars in LLC contributions. He abruptly shut down the independent ethics commission he created, after it started looking in uncomfortable places. His 90-day automatic deletion policy for all state emails was discontinued after receiving intense criticism from state lawmakers and legal experts. His handling of the "Buffalo Billion" has raised serious questions. An ethics package he hailed as "dramatic reform" earlier this year has been scoffed at by good government groups.

Cuomo has repeatedly said he places a high priority on cleaning up Albany, but his deeds say otherwise.

Poughkeepsie Journal not fooled either:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was dead wrong to veto bills that would have helped those seeking public documents and his flimsy replacement should hardly settle the matter.

The governor waited  until virtually the last minute before axing two measures — one would have greatly narrowed the time for government to decide whether to appeal a Freedom of Information ruling, the other would have provided attorney’s fees to members of the public who win such court fights.

The governor alleged the bills were “flawed.” Actually, his reasoning is flawed.

For starters, if the governor truly had problems with the language in the bills, there was plenty of time to work through these issues during the legislative session. These good-government initiatives, in fact, have been around in various forms for years. If the governor had the political will to see them become law, they would have become law by now.

For another, the governor’s replacement, an executive order, directs all state agencies to adhere “to the spirit” of what was sought under the bill to stop needless delays in FOIL appeals. That’s not good enough, not even close.

The governor took exception to the notion that state agencies would have to comply with a tighter appeal deadline, but the legislature wouldn’t necessarily have to adhere to such a standard. While it’s true the legislature has been able to skirt too many FOIL requirements, the governor and the agencies he controls should be leading by example and working to bring the legislature along.

What’s more, as good-government experts have pointed out, the vast majority of FOIL requests are directed at state and local governments, as well as school districts. Narrowing the timeframe for government bodies to appeal decisions is imperative; as is, these appeals can drag out for months, sometimes rendering the information useless when it is finally released. The vetoed legislation would have forced government agencies to file a notice of appeal within two months, not the ridiculously long nine-month window that some have taken.

In addition to his executive order, the governor promises more FOIL-related reforms will be put forward in the new year. The public will be watching. The state is dealing with the fallout from various political scandals that have landed some of its top political leaders behind bars. Transparency is essential to an accountable, open government.

The governor should be leading the charge, not pulling bait and switches that leave public-document laws much weaker than proposed.

The governor's b.s. used to fool people, including the editorial boards, into thinking that he was serious about cleaning up Albany and making government more transparent.

Few are fooled these days.

A Little Christmas Miracle

Ray Davies joined brother Dave for "You Really Got Me" at last night's Christmas show in London:




I saw Dave back in October at City Winery.

Few things better in this world than seeing Dave Davies.

But a Kinks show - that might be one of them.

Ray hasn't appeared with Dave on stage in 19 years.

So last night's performance, well, it was something to see.

Dunno if it'll ever happen again,

But I guess we can ask Father Christmas for one last Kinks tour.

NY Times Details Glenwood Management's Largesse And Access To Governor Cuomo

A fascinating piece in the NY Times this morning that you should read in total.  

In it we learn Glenwood Management owner Leonard Litwin - Governor Cuomo's largest and most generous campaign donor - was an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Dean Skelos and his son, Adam.

We also learn that Glenwood had expectations about all that money they gave (which they saw as the "cost of doing business") and boy did those donations ever pay dividends.

Here's the opening of the piece (by William Rashbaum):

The recent federal trials that ended in the quick convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean G. Skelos laid bare a world of greed, flagrant corruption and abuse of power in Albany, with evidence showing payoffs taking a deceptively circular route from business interests to the elected officials whose help they sought.

But one man who was a key player in both cases — and identified by the government as a co-conspirator at the trial of Mr. Skelos, the former Republican majority leader of the State Senate, and his son, Adam — never appeared in the courtroom.

That man was Leonard Litwin, the 101-year-old owner of Glenwood Management, an influential developer of luxury high-rise apartment buildings in Manhattan that is among the state’s most prodigious political donors. Prosecutors named Mr. Litwin as a co-conspirator during a sidebar conference with the judge and defense lawyers that went largely unnoticed.

In addition to its role at the heart of the government’s case against the Skeloses, both of whom were convicted of bribery, extortion and conspiracy this month, Glenwood also figured prominently in the federal corruption trial of Sheldon Silver, the Democratic assemblyman and former speaker who was convicted of extortion, wire fraud and money laundering 11 days earlier.

The name of Mr. Litwin was just one example of the way the two corruption trials revealed how entwined the interests of Glenwood and other developers are with the business of the state. 

Testimony, documents, emails and other evidence provided the most detailed look to date at the ways in which Glenwood and others deftly worked the levers of power to marshal tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions through a maze of limited-liability companies, trade associations and political groups, with Senator Skelos himself soliciting and directing the money at times.

Prosecutors had a 54 page printout of Glenwood donations to Albany political players over the last 10 years through 26 different entities.

Number #1 on the list of recipients?

The biggest beneficiary of Glenwood’s giving: Mr. Cuomo, who, in the last election cycle, received more than $1 million from limited liability companies, or LLCs, connected to the company.

More:

When it came to the governor, Glenwood was considered such a reliable contributor that his fund-raisers suggested to the developer that it spread what would become a multiyear million-dollar donation “into biannual installments,” according to documents uncovered by investigators from the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that Mr. Cuomo created in 2013, but abruptly disbanded nine months later.

Glenwood also funneled money to Mr. Cuomo indirectly: On a single day in 2011, 10 of the company’s LLCs combined to give a total of $500,000 to the Committee to Save New York, a group of business interests that spent $16 million to support Mr. Cuomo’s agenda during his first two years in office.

And what did Glenwood get in return from the governor for all that cash?

Plenty:

The contributions seemed to pay dividends for Glenwood and the real estate industry as a whole in the form of a seat at the table — sometimes quite literally.

With a law that governed rent regulations set to expire in 2011, Mr. Dorego testified that he and other real estate executives were called to two meetings with state leaders in June, one at the governor’s office in New York City and one at his office in Albany.

At the meeting in Albany, Mr. Dorego testified, he and other executives met first with Mr. Cuomo in the governor’s office. And then they were summoned by Mr. Skelos, who sought to reassure them. Everything, Mr. Skelos said, “seemed to be falling in line.”

Glenwood bagman Charlie Dorego explained more of the benefits Glenwood reaped from the politicos they donated to - especially the "three men in a room," Silver, Skelos and Cuomo:

Mr. Dorego told the jury the company reaped an estimated $50 million to $100 million in savings over an unspecified period from one state program alone, a real estate tax-abatement law called 421-a. The State Legislature must renew the law periodically through a process essentially controlled by the two legislative leaders and the governor.

Mr. Dorego testified that the law’s continued renewal was an “absolute necessity” for Glenwood. Without it, he said, the cost of city real estate taxes — the largest component of a luxury high-rise’s operating budget — would make building such towers unfeasible, in part because lenders would not finance them.

For that reason, Mr. Dorego told the jury, keeping the State Senate in the control of Republicans — who, in his words, “were more business-oriented and had more of an interest in making sure business thrived in the city” — was “the No. 1 priority” for Glenwood’s political strategy and “Mr. Litwin’s No. 1 concern.”

Glenwood also benefited from another state-administered program, using it to obtain more than $1 billion in low-interest, tax-exempt bond financing since 2000, to buy land and construct eight buildings it has put up since 2001, according to testimony at Mr. Silver’s trial. Each application to the program, under which a developer must set aside 20 percent of a new building’s units for low-income housing, must be approved by an obscure state agency, the Public Authorities Control Board.

The three-member board is made up of the governor and the two legislative leaders, or their designees. All applications require unanimous approval, giving each member a potential veto as well as, prosecutors suggested, power and leverage.

Glenwood also depended on the governor and the legislative leaders to renew favorable rent regulations that determine when a developer or landlord can shift rent-stabilized apartments to market-rate rentals.

Okay, let's recap:

Governor Cuomo's largest donor, Leonard Litwin, was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Skelos case.

Litwin's firm, Glenwood, reaped at least $50 million in tax savings from one state program (421a tax abatement) and maybe as much as $100 million, got $1 billion in low interest, tax-exempt bond financing to build 8 towers since 2001 that had to be approved by a board made up of three men - either the heads of the two legislative houses and the governor or their "designees," - and lots of other help in renewing "favorable rent regulations" for shifting rent-stabilized apartments to market-rate rentals.

In return for all that help and largesse they gave $10 million in campaign contributions since 2005, with over $1 million going to Governor Cuomo just last election cycle.

Governor Cuomo's allies at the shadowy Committee To Save NY PAC that spent millions touting his "pro-business" agenda early in his first term also enjoyed Glenwood largesse, receiving half a million in contributions through ten different entities one day in 2011.

Let's consider the five men tied most closely to all of this:

One was Shelly Silver, convicted on seven corruption counts.

Another was Dean Skelos, convicted on eight corruption counts.

A third was Glenwood bagman Charlies Dorego, who received a non-prosecution agreement for working with prosecutors against Silver and Skelos.

A fourth was Leonard Litwin, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Skelos case.

And the fifth was Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, so far unindicted but seemingly not uninvestigated.

Where did this Times story come from?

It's got the feel of someone beginning to lay the public groundwork for an eventual takedown of Cuomo.

If Preet's "Stay Tuned..." tweet during Governor Cuomo's Buffalo Billion Mach II presser was the First Day of Preetmas (signaling there is more to come - especially around Cuomo's other economic development program, the Buffalo Billion Project, which is under investigation by federal prosecutors for what looks to be bids rigged for Cuomo donors), this interesting little story here has the feel of the Second Day of Preetmas, detailing as it does Glenwood's generosity and largesse in return for political benefits.

There's an awful lot of Litwin money that ended up in Cuomo's coffers, either directly or to Cuomo allies like CSNY (or other allies, which Bill Mahoney of Politico NY reported on back in August).

Glenwood got an awful lot of access for all that dough and certainly the governor looked to hide that access, "forgetting" that he had meetings with real estate executives, including Glenwood execs, in his offices in both NYC and Albany in 2011 when rent regulations were set to expire.

2011 was the year his Committee To Save NY friends got $500,000 in one day through 10 different LLC's to help tout Cuomo's message, btw.

The smoke swirling around Cuomo and his campaign donors is starting to get awfully heavy, isn't it?

And this is just the Glenwood stuff.

Don't forget, there's more - the feds subpoenaed Cuomo donors and state entities connected to his Buffalo Billion Project for funkiness around the bidding process (and donations that ended up in Cuomo's coffers right around the same time as the bidding process was going on.)

If Preet Bharara was able to take down Shelly Silver for quid pro quo corruption without ever proving an explicit quid pro quo agreement, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he's going to look to take down Governor Andrew M Cuomo for quid pro quo agreements around campaign donations and political benefits reaped by donors in return without anyone ever expressly admitting to an explicit quid pro quo.

Again, whether this all ends with criminal charges against Cuomo, well, that's hard to say.

But these stories about Cuomo and his donors (i.e., the Glenwood/Cuomo connection and the Buffalo Billion/Cuomo connection) aren't coming out of the ether.

Preet leaks as a way to set the stage for eventual criminal charges. 

He did it with Silver (leaking news of a federal investigation into the speaker one month before the criminal charges were filed in January), and he did it with Skelos (leaking first in January, then again in May right before the criminal charges were levied against Skelos.)

Just something to think about when you see these stories about Cuomo and his donors.

De Blasio Returns Glenwood Cash, Makes Cuomo Sad

From the NY Post:

Mayor de Blasio is returning $20,200 in campaign contributions from a real-estate firm involved in the corruption scandals involving two disgraced Albany legislative leaders — a move that puts Gov. Cuomo in a political jam.

De Blasio is the first elected official to heed Post editorials calling for the return of millions in campaign cash from Glenwood Management, a powerhouse developer that figured in the corruption trials of both former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

Cuomo has pulled in $1.2 million over the years from Glenwood, its officials and subsidiaries.

Cuomo spokesman Austin Shafran declined on Thursday to say whether the governor would follow the mayor’s lead and give back the money.

When The Post raised the issue earlier this week, Shafran insisted “the governor’s decisions are not influenced by contributions, as testimony in the trials showed.”

The mayor’s campaign — which would certainly say the same about de Blasio — nevertheless decided it would refund Glenwood’s money, according to a campaign spokesman.

Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin puts this into perspective:

It should be a no-brainer for Cuomo to return the Glenwood $.... too late to lead by example, now he's in a jam. https://t.co/fwLnCPL6xk

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) December 18, 2015

It should have been a no-brainer, all right, but Cuomo insisted he was going to wait for the outcome of the Silver/Skelos trials before making any move and then, after both were convicted, clearly still decided to wait to make any move (perhaps hoping the hullabaloo would go away?) and now de Blasio beat him to the punch.

Of course, it's quite easy for de Blasio to return $20K, less so for Cuomo to return $1.2 million in bagman cash from Glenwood.

And if Cuomo had to return every dirty donation from a contributor, sheesh - they would cost him most of his campaign warchest.

That's why the feds are looking into his donors in the first place.

So I get why he's not led on the Glenwood donation issue.

Nonetheless, the de Blasio move, meant to tweak him, will make him very, very sad.

And you know what happens when Cuomo gets sad - somebody gets hurt.

Expect some kind of retaliation from Cuomo against de Blasio very, very soon.

Cuomo/Regents Bait And Switch On Testing/Teacher Evaluations Will Not End Opt Out

From the NY Post:

Opponents of Common Core standards are urging parents to boycott next year’s state math and English exams, despite the state imposing a four-year freeze on using the results to grade students or teachers.

NYS Allies for Public Education said Wednesday that state and local school districts are administering too many tests and want the Common Core standards scrapped completely.

“We will continue to refuse to allow our children to participate in this system until all harmful reforms are removed,” said a spokesman for the group LI Opt Out.

About 200,000 students boycotted the last exams.

Teachers are still going to be evaluated using test scores and, depending upon the district, may still be evaluated using the state tests.

The Common Core isn't going anywhere, the Cuomo Common Core Task Force called for no "instructional shift" from the Common Core, just tweaks around the edges so they can say "Changes are being made!"

This bait and switch will not fool us.

The union leadership can fall all over itself declaring this a "win" for students, parents and teachers against the corporate reform movement, but those of us in schools know differently.

Nothing's changed, the Endless Testing regime lives on, APPR continues to use test scores to rate teachers, and with the Cuomo task force calling for a switch to "local" tests for APPR, there will be a whole lot more testing in the system next year.

The fight goes on.

These Are Clearly Reasons Why Buffalo Schools Should Be Charterized

From the Buffalo News:

A new survey of students in Buffalo Public Schools reinforces the extent of the problems the district is facing – not in the classroom, but in the home.

Fourteen percent of high school students who took the survey said they have been beaten or physically harmed by a parent or adult while in their house.

Sixteen percent have lived with someone diagnosed as mentally ill or suicidal.

Nearly one out of four has lived with someone who was an alcoholic, drug abuser or problem gambler.

More than a third said they have seen someone in their neighborhood shot, stabbed or beaten.

And more than 37 percent said they had a parent or adult in their home swear at or insult them.

All of these are of course the fault of their teachers, who fail them on a daily basis, and keep them from having the kind of achievement they're all capable of if only their schools and teachers didn't suck.

Wanna bet when they charterize whole swaths of Buffalo that the students who are beaten or physically harmed at home, have an alcoholic or drug addict in the home, live in neighborhoods where people are shot or stabbed or have adults in the home with mental illness or who verbally abuse them will have to strictly tow the "No Excuses!" charter line or be dumped out of the charter district and back to whatever is left of the public school district?

Which is to say, charterizing a whole swath of Buffalo won't solve this mess.

But then again, charterizing public schools isn't about solving this kind of crisis or serving students.

It's about making money for the charter entrepreneurs and their politician pals who love the yummy yummy political donations they receive from the charter sector.