Cuomo Says "A Lot Of Changes" Are Coming To Education System

Make what you will of this:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the tenure of outgoing Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch on Monday, but at the same time indicated he will push for broad reforms to the state’s education curriculum and Common Core standards.

...

Cuomo has come under fire for his education policies from the state’s teachers unions and state lawmakers reluctantly approved the changes in part because they were tied to a boost in state education aid.

The governor’s Common Core panel expects to have recommendations for Cuomo in changing the standards by January.

“This is also a time where you are going to see a lot of changes in the education system,” Cuomo said. “The Common Core system I think almost everyone uniformly agrees needs dramatic reform.”

Asked if he believed Tisch did a good job as chancellor, Cuomo called her “an extraordinary person.”

But he added: “We have a lot of changes to make in education.”

Cuomo's got trouble on the polling front.

No matter what he does these days, his poll numbers remain underwater.

The latest Siena poll has him at 40% approval and 58% disapproval despite his push for a higher minimum wage, a move that was supposed to help bolster his support from the left.

On education, he has 68% of voters in the Siena poll disapproving of his handling of education.

He's got low marks on the economy, infrastructure and corruption as well.

His poll numbers have been underwater for quite a while now too (he was at 42%-57% in last December's Siena poll, for example.)

So Cuomo's floundering, he's starting to get desperate and he doesn't know how to turn this around.

He's decided he's going to pay lip service to making changes to the Common Core with a review panel, but given that the people he appointed to his review panel are mostly pro-CCSS (and pretty much the same one's who rubberstamped what we've got now), it's hard to see how we get any substantive change from them.

In addition, he refuses to make any changes to his APPR teacher evaluation system that makes test scores 50% of a teacher's rating.

So, I dunno what changes he's talking about that are coming.

From what I can see, all we're getting is a change in rhetoric on testing and the Common Core, but not actual change to the top-down imposed policies and reform agenda.

And given that this is a guy who said he would "break" public schools, I hear "a lot of changes" from him more as a threat than anything else.

UFT Appears To Be Only Entity/Individual Fooled By Cuomo's Common Core Review Announcement

So far I haven't seen anything but cynicism and snark from people over Cuomo's announcement that he's going to convene his third education commission/panel, this time to review the Common Core standards, the tests tied to those standards and the curriculum developed by the state that goes by the misnomer EngageNY (should be called DisengagedNY.)

Here, for example was Liz Benjamin:

Haven't we done this once already? http://t.co/Qles0LSzYy

— Liz Benjamin (@CTLizB) September 3, 2015

We have indeed: 

It is not the first time Cuomo, a staunch defender of the higher Common Core standards, has criticized their implementation in New York. In February 2014, he said the state's Board of Regents and the Department of Education had "failed utterly" in the design and roll-out of the new Regents exams.

It is also not the first time he has convened a statewide commission to tackle wide-ranging problems in K-12 education. An earlier version, the New York State Education Reform Commission, issued a 92-page "action plan" in January 2014.

He also created the plainly-named Common Core Implementation Panel in 2014. It was to "undertake an immediate and comprehensive review of the rollout of the Common Core standards in New York state," and it too produced a report.

Gary Stern and Sullio put past Cuomo/commissions into perspective:

@perdidostschool @SteveMcNY Don't forget his "New Reform Education Commission." Held hearings around NYS. Quickly forgotten.

— Gary Stern (@GarySternNY) September 3, 2015

@sullio Looks about right. Last commission met once, repeated his positions, disappeared.

— Gary Stern (@GarySternNY) September 3, 2015

So why a third education panel/commission?

The political heat on Cuomo over Common Core and the Endless Testing regime was getting, well, hot:

The governor's press release, though, was noteworthy as a response to the mounting criticism and, in particular, the wave of test refusals among families with children in grades 3-8. About one of five students declined to sit for either the math or English exam in the spring.

Or, as Steve McLaughlin put it:

Cuomo hasn't seen the light on #CommonCore he's seen the polls.

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 3, 2015

When things get hot, it's "Commission time!" in Albany - Cuomo's done this with corruption (Moreland), public utilities (LIPA commission) and education - twice as Justin Murphy reported in the D&C.

So now we have a third commission, one that Cuomo hopes will allow him to put some distance between himself and his education reform agenda.

Steve McLaughlin explains:

.@NYGovCuomo now in full back-pedal/damage control mode on his prior heavy handed, bullying in pushing #CommonCore & high stakes testing.

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 3, 2015

About the only person/entity that doesn't seem to understand this is all jive is the UFT, which hailed the announcement today:

For once @UFT is pleased w/ Cuomo: Union says it's "happy to work" w/ his commission to fix "problems created by the Common Core rollout."

— Kate Taylor (@katetaylornyt) September 3, 2015

Right - because the last two education commissions/panels Cuomo put together "fixed" so much.

On the plus side, with Cuomo now officially pulling a Chris Christie on Common Core and trying to make like he never saw it, there are only a few supporters of CCSS left:

Cuomo dumps his support for Common Core leaving only @nysut @AFTunion @UFT supporting it in NY...

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) September 3, 2015

Indeed.

If anybody at the UFT/AFT/NYSUT actually thinks the Cuomo announcement today will lead to substantive changes to the reform agenda in New York, then they've fallen off a turnip truck.

But I suspect the the UFT hailed the Cuomo announcement because it gives them cover for continuing to support CCSS and Endless Testing in New York - now they can say, Hey we've got a commission coming to "fix" all the problems with them.

Sure we do...

Pearson Owns New York

The gravy train for Pearson continues in John King's and Andy Cuomo's New York:

Becoming a teacher in New York state is getting more expensive.

The price of basic teacher certification exams has more than doubled this year and it's taking a toll, educators said.

...

Essentially, the regimen of tests and assessments needed for a certification degree has gone from $317 to $652 this year.

That's on top of other costs that have been in place for a while such as fingerprinting and required background checks, not to mention tuition.

The edTPA, which is an acronym for an assessment that includes a video of a student-teacher's performance along with lengthy explanations of their lesson plans and other activities, is a new requirement this year and costs $300.

...

The array of tests needed to become a certified teacher is complicated, but there used to be three core exams.

Those were Assessment of Teaching Skills-written, Liberal Arts and Science, and Content Specialty, according to state guidelines.

Each of those cost $119, although in years past some could be taken on paper rather than computer for $79. It wasn't clear why the price went up for the online version, which avoids printing and mailing costs.

Either way, the old package could cost as little as $317.

But starting this year, there are new tests: Educating All Students; Academic Literacy Skills and Content Specialty, which cost $102, $131 and $119 – and the $300 edTPA.

Most are written and administered by Pearson PLC, a global corporation that designs and sells tests as well as publish newspapers and books. They also score the edTPA.

Calls to Pearson were referred to Stanford University, which helped develop the edTPA.

Why did the costs of the ATS, LAST and Content Specialty exam go up when they moved from paper to computer?

Because Pearson wants more money in their coffers, that's why.

And because the politicians and the educrats in this state care more about what's good for Pearson than they do what's good for schools, students or teachers, what Pearson wants, Pearson gets.

We know that Pearson bribed the former NYSED Commissioner, David Steiner, with junkets - you can be sure that other pols and educrats are on the "unofficial" Pearson payroll as well, either with junkets and other favors now or with jobs and consultant gigs in the future.

It is becoming pretty clear as we go that Pearson runs the education policy in this state, from the testing policies to the teacher certification policies.

Just another example of the Cesspool of Corruption that is Andrew Cuomo's New York.

Cuomo's Common Core Panel May Skip Writing A Final Report

When Governor Cuomo first announced his Common Core panel, many of us thought it was a jive move to make it look like he was doing something about all the parent and educator complaints about Common Core and the state's education reform agenda while really doing nothing at all about them

This news seems to confirm just that:

ALBANY—I.B.M. executive Stanley Litow, who chaired Governor Andrew Cuomo's panel on Common Core implementation, said Wednesday he hasn't met with the other panel members since releasing the preliminary report in March, and isn't sure whether the panel will issue a final report.

“We issued a preliminary report, and I think we're going to talk to the State Education Department and the governor about further work,” he said after a conference about early-college high schools.

Litow said “there might be” a final report, and he's “had a lot of contact” with other group members, “but we haven't had a formal meeting.”

Teacher Todd Hathaway already exposed the shamery around the panel when he reported that panel heads were not interested in any dissenting views from what they had already decided would be in the preliminary report:

Todd Hathaway, a teacher at East Aora High School and a member of the Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core panel, ripped the process today after the panel released its report last night.

The recommendations include what Cuomo wanted: holding students harmless for the tougher exams, but not a three-year moratorium on using the tests to evaluate teachers.

 ...

Hathaway said, “The report – and the process that produced it—is incomplete. the report was released suddenly, even as final comments were still being solicited. I had indicated the likelihood I would dissent and not allow the report to be spun as ‘consensus.’” Nevertheless, the report was issued with my name attached. I am very concerned that the report tries to make it seem like all the discussion had been completed.”

Here’s the rest of his statement:

“In fact, the Executive Office repeatedly ignored my concerns and the legitimate concerns of others about inappropriate state testing, the misuse of invalid tests for evaluations and the lack of transparency in state testing. The result is that some of the report’s conclusions and suggestions do not hold up to scrutiny. I wouldn’t accept this kind of work from my students and I don’t accept it here.”

“The failure to address testing and evaluation issues in a comprehensive way suggests the dynamics of the classroom will not change. The report seems to blame everybody else for the problems of the Common Core learning standards without adequately addressing the appropriateness of some of the standards and the testing that goes with it. This report should have addressed serious deficiencies in state testing. It should have discussed the lack of transparency in tests; the lack of diagnostic and prescriptive worth to teachers; the unacceptable delays in returning scores to school districts and the insanity of pretending there is validity to teacher ratings that are derived from student scores widely acknowledged to be invalid.”

“Finally, this panel should have recognized the need to pause in the use of assessments for high-stakes decisions for students and teachers. This would have allowed the State Education Department, as well as school districts, to refine the tests and testing materials; teachers to engage in the standards and develop a variety of lessons to meet them instead of just relying on modules; parents to understand the role and utility of data in education; and for teachers to receive the necessary professional development. Implementing massive curriculum changes do not just happen overnight. They take time. I fully support a delay in the use of tests in high-stakes decisions for students and teachers, but that issue was never fully explored. You can’t put students first if you put their teachers last.”

Litow's stating that the panel hasn't done any work since the preliminary report was issued and pretty much doesn't plan to do any more just reinforces what Todd Hathaway exposed back in March:

The Common Core panel was a sham, a jive move to make it look like Cuomo was addressing concerns over the Common Core, testing, evaluations and the like when he had no intention to do so at all.

The Fix Is In On The Cuomo Common Core Panel

Not a surprise to find out Common Core-supporting Sheriff Andy Cuomo rigged his Common Core panel with Common Core supporters - but that's what he did according to Leonie Haimson (via Diane Ravitch.)

No early childhood experts, elementary or special ed teachers on commission, which is unfortunate because these are the people whose critiques have been most sharp.

Litow chair already wrote an oped in favor http://bit.ly/1ea69ge

Russo is one of the few Superintendents in entire state on record in favor http://bit.ly/1ea6wHP

He was booed by parents & teachers at a Common Core forum http://bit.ly/1ea6wHP and says CC curriculum “one of best things I’ve seen in education in 31, 32 yrs”

Dan Weisberg head of TNTP has received $23M from Gates Foundation including $7M in last yr alone http://bit.ly/1bDFNH8

Gates has spent >$170M on the Common Core and will not go down lightly http://wapo.st/1bDHggw

It's an act of hubris by our hubristic governor to rig a panel to look into problems with Common Core with a bunch of Common Core proponents and supporters, but in the end, that may backfire on Sheriff Andy and his education reform allies.

Were they truly to create a panel that listened to concerns students, parents and educators have over the Common Core, the testing associated with it, the teacher evaluation system that ensures it gets taught in schools because teachers are evaluated based upon CCSS-based tests and the inBloom data project that will track all the data, they might actually have come up with some decent middle ground solution that could have brought many stakeholders together.

Instead Sheriff Andy rigged the panel for a pre-destined conclusion and has undercut any credibility either he or this panel had on this issue.

Surprise, Surprise - Cuomo's Ed Reform Committee Calls For Cuomo's Preferred Reforms

From Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

A panel of education experts recommended expanding pre-kindergarten, boosting technology in schools and rewarding high-performing teachers with financial incentives in a long-awaited report commissioned by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo designed his education priorities last year and this year based on the commission's recommendations. The final report is four months late, as Capital reported Monday.

Lots more spending on technology, merit pay and pre-K - gee, what a surprise this commission report is.

Bakeman writes that Cuomo based his educational priorities the past two years on the education commissions reports.

The reality is, these were the policies he wanted to promote, the commission simply gave him some extra added cover to promote them.

In short, these were Cuomo's priorities whether there was a Cuomo Education Reform Commission Of Pearson Shills or not.

Everything Cuomo pushes is a favored policy of Cuomo's DFER funders.

That's who set the policy agenda, no matter what jive commission Cuomo puts together that says otherwise.

Cuomo Education Reform Panel Still Not Done With Their Report

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—A panel of education experts tasked with making recommendations to Governor Andrew Cuomo for how to improve student performance is months late releasing its final report.

The commission even missed last week's State of the State address, during which the governor laid out an ambitious schools agenda for the year.

Cuomo empaneled his Education Reform Commission in April 2012, asking the group to develop a preliminary report and a final set of recommendations outlining ways to improve student performance. The 25-member group includes a slew of national and statewide business and education leaders, including American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher, CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, state education commissioner John King and the chairs of the Legislature's Education committees, Senator John Flanagan and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan.

A memo describing the commission's tasks required the group to issue its preliminary report by Dec. 1, 2012 and its final recommendations by Sept. 1, 2013. Two weeks into the new year, the final report is still not out, and members of the commission give varying accounts of whether it is complete.

...

 The governor's office declined to comment and wouldn't say when the report would be released.

Of course this Education Reform Commission was one of Cuomo's brilliant ideas from a few State of the State speeches ago, when he proclaimed himself the "student lobbyist."

At the time, Cuomo talked the Education Reform Commission up as a way to bring even more so-called innovative education reform to NY State

Since that time, however, the reform agenda Cuomo has been pushing has gotten controversial, with parents and teachers around the state protesting the Common Core, the APPR teacher evaluation system that mandates so many extra tests, the tests themselves and the inBloom data project which is supposed to track all the stats.

I'm not surprised, frankly, that the Education Reform Commission report is delayed, now that the reforms themselves have gotten controversial.

Governor Cuomo Is Vulnerable Over CCSS, APPR and InBloom

A very interesting item in Fred Dicker's NY Post column:

Cuomo has privately told groups of “progressive’’ Assembly Democrats that despite his election-year plans to reduce some state taxes, he’s sure he can find funds to help soon-to-be-Mayor Bill de Blasio deliver on his pledge of universal pre-K throughout the city.

Cuomo, in recent meetings he initiated with black and Hispanic caucus members and others, appeared to fear that city Democrats sympathetic to de Blasio’s attacks on the wealthy and angry over his Moreland Act Commission probe of state lawmakers, might turn on him during the next legislative session, a source familiar with the meetings said.

“Many members like de Blasio’s proposals and blame Cuomo for demonizing the Legislature, for instance, putting out stories that members got a $500 contribution from someone or some group — when the governor has gotten $50,000 from the same person or group.

“The meetings show the governor realizes he’s going to have a problem next year when he’s running for reelection and that members aren’t going to be as responsive to his needs as they have been in the past,’’ said the source.

I've long said that the bully in charge can only continue to be in charge so long as people fear him - especially Democrats in the Legislature.

But the anger Dems in the Legislature feel toward him seems to be superseding any fear they have of retribution from him these days.

As Dicker says, that's as a result of Cuomo's hypocrisy over Moreland, calling out legislators over corruption that Cuomo himself is engaging in.

In the end, Moreland is going to come back and bite Cuomo, as many Dems in the Legislature are looking to stick the proverbial, metaphoric shiv into him.

What all this means for educators looking to get Cuomo to change his education reform agenda is that Andrew Cuomo is vulnerable to pressure, vulnerable to attacks, and he can be beaten over APPR, CCSS, and inBloom.

I'll have more on this later.

Suffice to say for now, start putting pressure on Cuomo publicly over CCSS, APPR, and inBloom.

He may look like he's ignoring it, but he's not.

Not with his re-election looming in 2014 and his White House fantasies still floating around his head for 2016.

Andrew Cuomo MUST Be Held Accountable For InBloom

NY1 on the state's forced data plan for all NY State school districts:

Big record-keeping changes are coming to schools across the state.

Under a new plan, public schools will be required to send student data, such as grades and attendance records, to a cloud-based data storage company sometime after the new year.

New York is the first state to make a full commitment to the program created by the Atlanta-based InBloom.

A number of states flirted with using the program, but withdrew.

The initiative has come under fire from parents, who fear that the data will not be secure and could be sold to marketers.

The New York State Department of Education says that the data will be accessible only to parents and educators via the internet.

I love that last line - like nobody who isn't supposed to access stuff on the Internets ever gets that access without permission.

Yeah, right.

Governor Cuomo is trying to distance himself from the state's education reform agenda, from the Common Core "national curriculum" to the Endless Testing regime imposed by the Regents to the forced data collection imposed by the NYSED, but he cannot escape his accountability measures.

APPR, Common Core reforms, inBloom - all are Cuomo policies, all have his fingerprints all over them whether he wants to admit to it or not.

We will NOT let him get away with distancing himself from his own reform agenda.

Andrew Cuomo must be held accountable for the education policies he has promoted since he was elected governor.

Looking at his plummeting job performance ratings, he's already taking a bit of a hit.

But that's not good enough.

Give Cuomo a call, send him an email, let him know you intend to hold him accountable for inBloom, APPR, Common Core and let him know how you'll be telling all your family and friends over the holidays how these are Andrew Cuomo's policies, how Cuomo MUST be held accountable next November for these crimes against children, teachers and schools.

http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php

Or

You may also contact the Governor's office by phone (518) 474-8390 or mail:

The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

Will The State Senate Hearings Into The NYSED/Regents Education Reforms Matter?

I missed this story from last week, but it looks to be an important one:

The chairman of the New York State Senate Education Committee will hold hearings next month on the state's controversial educational reforms.

Sen. John Flanagan, a Republican from Long Island, said he will hold several hearings across the state, starting in Long Island in mid-September. He said the topics will include, among other issues, the state's emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing, the new Common Core standards, teacher evaluations and student privacy.

He noted that education policy is the province of the state Education Department and the Board of Regents, but that the Legislature should have an oversight role.

...

Flanagan said he isn't taking any preconceptions into the hearings, but that he is concerned about the speed with which the state introduced testing tied to the Common Core standards. He said he is among many who feel the tests should have been delayed until teachers and students had more time with the new standards.

The results of those tests, where were given in April, were released Wednesday.

He said the state's adoption of the Common Core standards themselves is an important development to monitor.

"There are clearly groups that are ardent and passionate supporters of the Common Core," he said. "I also have groups that are strident, vociferous in their opposition."

Flanagan said he wants the hearings to explore how much time students spend taking tests. He said it can be a hard number to determine, because in some cases the pressure to test comes not just from the federal and state governments but from local school districts as well.

He also said the issue of privacy and the security of student information gathered through the student testing system needs a close look.

"As a parent, that is pre-eminent in my mind," he said.

So here's how I read this development.

Both Republicans and Democrats in the New York Assembly and the State Senate are getting complaints from constituents about the NYSED/Regents education reform policies.

The test scores that NYSED Commissioner John King rigged and announced last week was the cherry on top of the reformy cake that got Flanagan to announce hearings to look into what King and his merry reformers are doing at NYSED.

Now whether these hearings are going to be legitimate inquiries into all that is reformy or a dog-and-pony show similar to Sheriff Andy Cuomo's Education Commission of Pearson Shills And Hedge Fund Managers is another matter.

But just the announcement of these hearings should let us know that people in state government are vulnerable to hearing complaints over the NY State reforms from constituents and parents.

Perhaps it would be a good time to contact John Flanagan's office and let them know what you think about NYSED Commissioner John King's reforms.

The contact is here.

Alliance for Quality Education: Cuomo, Lawmakers Get Failing Grade For School Improvement Policies

From the Times-Union:

The labor-backed Alliance for Quality Education released a report today that gives a failing grade to Albany for the way lawmakers have improved New York’s public schools.

Here’s the report  and here is the press release:

The report card found that the state was moving in the right direction in the areas of “Providing Quality Pre-K” and “Creating Community Schools.” However, the report card found that the state is moving in the wrong direction in the areas of “Expanding Learning Time,” “Providing Challenging and Engaging Curriculum,” “Creating a Positive School Climate and Reducing Suspensions,” and “Investing in Equity.” The report card gave the state an “Incomplete” in “Providing Quality Teaching Initiatives,” stating that there is not enough evidence to show whether or not the new teacher evaluation is a step in the right or wrong direction yet. 

“We agree with the Governor, the state should be investing in full-day pre-K, high quality curriculum, teacher mentoring, more time for student learning, and improving low-performing schools by creating community schools,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education. “Now that the state is funding these successful educational strategies for less than two percent of New York students, the next step should be for the state to embrace the reality that we have a moral obligation to make these programs available to students throughout the state.”

The report card finds that, overall, New York State is moving in the wrong direction because it is failing to provide large portions of students with these successful educational opportunities.  New York has created small grant programs in several of these areas, but those programs each serve less than two percent of students in the state.  

“The way that this state is treating my child’s education is just plain wrong,” said Natasha Capers, parent from Brooklyn. “The bare bones of education is unacceptable, and I’m angry that my child has less opportunities to succeed than other children in this state. The state must do its job, so that schools can do their job to give students an equal opportunity to succeed.”

Cuomo, of course, has moved on from education issues and was busy today giving himself a pat on the back for creating yet another blue ribbon state commission - this time on political corruption.

He ought to combine the two initiatives and take a look at some of the corruption at the NYSED over the testing contracts.

For that matter, he might want to get to the bottom of the last NYSED Commissioner, David Steiner, who was treated to junkets via Pearson.

Or the contracts the NYCDOE signed off on.

There is plenty of corruption to take on in education too.

But you can bet neither Cuomo nor his blue ribbon corruption commission will look at that issue.

NYSED: You Cannot Opt Out Of The State Assessment System

From DNAinfo:

"There is not an opt out provision from the State assessment system," said Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the New York State Education Department.

Land of the free, home of the brave, but your kid MUST sit for the Pearson field tests.

The arrogance of these people in the Cuomo government and the NYSED and the Regents is just breath-taking.

But it will come back to haunt them.

The more they try and rule as authoritarians, the faster people are going to revolt against the system.

Cuomo's Ratings Continue To Fall - Any Effect On Common Core/APPR?

The First Lobbyist for students in NY State is not as popular as he once was:

“Drip, drip, drip. That seems to be what’s happening to Cuomo’s approval ratings. Over the last four months, there has been a small drop each month, however, when his current ratings are compared to those four months ago, there is noticeable erosion. His favorable rating is down 10 points since December, while his unfavorable rating is up 12 points. His positive job performance rating is down eight points, while his negative rating is up nine points,” said poll spokesman Steve Greenberg. “Over the same four months, the percentage of voters who say the state is headed on the right track has fallen seven points, while the percentage of those who say the state is headed in the wrong direction is up 10 points.”

The number of voters ready to re-elect Cuomo has fallen as well, from 62% in December to 54% in March to 53% this month.

These are still far from horrible numbers, but the trajectory from Cuomo continues to be downward.

Dana Goldstein raised the question if politicians might feel the need to soft pedal the Common Core test reforms as opposition from parents and teachers grows.

A governor who has seen his approval rating drop, his favorability ratings drop, and his re-election numbers drop even before he has to make a decision on the politically fraught fracking issue would be more likely to modify his support for the Common Core testing and APPR reforms.

Fred Dicker writes today that Cuomo is really worried about the effects any decision on fracking will have on his political career.

Of course, the people who paid for those reforms - the hedge fund managers who gave Cuomo a suitcase full of cash in a hotel room when he was running for governor - won't be happy about any potential modification, so it's quite possible money trumps voter sentiment on this issue and Cuomo and stays the course too.

He's going need those people to fund his 2016 White House run.

Isn't It Time Pearson Is Sent Packing From NY State In Disgrace?

Major screw-ups caused by carelessness - there's no other way to describe this "Gifted and Talented" test mess:

An error on the part of Pearson, the company that developed New York City Schools "Gifted and Talented" exam, means many students who were told they didn't qualify for the program actually did, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said in a statement released late Friday afternoon.

The error affects more than 4,735 test takers -- about 13 percent of the students who took the exam, according to the Department of Education.

Of those students, 2,698 who didn't qualify for the gifted and talented program now qualify for district programs.

Another 2,037 who previous qualified for district programs are even more gifted and talented than they thought -- they now qualify for citywide programs as well.

All students who were previously told they qualify for the programs still do.


"After an exhaustive review of Pearson's data, it is clear to us that due to the company's errors, many students who were recently notified that they did not qualify for G&T now qualify for district programs," Walcott said. "In addition, many other students who didn't previously qualify for city wide programs now do."

...

Despite Walcott's wording, it wasn't so much Pearson that discovered the errors -- it was two parents who noticed scores didn't add up.

"Two parents initially brought their concerns to our attention. My team immediately asked Pearson to investigate," Walcott said. "Throughout this week, Pearson has been working to confirm the existence of errors, identify how many students were affected and rectify those errors."

The incorrect results were due to two errors -- some students being incorrectly categorized in the wrong age group, and the use of an incorrect scoring key.

...

It's not the first time Pearson's in the spotlight. The test company, which also designs state exams, was lampooned last year for a confusing question about a talking pineapple on state exams. Many other questions were also struck from state exams due to errors last year.

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch bragged about the quality of the 3rd-8th grade "assessments" Pearson developed based upon the Common Core standards and noted that, given how bad the Pearson tests were last year, lots of people didn't think they could pull off quality tests this year:

 "I would be so bold as to say they were better than most people expected them to be," she said.

Merryl Tisch should hold off before congratulating herself and Pearson for the quality of the 3rd-8th grade ELA tests just yet.

Because of the security and secrecy around the tests, there are lots of unanswered questions about them - especially around two major areas:

1. Time allotment - Many students were unable to complete the tests and teachers said the amount of time given for the tasks on the tests was nowhere near enough for students to finish

2. Product Placements - There are at least two cases of product brands, trademarks and advertising slogans put into the tests in footnotes, of all places.  The NY Post reported a few more.  Those instances need to be investigated - How did the product placements get into the tests? Why were the trademarks for the brands added? Who put the footnotes in?

In addition, teachers have said there were instances of two correct answers for questions.  That needs to be investigated too.

Now Merryl Tisch may already be putting on her flight suit and declaring "Mission Accomplished!" with these Pearson 3rd-8th grade ELA tests, but because teachers are not allowed to talk about the tests and the contents cannot be revealed, we simply don't know just how bad these tests were.

But given the track record Pearson has on screwing things up majorly, from the Pineapple and Hare mess last year to this Gifted and Talented program mess this year, you can be sure there are problems with this year's Common Core tests.

Unfortunately because the state has an embargo around the test contents and is threatening to de-certify any teacher who talks about the contents of a test, we may never know just bad these Pearson 3rd-8th grade tests are.

Not unless parents really make a huge stink over them with their representatives in Albany.

In addition, it seems no matter how many major mistakes Pearson makes with the tests they develop for NY State, they are not going to have their contract voided and be sent packing.

It really is high time Pearson was sent packing from the state.

But you can bet Cuomo, who likes to appoint Pearson employees to important gigs in the NYSED, isn't going to be the person to do that.

Cuomo's Corporate Education Reform Commission

When you put a corporate guy from Citibank in charge of an education reform commission and load the commission up with corporate education reform shills, it's not too hard to figure out what reforms they will decide to promote to "fix" the public education system.

I could have told you the reforms they were going to suggest long before they actually released their preliminary findings:

Longer school day (in order to get students ready for the 10 hour workday corporations have people doing)

More tech training (in order to get students ready for the technology applications they'll have to use when working their ten hour soul-sucking corporate job)

Full day kindergarten (in order to get kids ready for their 10 hour work day, you want to start them on long school days as soon as possible - the age of five sounds about right)

Teachers unions busting mechanisms (they didn't address teacher evaluations in the report released yesterday but said they will in the next, more detailed report)

Blaming teachers for the alleged problems in the system (bar exam for teachers, change certification procedures, hold teacher preparation programs accountable for teacher performance through the use of test scores)

Add choice (continue down the road to privatization by adding as many "high quality" charters as possible in order to steal resources from the public school system and starve the beast)

The commission did suggest wrap around social services as part of their reform suggestions, which is supposed to be a progressive idea for reform, but you can bet that many of those wrap around services will end up being giveaways to corporate cronies and "nonprofits" linked to the education reform movement.

The whole rationale for public education these days is to get kids "college and career ready" - i.e., to socialize them into a consumerist and corporatized economic and political system with just enough training to be able to do what their corporate masters tells them but not enough critical thinking skills to question their lots in life.

Teachers and teacher preparation programs that still promote social justice stand in the way of this kind of system, and so they must be destroyed - the teachers fired and replaced with TFA Barbie Dolls who do what they're told and the teacher preparation programs with the commie pinko professors replaced by TFA-lite teacher prep programs that use test scores as the sole measure of "effective teaching."

The aim is to break the teachers, break the teacher prep programs, break the system, break the unions and get everybody on board with the corporate agenda.

That Randi Weingarten - the education reformer's favorite labor leader - is on this commission does not mitigate the fact that it has been created to find the system a failure and to push corporate education reform "solutions" through as a result.

Given Weingarten's politics, her presence on the commission underscores what a corporate force it will be.

As NYC Parents blog pointed out, there are no suggestions to reduce class size from this commission - a proven reform that works to improve education for students.

As a commenter on that post pointed out, there are no real teachers or parents on the commission.

Just corporate shills with a corporate agenda looking to instill that agenda into kids as early as possible.

Just another example of how the fix is in.

Results first, commission after - that's what this sham is.

No wonder they stole the name of their report from Michelle Rhee's Students First corporate education reform lobby group.

So Much For The Accuracy Of The Vaunted New Data-Driven Teacher Evaluation System

Via Diana Ravitch's blog, we learn the following about the new teacher evaluation system in Florida:

Florida's Department of Education on Wednesday rolled out the results of a sweeping new teacher evaluation system that is designed to be a more accurate, helpful and data-driven measure of how well teachers actually get students to learn.

And then, within hours of releasing the data, the department pulled the numbers off its website and sheepishly admitted that much of it was wrong.

State officials late Wednesday said thousands of teachers were mistakenly double-counted because they had more than one "job code" in computerized records. That skewed the results.

Department spokeswoman Cynthia Sucher acknowledged it was "distressing" for the agency to learn that the information turned out to be incorrect.

The new evaluation system has been stressful for teachers. Even though it appears that the vast majority have been rated as "effective" or "highly effective," many have been downgraded. Critics of the new system said the problem did not surprise them.

"Garbage in, garbage out," said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for Fair Test, which opposes excessive testing. "The teacher evaluation system is ideologically driven and not ready for prime time . . . When you rush to put a shoddy system in place, you get ludicrous results."

"We told you so," said Marshall Ogletree, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association.

 And of course the geniuses at the NYSED and the Regents and the NYCDOE are rushing to get our new APPR system in place for this year even though the UFT has yet to come to an agreement on the system, the tests and "local assessments" have yet to be introduced to teachers and students, and the Student Learning Objectives, another component of the evaluation system, have yet to be finalized.

But Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is certain that this system WILL be in place this year and teachers will be evaluated using it.

I am sure there won't be any egregious errors like they had in Florida when the Regents, the NYSED and the local districts rush out a half-baked, unpiloted teacher evaluation system.

And if there are, well, so what?

That seems to be the attitude of these unaccountable education reform leaders all across the country.

Accountability is only for teachers, not for the people who put together half-baked, unpiloted evaluation system based upon error-riddled tests that are meant to be used as a bludgeon to fire thousands of good teachers all across the city simply because they make too much money.

Ravitch says the following:

At some point, after hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted trying to standardize a process that requires human judgement, after thousands of excellent teachers have abandoned a profession they once loved, someone will finally admit that this nutty idea doesn’t work. A chorus will grow from sea to shining sea: teacher quality can’t be judged by student test scores.

 I hope she's right.

Unfortunately I fear there are going to be a lot of ruined careers before we get to that point.

Cuomo Hires TFA/Charter Shill As Education Deputy

Just in case you missed this bit of news this week:

D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education De’Shawn Wright is leaving his post for a new job in New York state, Mayor Vincent Gray announced in a statement Thursday.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) appointed Wright as deputy secretary for education, a top state education post. Wright’s chief of staff, Jennifer Leonard, will begin serving as the interim deputy mayor for education in November.

Wright’s new job is something of a homecoming. He began his career in the late 1990s as a Teach for America corps member in New York City and later worked for the New York City Department of Education.

The departure comes at a critical moment for education in the city, as officials and community members struggle to envision how to plan for the future of both neighborhood schools and fast-growing charter schools.

Wright was charged with leading that planning effort. In January, his office released a controversial study that recommended turning around or closing dozens of D.C. Public Schools and for opening more high-performing charters.

The fix is in here in New York.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, like his fellow education reformer David Coleman, does not give a shit what you think or feel about education policy.

So every time his "reform commission" meets and makes believe that they're listening to stakeholders other than David Coleman and the College Board, Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, Merryl Tisch and K12 Inc., Pearson, and a bunch of hedge fund managers/education reformers, remember who he is hiring for education policy:

A guy who has recommended closing dozens of schools and turning them into "high performing charters" - even though most charter schools are no better than the public schools they replace and many are, in fact, worse.

The fix is in, folks, and Cuomo will be putting a similar plan into place statewide that many cities like Detroit, D.C. and Philadelphia are seeing - mass closures and mass privatization.

Just follow the money (as in who is paying Cuomo off) and follow the people he's hiring to run things.

You don't hire a TFA cult member with a policy track record of preferring massive closing of public schools and opening of privatized charter schools unless that's exactly the kind of policy you want for New York State.

Carol Burris Gives Her Testimony To The Cuomo Education Commission

Via the Answer Sheet, here it is, in full:

This past summer, New York high school Principals Carol Burris and Harry Leonadartos attempted to testify about school reform before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Education Commission in New York City.  They were not given the opportunity to speak, and they wrote about it in this post. Yesterday the commission — which is chaired by former Citibank chairman Dick Parsons — visited Long Island and Burris was allowed to speak. She received a standing ovation when she was done. Below is her testimony.

Burris is the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre, New York and a co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student scores. Over 1,500 New York principals and more than 5,400 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens have signed the letter which can be found here.

Testimony by Carol Burris:
Thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre. I was an assistant principal, a teacher, a school board member and a board president. I am but one of many dedicated educators on Long Island. A remarkable 33% of all of the Reward Schools in the State of New York are in Nassau and Suffolk counties. If Long Island were a state, we would be first in the nation.
Long Island is also where the principals’ letter in opposition to APPR, the evaluation system, began. That letter is signed by 80% of all of Long Island’s principals along with more than 1500 other principals across the state, and thousands of parents and teachers. We are not afraid to be evaluated nor are we afraid to evaluate our teachers — those who claim we are simply “anxious” do not know us at all.

 In the testimony which I submitted, I explain why APPR will not improve teaching and will negatively impact the learning of our students. Rather than repeat that reasoning, Mr. Chairman, I would pose this scenario instead. Suppose the legislature decided that the solution to the financial crisis was to mandate an evaluation system for every loan officer in the state, even mandating a value added metric to be used. Suppose that 80% of your best managers and vice presidents told you that using that inaccurate metric was going to hurt, not help Citibank. Mr. Chairman, would you have complied, or would you have resisted in order to save your bank?

The obsession with test based evaluations of students, schools and teachers is tearing the schools we love apart. Something is very wrong when nine year olds sit for tests that are longer than the SAT and the Graduate Record Examination combined.

Something is wrong when policymakers contemplate tests for kindergarteners to predict whether they are on the path to college readiness.

Something is wrong when my students must take a pre-test comprised of Regents Physics questions BEFORE they have taken the course, so that their teachers can be evaluated.

Thank goodness my school does not offer sky diving! It sounds irrational — it is. Worst of all, taxpayer dollars and instructional days are being wasted.

Parents get it. They are opting out of testing. From Niagara Falls to Long Island they are uniting against the proliferation of standardized tests, and test based reform.

At the same time, the most critical reasons for poor student achievement are being ignored. As I documented in my testimony, New York is ranked number 4 in inequitable funding. Among the states in the Northeast, New York State is #1 in childhood poverty. We are at the top of the list for racially and socioeconomically segregated schooling.

I ask you to recommend that the millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars used for multi-day testing, test security and shredding, APPR and the creation of student data systems be dedicated instead to wrap around services for poor children and to fund excellent pre-schools and to the classrooms of New York that need it the most.

I ask you to recommend that the governor visit Long Island Schools and study just how well disadvantaged students can do if their school is not overwhelmed and has sufficient resources.

Some of the best schools in the nation are here on Long Island. In our schools that have ample support systems and not extraordinary poverty, students who receive free or reduced price lunch excel.

I understand that it is far more popular to blame teachers, tenure, unions, and principals. However, by ignoring the core reasons — that account for 85% of the variance in student performance — you do not make things better, and you risk making our schools worse as dollars flow to the wrong solutions.

I thank you for your service on this committee. I truly appreciate your visit to Long Island. Come visit our schools and speak with our teachers and us. We understand quality and we practice it. Thank you for considering my testimony.

Of course Cuomo, Tisch and King won't care about any of this.  They would rather blame teachers, principals, schools, unions and tenure for the problems in schools.

But Burris, the other principals who signed the letter, and everybody else who is fighting APPR are putting the people in charge on notice - the solutions being proposed and put into place are more damaging than the problems themselves.

Take the money going to all these so-called "reforms" and put them to wrap-around services for the schools and students that need it the most and you go a long way toward solving the problems in the school system.

That common sense solution is not very sexy.

No one gets fired.

So-called reformers like Klein and Rhee do not get to thunder about all the "bad teachers" who need to be swept out into the ocean via a broom.

But what Burris says is the truth.

It's a shame that so-called Democrats like Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama are unwilling to here this message.

Pearson's Standardized Tests Are Flawed And Useless

Bombshell report in the NY Times on standardized testing:

In 2006, a math pilot program for middle school students in a Dallas-area district returned surprising results.

The students’ improved grasp of mathematical concepts stunned Walter Stroup, the University of Texas at Austin professor behind the program. But at the end of the year, students’ scores had increased only marginally on state standardized TAKS tests, unlike what Mr. Stroup had seen in the classroom.

A similar dynamic showed up in a comparison of the students’ scores on midyear benchmark tests and what they received on their end-of-year exams. Standardized test scores the previous year were better predictors of their scores the next year than the benchmark test they had taken a few months earlier.

Now, in studies that threaten to shake the foundation of high-stakes test-based accountability, Mr. Stroup and two other researchers said they believe they have found the reason: a glitch embedded in the DNA of the state exams that, as a result of a statistical method used to assemble them, suggests they are virtually useless at measuring the effects of classroom instruction.

Pearson, which has a five-year, $468 million contract to create the state’s tests through 2015, uses “item response theory” to devise standardized exams, as other testing companies do. Using I.R.T., developers select questions based on a model that correlates students’ ability with the probability that they will get a question right.

That produces a test that Mr. Stroup said is more sensitive to how it ranks students than to measuring what they have learned. That design flaw also explains why Richardson students’ scores on the previous year’s TAKS test were a better predictor of performance on the next year’s TAKS test than the benchmark exams were, he said. The benchmark exams were developed by the district, the TAKS by the testing company.

Mr. Stroup, who is preparing to submit the findings to multiple research journals, presented them in June at a meeting of the Texas House Public Education Committee. He said he was aware of their implications for a widely used and accepted method of developing tests, and for how the state evaluates public schools.

“I’ve thought about being wrong,” Mr. Stroup said. “I’d love if everyone could say, ‘You are wrong, everything’s fine,’ ” he said. “But these are hundreds and hundreds of numbers that we’ve run now.”

...

Mr. Stroup’s research comes as opposition to high-stakes standardized testing in Texas is creating an alliance between parents, educators and school leaders who wonder how the tests affect classroom instruction and small-government conservatives who question the expense and bureaucracy they impose.

...

State Representative Scott Hochberg, Democrat of Houston, led the charge against the measure and has since proposed legislation aimed at reforming the role of standardized testing because of data showing that a student’s test score on the first year highly predicted it for the next.

“I have for a long time said that the accountability system doesn’t give us all the information that the numbers are used to generate,” Mr. Hochberg said, adding that basing accountability “more on the kid’s history than the specifics of what happened in the classroom that year may make us feel good but it doesn’t give us any true information.”

Great - the tests are flawed, but they're using them to make high stakes decisions on students, teachers and schools in states all over the nation, thanks to the Obama administration and the corporate education reform movement, led by the Gates Foundation.

Fantastic!

And how much money will Pearson and all the vendors who provide testing materials and test prep make off these flawed measurements and tests?

Somewhere between $20 billion and $50 billion.

This isn't just a travesty - it's criminal.

And yet, here in NY State Governor Cuomo and his education brain trust have decided that standardized tests are the only measure of teacher performance in the classroom and plan to add dozens of standardized tests a year not to measure student performance but rather to measure teacher performance.

Again, fantastic!

One wonders just how much money Pearson is throwing around to get these deals with the states for all this testing.

We know they bribed the former NYSED Commissioner David Steiner.

We know too that Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has family in the test prep business, so she stands to benefit from all this testing too (We also know the parent company of her brother-in-law's test prep company is being investigated for securities fraud.)

As for current NYSED Commissioner John King, hard to know if he's taken any bribes from Pearson, but we do know that he has navigated quite a career from teacher to charter school leader to NYSED bureaucrat to youngest NYSED commissioner ever.

It doesn't hurt John King's career trajectory that he is such a promoter of standardized testing. In fact, one might think that's exactly how he's risen so fast in education leadership circles - he's happy to shill a corporate education reform agenda, including a heavy emphasis on test-based accountability systems.

I suspect that this study won't change anything here in NY State because the standardized testing train has already left the station and is barreling down the track at too fast a speed to be stopped.

We will spend a few years closing more schools, firing more teachers and leaving more kids back based on these flawed tests and measurements, all the while feeding Pearson scarce resources to do the crappy job they do with these things.

Too bad the AFT didn't jump off the standardized testing train years before, when we could have stopped these plans from being implemented (though it's nice to have them on record now acknowledging the harms that high stakes testing does.)

Unfortunately, I think it is now too late.

We will just have to pick up the pieces after it becomes apparent to the public the harm that is being done by the high stakes accountability system.

If it becomes apparent.

There is a lot of money to be made by the testing companies, the tech companies, the politicians, the education "consultants," and the rest of the education infrastructure with the Common Core Federal Standards, the new federal tests that will be rolled out as part of the CCFS, and the state and district tests that have been mandated as part of new teacher evaluation systems in many states.

You can bet these stakeholders will try and keep the high stakes standardized testing gravy train going for as long as they can - and they'll get lots of help from the corporate media, many of whom are stakeholders themselves.

Remember, the Washington Post owns Kaplan and News Corporation is in the for profit education game as well.

As I like to write all the time when talking about the financial markets, it's all rigged.

It's all rigged.

And there's so much money involved in this game that the boys and girls making it aren't going to want to unrig it any time soon.

Are Cuomo And The Committee To Save New York On The Take From The Testing And Charter Industries?

When David Coleman, the man who helped craft the Common Core State Standards, goes off to work for a high stakes testing company and cashes in for $750,000 a year (before bonuses and other largesse), you know that there's gold in them there standardized testing hills for those who do the work of Pearson, the College Board, et al. in promoting the Endless Testing agenda.

Leonie Haimson touches on that in her Schoolbook piece on the ravages of Pearson and Endless Testing:

Many of us fear that our state and federal education bureaucracy is becoming inextricably tangled with for-profit testing companies and thus deeply compromised, like the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of just before he retired. Their testing obsession is undermining our schools, not only in this city, but nationally, and it has got to stop. This is the ultimate lesson of Pineapplegate, and one that our political leaders should pay attention to, before it is too late.

This is always the danger when you have these very wealthy, powerful interests pushing their agendas and paying off the policymakers and the state education bureaucrats to do their bidding.

Remember, Pearson, the state's test vendor, is under investigation for bribing state officials (including former NYSED Commissioner David Steiner) with trips and other gifts in return for state testing contracts.

Any connection between the money Pearson spent on state ed officials and the fact Pearson won the state testing contract?

As Arsenio used to say, things that make you say "Hmmm..."

In a similar vein, it was revealed this week that Governor Cuomo's Committee To Save New York has taken $2 million dollars from overseas gambling interests at the same time that Governor Cuomo decided to legalize gambling in the state and push a pro-gambling agenda for those interests.

The Committee To Save New York then laundered that money from gambling interests (along with money from other business interests) for Cuomo's benefit, using it to run pro-Cuomo, anti-union ads during the budget fight.

Given how pro-testing and pro-charter Governor Cuomo is, it behooves us to ask how much money has the Committee To Save New York (a group run by business and real estate interests that is nothing but a front for Cuomo) taken from the for-profit testing and charter companies to promote their agendas?

It's not as if Cuomo hasn't taken millions from business interests to do their bidding before.

Remember, Cuomo had said little about education when he was attorney general of the state and running for governor - until he met the hedge fund managers and business interests who make up the Democrats For Education Reform and took a suitcase full of cash from them.

Right after that, Cuomo began promoting an agenda that was very much the same one Democrats For Education Reform push.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that what has happened with the gambling interests has also happened with the testing and charter interests too, but we can't know how much money the Committee To Save New York (and thus Governor Cuomo) has taken from the testing and charter interests because the group does not have to disclose where they get their donations from.

In other words, the governor who loves to point out all the unethical behavior in Albany and who set up a group of business and real estate interests to help him "clean up Albany" refuses to disclose who is funding that group or what agendas these donors are pushing.

How non-transparent and hypocritical that is!

New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics is looking to change that and force Cuomo to reveal who's paying CSNY (and thus Cuomo) to promote their agendas:

ALBANY —New York state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics is scheduled to hold a public hearing that goes to the heart of a conflict involving Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a $2 million check from casino operators to a lobbying that supports him.

Good-government groups and lobbyists' attorneys are expected to testify at Thursday's hearing in Albany as JCOPE (JAYE'-kohp) draws up regulations that will divulge the six- and seven-figure donors for the Committee to Save New York.

That's the group of business leaders that became Albany's most powerful lobbying force and runs TV ad campaigns supporting Cuomo's policies and accomplishments.

Cuomo of course opposes having to disclose where the CSNY money is coming from.

Transparency, like accountability, is for the little people, not Governor Cuomo.

We do know that the Committee To Save New York has pulled in $17.5 million in donations in 2011 alone, far more than any other lobbying group in the state.

Under the ethics law passed last year, groups are supposed to reveal their donors, but NYPIRG says it's not clear when these new regulations will take effect, so we may never know who gave money to CSNY (particularly if Cuomo decides to close them before the regulations take effect.)

Businessweek reports that it's most probable that Cuomo will never have to reveal who gave money to him through CSNY.

Until we get a glimpse of who is donating to CSNY and helping the group run pro-Cuomo ads, we can't know if Cuomo is on the take from the pro-testing and pro-charter interests, as he has been on the take from the overseas gambling interests.

But we do know that the Committee To Save New York board is loaded with business and real estate interests who often support and/or profit from the testing and charter industries, so it is certainly a good possibility that the testing and charter industries have either directly contributed to CSNY or steered money to the group through some subsidiary in order to get Cuomo to do their bidding for them.

The website the Committee To Save New York runs is called "LetsFixAlbany.org".

If we want to fix Albany, the first thing we ought to do is force CSNY and Cuomo to reveal who's paying them.

The next thing we ought to do is watch Governor Cuomo very, very closely.

There's a reason why the hedge fundies and Wall Streeters and business interests wanted Eliot Spitzter destroyed but wanted to set up a PAC to praise Andrew Cuomo and run ads for him.

And it's not because Andy is such a good guy.

It's because he does what the hedge fundies and Wall Streeters and business interests want.