Same Old Same Old: Cuomo Rakes In Charter School Supporter Cash

Bill Mahoney at Politico NY:

ALBANY – In the first year of the 2018 gubernatorial election cycle, the list of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s largest donors is dominated by hedge funders and real estate developers.

...

This list is topped by hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, who has written two $500,000 checks to the party that has spent a huge share of its money supporting Cuomo in recent years. In 2013, the state Democrats’ housekeeping account spent millions buying advertisements that boosted the governor’s agenda, the next year, 86 percent of its independent expenditures were on Cuomo’s behalf.

Druckenmiller has been a major supporter of charter schools. So has Paul Tudor Jones, the second largest donor to committees controlled by the governor ($10,000 to Cuomo and $500,000 to the Democrats). Tudor Jones was a supporter of a pro-charter Super PAC that helped Republicans retain control of the Senate in 2014.


Hedge fund Renaissance Technologies founder James Simons, whose $1.65 million to the Democrats’ campaign committees was enough to earn a spot as their top donor in the last election cycle, continued to financially support Cuomo. Simons, who made a $150 million gift to SUNY Stony Brook in 2011 that was contingent on tuition hikes, gave the party $300,000 and the governor $45,000 in 2015, placing him third for the year.

Other large hedge fund donors included Joel and Julia Greenblatt, who gave Cuomo $60,000 apiece, and Daniel and Margaret Loeb ($88,000 total), who hosted a July fundraiser for the governor.

Greenblatt, Tudor Jones, Druckenmiller, Loeb - all charter school supporters and education "reformers."

But there are some new reformer names to the Cuomo donation list too:

Cuomo’s new donors also include the founders of collaborative office renter WeWork, Miguel McKelvey ($50,000) and Adam Neumann ($25,000; Neumann’s wife gave an additional $25,000). Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton gave Cuomo $60,800 in November, and Jackie Bezos, the mother of Amazon’s founder, gave $15,000 in July.  

Walton is of course a charter school supporter and education reformer backer.

So is Jeff Bezos.

That Bezos' mother gave money to Andrew Cuomo - well, that is interesting, isn't it?

Not much has changed post-Silver/post-Skelos for Cuomo.

He continues to rake in the big bucks from hedge fundies and real estate developers, much of it through LLC's that allow donors to skirt individual limits.

The only change is Glenwood Management - once Cuomo's biggest donor, but since the firm and it's top political bagman wound up at the center of the Silver and Skelos corruption cases, they have given nothing to Cuomo.

Cuomo Looking To Create A Special Charter School District

Buried at the bottom of this Buffalo News piece about how Governor Cuomo has "turned" on education policy is this doozy:

Cuomo has also expressed interest in Buffalo, at one point calling for a “death penalty” for schools and districts that fail to meet state standards. Last year, he was involved in conversations about mayoral control of the district, and was the force behind the new receivership law that provides a mechanism for turning individual schools over to outside entities. Some in reform circles say the law fell short by not creating a mechanism for the state to take over entire districts.

There is current speculation that the governor, who has enjoyed significant financial and political support in reform circles, may be looking to push for a charter district during the next legislative session. That would involve turning a portion of district schools over to an outside entity, although it is not clear whether it would be a charter school.

“One of the things the corporate reformers would like to see is the takeover of an entire district,” said Easton of AQE. “They want whole districts.”

With Cuomo's job approval numbers in the toilet (and they're still there - a new Siena poll out today has his approval down again) and his numbers on education even lower, he cannot try to push this kind of thing statewide without taking a political hit.

But to do it in a "struggling" district like Buffalo?

That's safe territory:

“The national and statewide politics have taken a U-turn because of pure voter sentiment,” said David C. Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. “The astounding 20 percent opt-out rate was a wake-up call that he had misread the electorate. It’s quite obvious that parents who vote in great numbers are aligned with the teachers’ position.”

...

Cuomo’s evolving education message, however, carries ramifications for other state leaders who embraced his earlier mantra, chief among them the new state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, who built her reputation on school reform.

It also could shift more focus to struggling urban school districts such as Buffalo, where Cuomo still could push for heavy-handed reforms, but alienate fewer voters than he would by forcing statewide changes.

“I don’t think he has any idea about education policy or proclivity about education policy,” Bloomfield said. “It’s all about politics.”

Indeed it is about the politics and Cuomo has a bunch of hedge fund managers/education reformers to make happy in return for all those yummy yummy political donations they give.

He cannot abandon reform completely, though he has signaled "retreat" on some things like teacher evaluations and testing (though it remains to be seen how real that "retreat" actually - so far, Cuomo has not released his education policy proposals for the next year.)

Thus going full speed ahead on reform in a place like Buffalo, where he won't take a hit politically from the suburban moms and dads pissed off about Common Core and the Endless Testing regime, looks to be the plan for the next year or so.

Barring criminal charges against him, of course.

If you're a teacher in Buffalo, look out.

Be Skeptical Of Those Changes To Education That Cuomo Is Said To Be Considering

So says Fred LeBrun, writing about that NY Times piece that reported Andrew Cuomo is said to be thinking about "decoupling" test scores from his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system:

We're being told Gov. Andrew Cuomo is prepared to contradict himself and reverse course on tying public school teacher evaluations to student test scores.

The suggestion has been planted that behind the scenes the governor is now pushing for a significant decoupling of test scores to teacher evaluations.

It seems even a total delinking is under discussion, a 180 degree shift from his imposed law passed this spring hardwiring a teacher's survival to student scores on state mandated Common Core driven tests.

...

If what we're being told is true, this reversal by the governor would be a long overdue triumph of common sense over ideological idiocy.

If.

We'll believe it when we see the law changed. A recurring observation about our sitting governor is that he can't be trusted. He'll say anything, but what he means and really hopes to achieve is often hard to decipher and more often than not, a study in misdirection.

LeBrun points out that the best way for the governor to change education policy is to go back to the Legislature and have the law changed - but Cuomo won't do that:

In the Times story, Malatras tellingly dismisses the strategy of asking the Legislature to change the language of the law when it comes to setting the percentage and makeup of test scores counting for teacher evaluations.

''There's just no need to go back to the Legislature,'' Malatras told the Times, because the State Education Department (SED) ''has the ability to dial up and dial down all sorts of things in the regulations.'' This is the opposite of what we're hearing from the Board of Regents and State Ed, which have said repeatedly the language of the Cuomo statute gives them very little wiggle room for maneuvering.

So what's Cuomo doing?

Perhaps another one of those head fakes that is made to fool you into thinking he's making substantive changes when he's really not making substantive changes:

Now the buzzword being sent up the flagpole by the governor, through Malatras, is ''moratorium.'' Putting a moratorium on the use of test scores in evaluations. But a moratorium is merely a sophisticated pause, and not substantive change.

When the NY Times story first went up, I expressed skepticism about the changes Cuomo was supposed to be considering, as did many Perdido Street School blog readers who left comments.

Fred LeBrun, an astute observer of Albany politics in general and Andrew Cuomo in particular, is skeptical too.

Here's the reality: Cuomo wants to make it look like he's pushing for substantive policy changes to education in order to assuage the 220,000+ who opted their children out of the state tests last school year.

He also wants to continue to make his hedge fund manager/education reformer donors, the ones who paid him for the education reform agenda he's pushing, happy.

So, a head fake from the governor is in order - talk a good game about substantive changes to education policy, but make sure the education laws that are now on the books, including APPR, are not changed, but rather "tweaked" via NYSED dictate.

No matter - if Cuomo thinks parents and teachers will be fooled by a "moratorium" on using test scores in APPR or tweaks to Common Core (like renaming the standards but keeping the "core"), he's got another thing coming.

As LeBrun writes:

The governor in the past has recognized this when he's called for a ''complete reboot.'' The old boots need to be thrown out.

Now we wait to see what the governor's task force has to say, which is the governor in thin disguise, and what the newly invigorated Board of Regents and the state Assembly come up with. Which better materialize into new law that rewrites Common Core and teacher evaluations.

Because you can be sure Opt Out will not be fooled. 

Indeed, Opt Out will not be fooled.

But that doesn't mean that corrupt Governor Cuomo, a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Hedge Fund Managers For Education Reform, won't try anyway.

Time For Another Hedge Fund Manager-Funded Pro-Common Core Ad Buy

From State of Politics:

High Achievement New York, a group that has been supportive of Common Core, is launching a six-figure radio campaign aimed at boosting support for the education standards.

The campaign, set to run through December, is being launched as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s task force convened to study and potentially recommend changes to the standards is concluding its round of public hearings.

In the ad, two Buffalo teachers discuss their support for the standards, saying they “are working” for students.

“But opponents want to pull the rug out on teachers,” says teacher Lucy Mendola in the spot.

Teacher Heather McCarthy adds: “Help us strengthen New York Standards, not dismantle them.” 

The ads will be targeted for audiences in New York City, the Capital Region, Buffalo and Rochester.

This isn't the first time pro-Common Core ad buys have run.

They haven't worked in the past.

I have a difficult time seeing these work either - the polling is pretty clear in its trends where the public at large stands on Common Core.

But there is a strategy, perhaps, behind the ads:

The spot...directs listeners to the task force’s comments page as well as the Department of Education’s feedback survey.

NYSED has already been touting its CCSS survey, the one that takes intimate knowledge of the standards and hours to fill out, as proof positive New Yorkers love them some Common Core.

Perhaps Hedge Fund, er, High Achievement New York wants to juice the numbers even more by directing people to that survey.

Then they'll point to the survey to say New Yorkers don't want any changes to the Common Core.

Perhaps this is all part of Cuomo's plan to make it look like changes are coming to the state's education policy when no real change is coming.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some coordination between the group and the Cuomo administration, since the backers of High Achievement come from the same place as his donor class, and Cuomo has been known to coordinate with ed deformers before (see here, for example.)

Campbell Brown Surfaces In Dean/Adam Skelos Corruption Case Wiretaps

From the Politico NY morning email update on education:

SURPRISE GUEST IN THE DEAN SKELOS TAPES: CAMPBELL BROWN: 

From phone call between Adam and Dean Skelos Dec. 14. 2014:  

“AS: What are you up to?  

DS: Um going into the city. Meeting with some billionaires.  

AS: Who are you meeting with?  

DS: On school tax credit stuff. Campbell Brown.  

AS: Oh. Ok.  

DS. A reporter, former reporter. 

AS: Dad, you gotta take these names down….All I need is contacts. I’ll take care of the rest.” 

(Dean laughs)

Some billionaires and Campbell Brown meet with crooked Dean Skelos over "school tax credit stuff".

Love it.

Maybe they could have gotten exactly what they wanted on the "school tax credit stuff"" if they had provided Adam Skelos with a no-show job at Families for Excellent Schools.

Just so long as they didn't ask him to, you know, show up for work.

Charter School Shills With Ties To Cuomo Plan To "Bankroll" Bid To Destroy De Blasio

Anybody else think this idea came straight from Cuomo?

Ken Lovett of the Daily News reports the following:

ALBANY — Business bigwigs — some with ties to Gov. Cuomo — have begun discussing the possibility of bankrolling an early effort to go after Mayor de Blasio in hopes of further weakening him in advance of the 2017 elections, sources say.

Home Depot founder Ken Langone, who once headed a “Republicans for Cuomo” effort, had private preliminary discussions last week about the idea of putting together a group to help raise money and coordinate a public campaign designed to chip away at the mayor, sources said.

...

The idea is to capitalize on de Blasio’s weaknesses early enough to make it easier for a challenger to come forward, several said.

Langone, in discussions with several business cronies, offered to immediately pony up a significant amount of money toward the effort if the others do the same, one insider said.


Besides Langone, who did not return a call for comment, others mentioned as potentially getting involved in the effort are billionaire Paul Singer, a big-time Republican donor who helped Cuomo in the effort to legalize gay marriage in 2011, and Tudor Investment Corp. founder Paul Tudor Jones.

Several hedge-fund backers of the pro-charter school movement — which has had close ties to Cuomo — like Dan Loeb have also been mentioned as possibly being part of the effort. Singer, Jones and Loeb could not be reached for comment.

I'll remind readers that when Eva Moskowitz was at odds with Bill de Blasio over the DOE's rejection of three Success Academy co-locations, it was Andrew Cuomo himself who suggested to Moskowitz she hold a big Albany rally that he would speak at in order to weaken de Blasio.

Considering the ties the names mentioned in the Lovett column have to Cuomo, it's reasonable to think Cuomo's got a hand in this latest effort as well.

Make no mistake, the charter school shills want City Hall back 100% in their corner and they're going to do everything they can to ensure that happens.

Looks like that may be happening with Cuomo's help.

Education System Indoctrinates Children For A Life Of Stress, Pressure And Fear

One of the goals of education reform is to have both students and teachers under constant stress and pressure, working long hours with little free time to think "Hey, is this good for me?"

Mission accomplished:

Many American high school students don't sleep enough. They're tested too often and overburdened with homework and activities. They're stressed out.

So says "Overloaded and Underprepared," the latest book to chronicle how teenage life has changed. Rarely do today's high schoolers engage in unstructured activities, the book says. Rarely do they get to let their imaginations or bodies wander.

...

Recently, a parent of a Bethlehem Central High School student told me that many kids there no longer take a lunch break. They skip it to stuff an extra class into the day and instead eat at their desks.

...

"There's a large number of our students who do take advantage of that option," said Sabre Sarnataro, a spokewoman for the Bethlehem school district, who added that students could only forgo their lunch period with parental permission.

...

But allowing kids to multitask through a meal doesn't encourage healthy eating habits. Plus, we need time to decompress. Our brains work better when they're not overloaded.

"Students of all ages need times during the day to switch gears, take much-needed breaks and refuel," say Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles, authors of "Overloaded and Unprepared," which urges schools to consider schedules that are more humane.

Breaks? Time to refuel?

No!!!!!!

That's time that could be used for academic activities, test prep or after school activities:

The authors sketch a typical day for students at high-achieving high schools. It begins at 6:15 a.m., when many students awake for a school day that starts before 8 a.m.

Then it's go, go, go, with extracurricular activities and three to four hours of homework filling the time after classes. Many teens, the authors say, don't get to sleep until almost midnight.

Which means they're perpetually sleep-deprived.

"Studies show that 80 percent of teenagers don't get the recommended amount of sleep," the authors write. "At least 28 percent fall asleep in school and 22 percent fall asleep doing homework."

The piece notes that this is about "high-achieving students" in "high-performing schools," that students in "low-performing schools" might actually need a little "pressure to succeed."

The truth is, these days in many so-called "low-achieving schools," that pressure is there for kids, it's just that they may not respond to it the same way the kids in the "high-performing schools" do.

I see it every work day, students behind in credits and/or state tests given a 7 and 1/2 hour class schedule, no lunch (instead they take a class), test prep both during and after school five days a week.

A very, very small number of those students are able to succeed at that schedule (sometimes after doing it for a year or more), but many just simply give up, stop coming to school or continue to come to school but walk through the day like a zombie.

You see it in charter schools too, with the ten hour school day and the intense pressure to "succeed" such that students fear going to the bathroom during the school day and soil themselves instead.

The idea that it's only "high-achieving students" in "high-performing schools" who are "overburdened" yet "unprepared" for life is erroneous.

The pressures and stresses in schools across the spectrum might be variegated, but they're there.

And this has always been one of the goals of education reform - to use FEAR (of success, of failure, of the future, of economic opportunity) to have students and staff stress themselves out overworking and overburdening themselves such that they can't wonder why the system is the way it is and whether it can be changed or not.

What's the value of a culture that privileges a sociopath like Eva Moskowitz who makes kids so fear asking to go to the bathroom during the school day that they soil themselves or a sociopath like KIPP's David Levin who brags about working 80 hour+ work weeks and only seeing his kid on Sundays?

Oh, but this is "high-achieving," right?

High-achieving at what?

What kind of life do Americans live these days, in FEAR for their careers, their livelihoods, their financial stability, their financial futures, their retirements?

The primary force behind education reform is Wall Street, which, not coincidentally, is also the primary force behind the economic instability and uncertainty that Americans face in 2015.

As the Masters of the Universe suck up more and more of the money and resources in this country, they leave less for the rest of us, forcing more and more people to struggle to get their part of a smaller and smaller pot.

Then these same Masters of the Universe fund an education reform movement that brainwashes children to see that struggle as the natural order of things without giving them the time or critical thinking skills to challenge it.

Gee, isn't that convenient?

It's all rigged, folks, it's all rigged.

The wealthy sociopaths and Wall Street criminals have got many people thinking this is the only way things can be so of course they must play the game even if it's killing them.

And you can bet it's killing lots of people - first on the inside, in their souls, and then later physically, with health ailments.

Luckily the Masters of the Universe run Big Pharma, so they've got a plethora of pills you can take to get you through those physical and emotional health ailments.

And isn't that convenient too?

Oh, but if you'd rather just stuff your FEAR with an addiction, well, the Masters will have no problem if you use food, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, or credit cards to stuff your feelings.

They make money off that stuff too.

Isn't that convenient?

It's all rigged, from the b.s. about the inevitability of globalization (we just can't fight it, we must join it!) to the jive behind education reform, to socialize Americans to believe this is the only way things can be, this is the natural order of things, and by golly, you had better start fighting for yourself and your family now or you'll be left behind.

What a screwed up culture America is.

All this "rigor" in the school system, yet most kids grow up without the critical thinking skills to see how badly they're getting screwed or the ability to step outside the system even if they do have an epiphany.

For, what real skills get taught in the Era of Education Reform?

What really gets taught in schools these days except indoctrination into a system that is killing us?

But on the plus side, at least kids will know how to eat lunch at their desks.

I mean, there's a skill that will come in handy in 21st Century America.

Eva Moskowitz Cries Poverty Even As She Rakes In Tens Of Millions Of Dollars In Hedge Fund Donations

Remember when Eva Moskowitz declared it an existential crisis if charter schools were forced to pay for co-locations or God forbid, had to find their own space?

I do.

Today Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY reports the following:

The Success Academy charter school network has received an $8.5 million donation from the philanthropic foundation of John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager.

The donation, which was announced on Thursday, will be used to build new Success elementary, middle and high schools.

The network is expanding significantly, with 14 new schools opening in the next few years. By 2020, the network will have about 50 schools educating about 36,000 students.

...

The network's critics, some of whom are allied with teachers' unions, have assailed its close ties to hedge fund managers. The new donation is sure to give those groups more ammunition, although Moskowitz has said that charity goes to an array of worthy goals, including education. Success raised $9.3 million at its most recent benefit, almost exclusively from financiers.

That's $9.3 million at the spring benefit and $8.5 million from Paulson for a cool $17.8 million dollars from just two events - the benefit and Paulson's largesse.

Add in the $9.7 million pro-charter Families for Excellent Schools spent lobbying and carrying Moskowitz's water in Albany and in the media and you have Moskowitz doing pretty good for herself despite that existential crisis she declared if mean ol' Bill de Blasio forced her to pay rent for co-locations or pay for private space on her own dime.

If Moskowitz can raise this kind of money in so brief a period, isn't it time she pull her own weight and stop taking money away from New York City's public school children?

Michael Mulgrew: Governor Cuomo Is For Sale

Much of this isn't new information about how education reformers are rigging the political system, having been covered well by others including Chris Bragg in the Times Union on Sunday and Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY in February, but now the NY Times has it too.

Read the whole piece, but I just want to highlight the part that relates to the governor:

Among the backers of StudentsFirstNY are major donors to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, and to the Republican majority in the State Senate, two of the three parties to all negotiations. Emails and interviews show that StudentsFirstNY has been in regular contact with the governor’s office since his re-election.

At the same time, the two groups have become a major nuisance to Mr. Bloomberg’s successor as mayor, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, who campaigned on reversing some of his predecessor’s policies and is friendly with the city teachers’ union.

The groups have delivered a drumbeat of attacks on Mr. de Blasio’s education policies, in television advertisements, rallies where parents upbraid the mayor for not confronting what they call an education crisis, and weekly, or at times daily, emails to reporters. Amid this onslaught, Mr. Cuomo and the Senate delivered a rebuke to the mayor this year by agreeing to only a one-year extension of mayoral control of city schools. (By contrast, Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent, was initially given control for seven years, then received a renewal for six.)

In language that echoed that of important figures in both groups, Mr. Cuomo suggested that Mr. de Blasio had to earn the right to govern the city’s schools.

“Next year we can come back,” the governor said, “and if he does a good job, then we can say he should have more control.”

The governor speaking in reformyist terms with language coming straight from the reformers?

You don't say.

Here's more:

Making teacher evaluations more dependent on test scores, reforming tenure and increasing the number of charter schools in the city were all priorities of StudentsFirstNY and became significant pieces of the governor’s agenda for the 2015 legislative session, which he announced in his State of the State speech on Jan. 21.

Emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Law, as well as interviews, show that Mr. Cuomo and his senior education advisers were in close touch, by email and telephone, with Ms. Sedlis and her board members in the weeks after the governor’s re-election last November.

On Dec. 9, for example, the governor met with Ms. Sedlis and several of her board members at the Harvard Club to discuss education policy issues, a spokesman for StudentsFirstNY said.

...

The governor’s proposals, particularly one that would base 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations on their students’ test scores, stirred fierce opposition from state and local teachers’ unions, as well as many principals and parents.

“If you look at the governor’s State of the State speech, it was almost taken word for word from their website,” Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said of StudentsFirstNY.

“We’re going to just tell everyone the governor is basically for sale at this point, because that’s what it is,” Mr. Mulgrew added. “It’s not a belief system.”

For once, I agree with Mulgrew.

Must be a blue moon out there.

In any case, the article details some of the money the hedge fundies have given to Cuomo and state Senate Republicans to pass their education reform agenda, covers the record "shadowy" millions Families For Excellent Schools has spent on lobbying without disclosing who's donating to them and points out that this is probably all legal because of the way the law is in New York.

If you've been following Cuomo and his hedge fundie/reformer buddies, you know they've had a close relationship for years.

As Cuomo began his run for governor, he met some hedge fund managers/education reformers at what was billed as not a "formal fundraiser," just a meet-and-greet where some hedge fund managers/education reformers could get together and talk reform with Candidate Cuomo.

Cuomo left with plenty of promises for future campaign cash:

 After hearing from Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Williams arranged an 8 a.m. meeting last month at the Regency Hotel, that favorite spot for power breakfasts, between Mr. Cuomo and supporters of his committee, Democrats for Education Reform, who include the founders of funds like Anchorage Capital Partners, with $8 billion under management; Greenlight Capital, with $6.8 billion; and Pershing Square Capital Management, with $5.5 billion.

Although the April 9 breakfast with Mr. Cuomo was not a formal fund-raiser, the hedge fund managers have been wielding their money to influence educational policy in Albany, particularly among Democrats, who control both the Senate and the Assembly but have historically been aligned with the teachers unions.

...

Mr. Cuomo also has expressed support for charter schools. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to answer questions about the breakfast at the Regency, but Mr. Williams said it had gone well.

“We said we were looking for a leader on our particular issue,” he said, and as a result, when Mr. Cuomo is next required to disclose his contributors, “You will see a bunch of our people on the filing.”

When Eva Moskowitz was playing victim for having a couple of Success Academy school co-locations turned down by the NYCDOE, it was Andrew Cuomo himself who suggested a big Albany rally to stick it to de Blasio and make sure charters got either guaranteed co-locations or rent for space paid for by NYC:

It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had gone to the capital to court lawmakers, but despite a boisterous showing by parents, there seemed to be little clarity about the future of their schools.

Then, as they were preparing to head home, an intermediary called with a message: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet.

To their surprise, Mr. Cuomo offered them 45 minutes of his time, in a private conference room. He told them he shared their concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambivalence toward charter schools and offered to help, according to a person who attended but did not want to be identified as having compromised the privacy of the meeting.

In the days that followed, the governor’s interest seemed to intensify. He instructed charter advocates to organize a large rally in Albany, the person said. The advocates delivered, bringing thousands of parents and students, many of them black, Hispanic, and from low-income communities, to the capital in early March, and eclipsing a pivotal rally for Mr. de Blasio taking place at virtually the same time.

The moment proved to be a turning point, laying the groundwork for a deal reached last weekend that gave New York City charter schools some of the most sweeping protections in the nation, including a right to space inside public buildings. And interviews with state and city officials as well as education leaders make it clear that far from being a mere cheerleader, the governor was a potent force at every turn, seizing on missteps by the mayor, a fellow Democrat, and driving legislation from start to finish.

Mr. Cuomo’s office declined on Wednesday to comment on his role.

The coordination between the reformers and Cuomo was evident before he was elected and has continued to this day, with reformers and their backers spending handsomely to donate to either Cuomo or some of the shadowy groups that push his agenda (Families for Excellent Schools is one of the current groups, but let's not forget the Committee To Save New York, the PAC that pushed Cuomo's agenda with millions of dollars in ads before it shut down when the law was changed and it would have had to reveal its donor base.)

Cuomo is as corrupt as can be, completely in the pockets of the hedge fund managers and education reformers, but given the way the laws are written here in New York, much (or all) of this corruption is legal, depending upon how you parse it.

To that end, Families for Excellent Schools hired the former state regulator on lobbying to oversee their lobbying operation so that they know exactly where the line of legality and bribery is:

Families for Excellent Schools, which spent $1.6 million on New York lobbying so far this year, has an issue-oriented nonprofit arm that would have to disclose its benefactors. But the group does almost all its lobbying through its apolitical arm, which does not have to report its donors under New York lobbying laws and can take tax-deductible donations.

The apolitical arm spent a staggering $9.7 million on Albany lobbying in 2014, but did not disclose a single donor.

Such apolitical nonprofits, categorized as 501(c)3 groups, face restrictions from the Internal Revenue Service on how much they can spend on lobbying — a likely reason why such nonprofits are exempt from disclosing their donors under New York law.

The heavy lobbying spending as defined by New York law, plus the IRS restrictions on lobbying by such nonprofits, could raise potential issues regarding the group's tax status.

But David Grandeau, an attorney for Families For Excellent Schools and former top state lobbying regulator, has maintained that the IRS definition of lobbying is far narrower than the one found in New York law, a distinction that he says makes the heavy New York lobbying spending by the group permissible under federal regulations.

The group's lobbying spending has also dropped this year from its 2014 heights.

Grandeau said last year that the group had "correctly disclosed its spending in New York state, and we are confident that our activity is within the limitations allowable."

There you have it - all legal, or so says the former state lobbying regulator, now on the hedge fundie/education reformer payroll.

Corruption is endemic in New York State, as we've seen from the corruption cases taking down much of the political leadership in the state, including five former state Senate Majority Leaders, one Assembly Speaker and the state Senate Deputy Majority Leader.

But none of that has cooled the corruption going on in public education policy where the Masters of the Universe have rigged the system such that they run Albany and have a governor dangling on their strings, using their talking points as he successfully pushes for implementation of their legislative goals and public policy.

Cuomo Poisons Everything He Touches - Including Public Education

This LoHud editorial discussing how New York State will have the opportunity to rethink its test-obsessed education system if NCLB gets an expected overhaul points out one big impediment here in New York to doing just that:

If NCLB is finally left in the dust – just as New York’s participation in the Race to the Top program is expiring – will Albany take advantage of its newfound freedoms to rethink its testing programs? The clear answer is … maybe.

Newly arrived state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has said she will appoint task forces to review the Common Core standards, New York’s 3-to-8 tests that are now tied to Common Core, and how test results are used to evaluate teachers. Elia has a track record of supporting the standards-testing-evaluations approach to improving education, but seems keenly aware that many New Yorkers have little faith in our testing obsession. She’ll soon realize that a whole new group of parents are now irritated because of the recent Regents exam in algebra, which left even top students scratching their heads.

The state may have bought some time with its critics by dropping mega-corp Pearson for grade 3-8 test development. But Pearson’s replacement, Questar, will also get its marching orders from the Education Department.

Then there’s the Cuomo problem. Our governor is the driving force behind New York’s brutish teacher-evaluation system, which will increasingly rely on test scores to label teachers (even though we won’t use the same scores to evaluate students because the tests are unproven). Many classroom teachers and the parents who appreciate them will remain peeved until the system is changed. Elia will have to confront this problem pronto and figure out a way to circumvent Cuomo’s stubbornness, driven largely by his animus for teachers unions.

We hope that Congress will let states decide how to use test data for their own purposes. But it would be up to New York’s leaders to recognize what even those in Washington see: testing should not drive education policy. Many teachers will spend too much time next year trying to protect their jobs by preparing students for tests. This must not continue.

Indeed, Cuomo and his hedge fund backers are huge impediments to any positive change to public education in New York, though they certainly are both squarely behind damaging changes to it, like making test scores 50% of a teacher's evaluation.

Fred LeBrun, writing about Cuomo's unworkable SAFE Act and the ridiculous MOU that Cuomo and Senate Republicans agreed to earlier in the month that said the state would not enforce the unenforceable parts of the law, wrote this about Cuomo:

Cuomo has proved to be a politician with an uncanny knack for poisoning the well at every oasis he visits. Except those where hedge fund managers gather to squat.

That LeBrun statement certainly applies to public education, the quality of which Cuomo has made much worse since he became governor.

The system is test-obsessed, teachers are held accountable for test scores that don't count for their students, some teachers are evaluated based upon test scores in subjects they don't teach and/or of students they don't teach.

What does all this test obsession do for schools? 

As the LoHud editorial notes, it means teachers have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to protect their jobs by preparing students for the state tests.

With the new receivership program shoved through by Cuomo in the last budget, so do schools.

All it takes is a couple of years of being deemed "persistently struggling" via the state's test score data to have NYSED swoop in and hand a school over to an "independent receiver" (i.e., charter operator.)

The public education system is fear-fueled, in large measure because Cuomo wants it that way - he wants to pay back his hedge fundie donors who started giving him suitcases full of cash before he was elected governor and have continued to do so ever since.

As with the SAFE Act, much of the "change" Cuomo has imposed was meant to become part of Cuomo's political record that he would use to run for president in the future - the governor who got gun control before anybody else after the Sandy Hook tragedy, the Dem governor who took it to the teachers unions and "busted" the public school monopoly.

Given Cuomo's plummeting poll numbers, it's doubtful he'll get the chance to run nationally for anything, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to do damage with his policies.

As Fred LeBrun says, he poisons everything he touches.

Everything.

Cuomo's Hedge Fund Manager Pal Donates $1 Million To Pro-Charter/Anti-Union Lobby Group

Nick Reisman at State of Politics blog:

Hedge fund managers Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb helped replenish the coffers of a pro-charter school independent expenditure committee, contributing $1 million each to the group, according to its recent Board of Elections filing.

The PAC, known as New Yorkers For A Balanced Albany, had virtually maxed out its funds after the 2014 election.

Loeb just held a fundraiser for Cuomo at his Hamptons estate - one that was protested by a few hundred labor and public schools activists.

A few billionaires like Loeb and Singer quite literally own the political system in this state.

Democracy in New York?

Nahh.

Plutocracy wherein the Wall Street bankers, real estate industry and hedge fund managers call all the shots.

Protesting Dan Loeb's $5,000 A Head Fundraiser For Andrew Cuomo

Sounds like this is going to be a helluva party:

Busloads of labor activists and liberal operatives are headed Saturday to a place where they won’t be welcome: A fundraiser for Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a sprawling estate in the Hamptons.

...
The target of the Hedge Clippers this weekend is a $5,000-a-person East Hampton event in honor of the governor hosted by Daniel Loeb, a top hedge-fund manager based in New York City. Mr. Loeb is also a political fundraiser who, like Mr. Cuomo, has sparred with teachers unions and championed charter schools.

...

The activists plan to fly aerial banners over the grounds of the Loeb mansion as Mr. Cuomo’s donors nibble canapés and sip cocktails on the lawn.

Cuomo and Loeb will make like they don't care about the busloads of protesters, but a Loeb pal says, well, it's hard not to, you know?

The showdown has tony communities in the Hamptons slightly amused and slightly on edge.

“Dan Loeb is thick-skinned and relishes a fight,” said Euan Rellie, an investment banker who summers in the Hamptons and is a friend of Mr. Loeb’s. “But no successful business person wants to be seen as a remote billionaire living with pitchforks at the hedges. Who would want that?”

You can see more about Dan Loeb, Cuomo's fundraising pal, here.

Families For Excellent Schools Outspends NYSUT On Lobbying 3-1

From the Capital NY Playbook:

ALBANY’S TOP LOBBYISTS—Capital’s Bill Mahoney: Driven by the spending of two adversarial education advocates, interest groups appear to have spent a record amount of money lobbying governments in New York State in 2014. Families for Excellent Schools spent $9.7 million, and the New York State United Teachers finished second with $3.2 million. Wilson Elser continued its reign as the state’s top lobby firm, and Al D’Amato’s Park Strategies finished second. http://bit.ly/1bRNNrK

You know when you see the word "powerful" in front of NYSUT in news stories about the union?

Can you really be "powerful" when your opposition can outspend you 3-1 lobbying for their interests over yours?

Shouldn't the word "powerful" come before Families For Excellent Schools" and the words "not as powerful as it used to be" come before NYSUT?

Hillary Clinton "Absoluely Embraces" Common Core In Iowa Comments

Some people thought Clinton wouldn't take a stand on Common Core because it's so controversial these days, but her Wall Street/hedge fundie donors wanted to hear where she stands on the issue and she obliged today:

In Iowa, Hillary Clinton strongly defends the Common Core, despite strong opposition in some states like NY.
— Michael Gormley (@GormleyAlbany) April 14, 2015

Next up: Common Core under attack. @HillaryClinton "absolutely embraces" it, calls argument around CC "really painful," says was bipartisan.
— Taylor J. Wofford (@taylorjwofford) April 14, 2015

Asked about Common Core, @HillaryClinton says current debate has been "painful" to watch. "Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort."
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) April 14, 2015

.@HillaryClinton says Iowa may be more understanding of Common Core b/c Iowa has had its own standards and assessments for years. #iacaucus
— Kathie Obradovich (@KObradovich) April 14, 2015

"How did we wind up at a point where we are so negative about... how our kids our educated?" -Hillary @HillaryClinton on Common Core
— Ashton E. Pittman (@ashtonpittman) April 14, 2015

Not a surprise - Big Money supports Common Core, so of course Hillary Clinton does too.

Still, glad to have her on the record.

Now I have one more reason not to support her.

If Jeb Bush becomes the GOP nominee and Clinton is the Democratic nominee, both major party candidates will be Common Core supporters.

The country is moving against Common Core but the political establishment (backed by Big Money) still "absolutely embraces" it.

Save The Date: Andrew Cuomo, Campbell Brown To Raise Money For Success Academies at Cipriani on Monday April 20, 2015

In case you haven't gotten your tickets already:

Monday, April 20, 2015 Success Academy Charter Schools
Third Annual Spring Benefit.   6:30 pm.   Cocktails and dinner.   Business attire.   Honoring Eli Broad.   Chaired by Campbell Brown, Joel Greenblatt, Daniel S. Loeb, John Scully, Regina Scully.   Tickets from $1,250.00.   Tables from $15,000.00.   Cipriani 42nd Street.   New York.   Contact: Julianna Harder.   (212) 245-6570.   Event address: 110 East 42nd Street, New York.   Event web address: www.successacademies.org.  

More incentive to attend:

CUOMO TO HEADLINE SUCCESS ACADEMY BENEFIT—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: Governor Andrew Cuomo will be the keynote speaker at Success Academy's annual spring benefit this April, according to an invite sent to Success employees this weekend. Cuomo and Success C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz officially became allies last winter, when Cuomo stepped into a battle between Moskowitz and Mayor Bill de Blasio, declaring he would ‘save charter schools’ at a massive Albany rally partially organized by Success. The event will be held April 20 at Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan, and will be co-chaired by Success board members Campbell Brown, Daniel Loeb, Joel Greenblatt, and Regina and John Scully. http://bit.ly/1tT6Edx

NY Teacher has a suggestion:

Don't forget, Cuomo was scheduled to speak at the Success Academy Charter Schools Spring Benefit on April 20th; 6:30 pm at Cipriani (42nd St). If he does attend it would be a great place to demo/rally/press.

So does Norm Scott:

A massive protest in front of Ciprianis would be an appropriate response.

Seems like a great opportunity to all at once let Eva Moskowitz, her hedge fund supporters, Campbell Brown and Andrew Cuomo know what you think of them and their "reforms."

NYC Employees Retirement System Nixes Recommendation To Invest In Pro-Charter Joel Greenblatt's Hedge Fund

From the NY Post:

In a rare move, the board that oversees the city’s retirement fund for civil servants killed a proposal to invest in a high-yield hedge fund — run by one of the city’s biggest investors in charter schools, sources told The Post.

The New York City Employees’ Retirement System nixed a recommendation from the comptroller’s office to sink a portion of its $54 billion pension fund into Gotham Asset Management, which is run by Success Academies co-founder Joel Greenblatt.

The charter network is overseen by Eva Moskowitz, a long-time foe of Mayor de Blasio.

The 11-member board is stacked with reps who are allied with the anti-charter teachers’ union — including appointees from de Blasio, Borough Presidents Eric Adams and Ruben Diaz Jr. and leaders of three major city unions.

Stringer's office recommended the investment into the hedge fund:

The Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management referred Greenblatt’s hedge fund to NYCERS for consideration as a potential investment last month, but a spokesman for Comptroller Scott Stringer declined to say how it learned of the fund.

“As the investment adviser to the New York City Pension Funds, the Bureau of Asset Management recommends investments based strictly on their merits,” said Stringer spokesman Eric Sumberg.

One of the merits from my perspective is NOT to invest in a hedge fund run by a guy out to destroy public schools.

Apparently that's NOT one of the merits from Stringer's perspective

Small Coterie Of Hedge Fundies Have Bought New York State And Governor Cuomo

Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News:

Hedge fund executives have unleashed a tsunami of money the past few years aimed at getting New York’s politicians to close more public schools and expand charter schools.

They’ve done it through direct political contributions, through huge donations to a web of pro-charter lobbying groups, and through massive TV and radio commercials.

Since 2000, 570 hedge fund managers have shelled out nearly $40 million in political contributions in New York State, according to a recent report by Hedge Clippers, a union-backed research group.
The single biggest beneficiary has been Andrew Cuomo, who received $4.8 million from them.

...

But the direct donations don’t tell the full story.

In this era after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case, the indirect contributions are even more astounding.

Take, for example, a group called New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany. It financed a massive advertising campaign late last year aimed at keeping the state Senate in Republican hands, largely by blasting upstate Democrats as tied to Mayor de Blasio.

That group received $3.5 million from just six hedge fund backers of charter schools.

...

Two other pro-charter groups, Families for Excellent Schools and the political arm of Students First New York, spent more than $10 million last year on their lobbying effort.

If you're a reader of this blog, you know that Andrew Cuomo was on the take from the hedge fund managers long before he became governor.

As the NY Times reported in 2010, Cuomo met with these same hedge fundies who have donated so much money to these pro-charter front groups in a hotel room and took a suitcase full of campaign cash and promise for even more future campaign cash back to the office with him:

When Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet certain members of the hedge fund crowd, seeking donors for his all-but-certain run for governor, what he heard was this: Talk to Joe.

That would be Joe Williams, executive director of a political action committee that advances what has become a favorite cause of many of the wealthy founders of New York hedge funds: charter schools.

Wall Street has always put its money where its interests and beliefs lie. But it is far less common that so many financial heavyweights would adopt a social cause like charter schools and advance it with a laserlike focus in the political realm.

Hedge fund executives are thus emerging as perhaps the first significant political counterweight to the powerful teachers unions, which strongly oppose expanding charter schools in their current form.
After hearing from Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Williams arranged an 8 a.m. meeting last month at the Regency Hotel, that favorite spot for power breakfasts, between Mr. Cuomo and supporters of his committee, Democrats for Education Reform, who include the founders of funds like Anchorage Capital Partners, with $8 billion under management; Greenlight Capital, with $6.8 billion; and Pershing Square Capital Management, with $5.5 billion.

Although the April 9 breakfast with Mr. Cuomo was not a formal fund-raiser, the hedge fund managers have been wielding their money to influence educational policy in Albany, particularly among Democrats, who control both the Senate and the Assembly but have historically been aligned with the teachers unions.

They have been contributing generously to lawmakers in hopes of creating a friendlier climate for charter schools. More immediately, they have raised a multimillion-dollar war chest to lobby this month for a bill to raise the maximum number of charter schools statewide to 460 from 200.

The money has paid for television and radio advertisements, phone banks and some 40 neighborhood canvassers in New York City and Buffalo — all urging voters to put pressure on their lawmakers.
...
The financial titans, who tend to send their children to private schools, would not seem to be a natural champion of charter schools, which are principally aimed at poor, minority students.

But the money managers are drawn to the businesslike way in which many charter schools are run; their focus on results, primarily measured by test scores; and, not least, their union-free work environments, which give administrators flexibility to require longer days and a longer academic year.

It also does not hurt that the city’s No. 1 billionaire, Mr. Bloomberg, is a strong charter school supporter. He is the host of the fund-raiser for Mr. Hoyt, and at times, Democrats for Education Reform seems an extension of the mayor’s own platform.

Besides more charter schools, the group and the mayor have called for ending the use of seniority as a basis for layoffs and for granting principals more power to fire teachers they consider ineffective.

Mr. Cuomo also has expressed support for charter schools. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to answer questions about the breakfast at the Regency, but Mr. Williams said it had gone well.

“We said we were looking for a leader on our particular issue,” he said, and as a result, when Mr. Cuomo is next required to disclose his contributors, “You will see a bunch of our people on the filing.”

Same old story with Cuomo - hedge fundie cash goes into his coffers, education reform policies come out of his office and (almost always) into law.

Former Assembly Speaker Silver has been indicted for monetizing his office and taking $4 million in kickbacks and bribes.

Governor Cuomo, who has taken even more than Silver from the hedge fundies to push their privatization plans, remains free and clear to continue to push for his donors' policies.

Why Won't Campbell Brown Reveal The Donor List To Her Education Reform Advocacy Group?

From David Callahan at Inside Philanthropy:

When queried by a reporter for Politico, Brown declined to name the donors to the advocacy group she's started, the Partnership for Educational Justice, except to say that they come from both political parties.

Carl Korn, a spokesperson for New York State United Teachers, told Politico that PEJ was an "astroturf" group funded by right-wing “extremists," and added that "Campbell Brown ought to disclose her donors who are funding this attack on working people and the rights of teachers... We will vigorously defend due process and seniority rights against these attacks by billionaire hedge fund managers.”

It could literally be years before we know where PEJ's money is coming from. Or perhaps never, given that nonprofits don't have to disclose their funders and there's also no requirement for individuals to publicly disclose where they donate funds, assuming they don't channel those gifts through a foundation.

In all likelihood, though, the donors behind PEJ—which, by the way, has only four staff, including Brown, and has recruited a pro bono legal team—are the usual suspects. It will be the same donors who give money to pro-charter and ed reform groups, particularly those with a big presence in New York: Teach for America, Achievement First, the New Teacher Project, and so on. (Reshma Singh, the executive director of PEJ, previously worked for both Teach for America and Achievement First.) 

What's Brown hiding that she refuses to reveal the donor list?

Governor Cuomo Apologized To Hedge Fund Managers Via Video About Skipping Lake Placid Education Reform Conference

Who's your daddy, Andy?

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo apologized to hedge funders who gathered in Lake Placid that he wasn't able to attend their pro-charter school conference, despite having been made “honorary chair."

“I wish I could be with you in person, but I am stuck downstate today,” Cuomo said in a four-minute video he sent on May 5 in place of his attendance. “But thank you for coming. Enjoy the conference, and I hope to be with you soon.”

Cuomo was expected to attend the national conference, hosted by Democrats for Education Reform. His video appearance followed an announcement by teachers' unions and public school advocates that they would rally outside the Whiteface Lodge on the opening day.

In the video, obtained by Capital through a public records request that was fulfilled after a five-week “diligent search,” Cuomo offered a history lesson about tourism in the Adirondacks and then outlined his education agenda, highlighting his push for charter schools in the state budget.

Here's the video:

No Court Case On Teacher Tenure In Works For New York - Yet

From Politicker:

A California court ruling striking down teacher tenure laws as unconstitutional prompted an outpouring of applause from education reform advocates–and a chorus of boos from supporters of public school instructors.

 ...


“It is fantastic news,” said TV anchor-turned-public education critic Campbell Brown. “The parents in California clearly felt the same frustration that many parents are feeling across the country at inaction at the legislative level and inaction by the politicians, and they took.”

Ms. Brown, who sits on the board of the controversial Success Academy Charter School chain, said that no such suit was in the works in New York, but said Treu’s decision would rally pro-charter and anti-tenure movements nationwide.

“What this has done is inspire a lot of education reform groups in states with similar laws,” said Ms. Brown, noting that the school system has similar difficulties removing teachers in New York.

It's only a matter of time until the Wall Street-backed Students First or some other corporate-funded education reform group takes on tenure laws here in NY State or NYC.

Yes, all eyes will watch to see what happens to the appeals in this case.

But you can bet the hedge fundies and the corporate deformers are licking their lips and getting ready to take down tenure here.