NYSUT And The UFT, Allied Again With Cuomo, Spend Millions On Propaganda To Fool Their Members And The Public

Had some fun on Twitter yesterday with a couple of union hacks, one the PR guy from NYSUT, that went something like this:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @nysut Why do deliberately misstate our position and communications? Hard to debate nonsense.

— Carl Korn (@CarlKornNYSUT) January 23, 2016

My response:

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut Who's misstating? You say no state tests in evals. Regents exams are in evals.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut When you say there's a moratorium on state tests in APPR, you are wrong.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

There was no response from Carl Korn, but another union hack jumped in with this bit of genius:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT 3-8 NYS tests in my eval this year? Zilch, nada, bubkis. Union still supports my kids #optout.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

My response to that:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT You do know CCSS Regents exams are in APPR, yes? Those don't count?

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Lace To The Top jumped in with this very relevant fact:

@perdidostschool @TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT and 3-8 Eval scores will still be generated and be used as "advisory"

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) January 23, 2016

Which got this response from said union hack:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT Got it. Get it. Still work to do. Still making progress.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

To which I responded:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT No, you get zilch, bupkis, nada - to use your own words back at you.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT The victory rhetoric from both the UFT and NYSUT show how little leaders get.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Here's the truth of things - Cuomo is sucking up to the union these days, what with his poll numbers in the toilet overall (39% job approval in the last Siena poll) and especially negative on education issues (68% of New Yorkers disapprove of the job he is doing handling education.)

The hacks running the union could care less about whether their members are harmed by APPR or not, they care only for their own power, prestige and perks.

They're happy to have the governor back on board, sounding almost like Mike Mulgrew when he talks about community schooling, well, that is progress indeed!

Unless you're a teacher affected by Cuomo's odious 2015 education law that requires 50% of a teacher's evaluation come from test scores - a law which Cuomo says does not need to be amended or repealed, a law which neither the UFT nor NYSUT plan to work to repeal.

So now, with Cuomo friendly with the union leadership again, the union heads have allied with the governor against their own members, spending millions of member dues on ads that are full of lies and propaganda (here's the UFT ad, here's the NYSUT ad.)

Even the governor himself has contradicted what the union ads are telling the public, saying back in December that test scores are indeed STILL part of APPR evaluations:

“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.

In case you're not willing to believe me or the governor, here's NYSED, via James Eterno at ICEUFTblog:

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

Yet the union ads - and the union hacks on Twitter - tell us differently, that the number of test scores in APPR evals this year is "zilch, nada, bupkis..."

I dunno about you, but I have had enough of the lies and propaganda out of NYSUT and the UFT, the harm they are doing to teaching, teachers and schools with the games they play with their ed deformer allies (see here for more of the games Mulgrew has played with Cuomo over the years.)

And if you think this is all hyperbole, that there's no way the union heads are playing a pro-wrestling "Good Guy/Bad Guy/Good Guy Game" with Cuomo - check out who's Number 4 on the all-time Cuomo meeting list and who enjoys late lunches with the governor to, you know, talk things over.

That would be one Michael Mulgrew of the UFT, the largest local in the state that can literally whack NYSUT leaders when they don't like what they're doing.

As I said above, I've had it with the games the union leaders play, the lies and deception they send out with every ad, every social media piece.

NYSAPE sent out this very informative tweet about where things stand today regarding state tests, the opt out movement and APPR teacher evaluations - you should send this tweet wide and far to cut through the self-serving jive and propaganda emanating out of NYSUT and the UFT, all of it using YOUR money to pay for it.

Do not be fooled, NOTHING has changed. Here is what you need to know: pic.twitter.com/cAKteQLtZI

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 24, 2016

UFT Warns Over Friedrichs But Still Doesn't Get The Real Danger

UFT President Michael Mulgrew on the Friedrichs case:

The U.S. labor movement today faces perhaps the gravest threat to its existence since the creation of our modern system of labor law and collective bargaining in 1935.

In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the plaintiffs challenge the “fair share” requirement that public-sector workers in unionized jobs who choose not to join their union must still pay their fair share of the cost of union representation and services.

They argue that agency fees should be abolished because money is speech, and requiring nonmembers to pay fees to unions therefore violates their First Amendment rights. That is patently false. Agency-fee payers can choose not to have their fees spent on unions’ political activities.

Let us be clear: Friedrichs isn’t about the First Amendment; it is about undermining this country’s labor unions because we are the last great defenders of working people and the middle class. The far-right forces behind the lawsuit despise unions because it is our collective voice and collective action that prevent them from further enriching themselves at ordinary Americans’ expense. They don’t just want to abolish agency fees; they want to abolish our unions and undo the decades of progress we have made.

Let us be clear: Mulgrew's upset not because Friedrichs threatens to undermine the "last great defenders of working people and the middle class" in this country but because it threatens to undermine the gravy train that the current leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT ride on.

The AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership stopped defending the rank and file years ago, have sold us out at every turn to the education reformers, are complicit in much of the harm done to the teaching profession (including the use of VAM, which AFT President Weingarten once championed along with Chancellor Joel Klein when Weingarten was UFT President, and teacher evaluations tied to test scores, which UFT President Mulgrew happily agreed to in 2012), and exist simply to aggrandize their own egos and enrich their own purses.

With the Friedrichs decision looming, you'd think the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership would become more responsive to rank and file, especially since they might have to beg members to stay with the union and continue to pay dues post-Friedrichs.

But instead, they continue to do whatever the hell they want, from endorsing Hillary Clinton long before the presidential primary season started to telling New York State legislators who voted for Cuomo's poison pill budget that imposed a receivership law for "failing" schools and upped test scores to 50% of a teacher's evaluation that it was all right for doing so.

And they spend their time attacking critics to their leadership, as happened this past week when NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta asked the NY attorney general to look into a blog post written by a teacher that dared to criticize NYSUT for selling members out.

Quite frankly, I see the words someone wrote that Mike Mulgrew signed his name to about Friedrichs and I roll my eyes because I know that they know that they don't give a shit about any of the stuff Mulgrew says he does.

Al they care about is maintaining power, maintaining control, and maintaining the gravy train.

It's a shame they're not taking the Friedrichs threat seriously and thinking about ways to become more responsive and responsible union leaders.

Alas, it seems that the leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT is incapable of that.

Karen Magee: Parents And Teachers Have No Confidence In State's Education Reform Plans

From the "No kidding" file:

Constant changes to New York education policy and flawed rollouts have caused teachers and parents to lose trust in the State Education Department, said New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee.

Magee spoke about this lack of trust on WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom Tuesday. Teachers have lost confidence in any new plans coming from the department and feel their feedback doesn’t matter, she told Susan Arbetter.

Her comments come nearly one week after educators told members of the Assembly’s education committee that they’re worn out by all the new education reform legislation in recent years. At a public hearing on struggling schools last week, they said the constant changes have districts more caught up in compliance than actually improving anything.

“There continues to be an appearance that the plans have not been well thought out or well-developed,” Magee said Tuesday. “There’s no evidence of pilots happening…on a small-scale basis to identify what the strengths and weaknesses are, to bring in the professionals and all the stakeholders, including the community, to discuss if a plan is working. Get real feedback like you would with any other plan and then make modifications before you go for the all-across-the-state rollout. We roll things out in the state and then wait to see what the consequence are.”

Of course the lack of piloting or planning the reform changes is a crucial part of the education reform playbook.

This is shock doctrine stuff, not meant to improve anythnig at all - just cause "shock and awe" to the system, bring about chaos and calamity and ultimately help reformers in their privatization efforts.

Pity NYSUT and Magee won't say that and instead make as if Cuomo and his reformer buddies actually care about improving things as opposed to wanting simply to "break" the whole thing up.

Weingarten, Mulgrew, Magee Met Personally With Cuomo In April

Jimmy Vielkind at Politico NY:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, several weeks before re-introducing legislation to grant financial assistance for parents whose children attend private and parochial schools.

According to newly posted schedule records, the Democratic governor huddled with the Catholic prelate as well as with James Cultrara, the Catholic Conference's top education official, and Anthony de Nicola, a fund manager and board member of the group that pushed for the tax credit, on April 13 at the cardinal's residence in midtown Manhattan. Cuomo later held events around the state to rally support for the tax credit, which lawmakers did not enact.

The schedules also show:

-- Cuomo met with a trio of teachers' union leaders, Karen Magee of NYSUT, Michael Mulgrew of the UFT and Randi Weingarten of the AFT, on April 10, and again on April 22. The unions were vociferous opponents of the tax credit plan.

No word on what was discussed at those meetings.

Was it just about the tax credit plans?

Or was the rest of Cuomo's education reform agenda devised to "break" the public school system discussed as well?

In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter because we know what the outcome was:

They weren't terribly successful at much other than holding the line on vouchers (which may have happened because voucher proponents overplayed their hands anyway.)

Cuomo got pretty much everything else on education that he wanted.

NYSUT Pushback On APPR Is Meaningless Without Accountability For Pols Who Vote For Cuomo Reforms

From Liz Benjamin at State of Politics:

The Regents are scheduled to meet next week (Sept. 16-17) to, among other things, vote on the emergency regulations establishing the new evaluation system, which is largely (though not entirely) based on the results of Common Core tests from which a whopping 20 percent of students opted out this year – with NYSUT’s urging and support.

NYSUT has set up an email and fax campaign so its members can bombard the Regents with letters between now and next week, urging them to “do everything in your power to stop the over-testing of students and end the insane practice of evaluating educators based on a single standardized test.”

Nick Reisman at State of Politics writes that NYSUT is also putting together a Campbell Brown protest:

The New York State United Teachers union plans to stage a formal protest of former CNN anchor Campbell Brown’s appearance at the Business Council’s annual meeting on Sept. 16.
At the same time, the statewide union is urging state lawmakers in a letter to not attend the meeting, including the opening reception and dinner that Brown, a vocal proponent of the education reform movement, is expected to attend.

“We ask that you cancel any plans to attend the opening reception and dinner of the New York State Business Council Annual meeting, and stand with public school students, parents and educators,” NYSUT wrote in a letter to state lawmakers, obtained by Capital Tonight. “Please support our great public schools, students and educators and do not cross this picket line.”

In the letter — which was signed by both NYSUT Vice President Andy Pallotta and Alliance for Quality Education Executive Director Billy Easton — Brown is billed as someone who opposes “full funding of our public schools, promote high stakes testings and supports the continued privatization of public schools.”

The letter writing campaign and protests are all well and good, but so long as there are no political prices to be paid by lawmakers who vote with "heavy hearts" for the Cuomo education reform agenda, there isn't much tangible effect to this stuff.

When Mulgrew told Assembly Heavy Hearts that there would be no price paid for voting "Aye" on the Cuomo education reform agenda in the last budget, the message was sent:

Don't worry - we don't really mean it when we say we're fighting against the Cuomo education reform agenda.

NYSUT President Magee Claims MaryEllen Elia Appointment Is A Victory For NYSUT

Boy the Vichy, er, I mean victories just keep coming from the NYSUT braintrust:

NYSUT President Karen Magee counts the scuttling of the education tax credit as well as changes in the Board of Regents and installation of a new education commissioner as victories for the statewide teachers union.

...

NYSUT didn’t get everything it wanted this year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo successfully pushed through changes to the state’s teacher evaluation law that link the performance reviews to testing and in-classroom observation as well as a stronger tie to tenure, which is now harder to obtain.

Teachers deemed to be poor performing over several years can be fired, regardless of tenure, under the changes.

...

At the same time, Magee touted “shifts” in the membership of the Board of Regents – ostensibly appointed by the Democratic-led Assembly – as well as the state’s education commissioner. Mary Ellen Elia this month officially took over for John King, a charter school supporter who went to work for the Obama administration. Yesterday was her first day on the job.

“Those are positives, because we look forward to having real conversations about education,” Magee said.

Ah, yes - the Elia appointment to replace John King is a victory despite Elia's rep as a thin-skinned, vindictive boss who set up a "culture of fear" in her last position, developed a teacher evaluation system that looked to fire 5% of teachers every year, and refused to take responsibility for the deaths of students under watch is a positive

God help us.

Karen Magee And NYSUT In The Buffalo News

The Buffalo News:

Few outsiders knew anything about Karen Magee before the head of the state teachers union ousted a predecessor considered too willing to compromise and immediately escalated the public war against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state lawmakers.

Since Magee took over last April, New York State United Teachers has:

• Funneled millions of dollars into legislative campaigns across the state to influence lawmakers who would ultimately decide on teacher evaluations;

• Changed the makeup of the Board of Regents, including ousting Western New York’s longtime pro-reform representative; and

• Gone head to head with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is pushing for tougher evaluations for teachers.

NYSUT has long been influential in state politics. But Magee, who is in Buffalo this week for the union’s annual convention, has raised its public profile and the level of confrontation, blazing an assertive public awareness campaign spanning all mediums, from television ads to social media.

Before we take any victory laps, let us note that

• Magee and NYSUT may have funneled millions of dollars into legislative campaigns, but they lost all but one of them
• Magee and NYSUT may have helped change the makeup of the Board of Regents, but we still don't know if that will have much (or any) impact on policy going forward.
• Magee and NYSUT may have gone head-to-head with Cuomo on evaluations, but they lost that battle - completely and utterly.

I would add that Magee and NYSUT tried to get the heavy hearts in the Assembly to vote against Cuomo's education reforms in the budget this year but failed at that task too.

Magee and NYSUT may have raised their profiles and level of confrontation, but they haven't won any battles.

Yes, it's possible that NYSUT added some heft to the op-out movement by throwing support to the movement very late in the game, but the truth is, there were going to be a couple of hundred thousand opt-outs this year whether NYSUT supported the movement or not.

So call me cynical, but I'm not ready to run a victory lap with Magee and NYSUT yet.

I'd like to see them actually, you know, win something first.

Message To Corporate Media, NY Politicians And Educrats: The Teachers Union Is NOT The Moving Force Behind Opt-Out

Jon Campbell from Gannett:

On a plane returning Tuesday from Cuba, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was asked about the opt-out effort and the New York State United Teachers union's suggestion that parents consider refusing the tests.

Whether or not to opt-out of the exams is a parent's choice, he told reporters.

"From a parent's point of view, they have the right," Cuomo said. "What the teachers union advocated -- the legality of that, the funding, that I'll leave to the federal government and the (state Education Department)."

Cuomo is canny enough to know that when you already have 185,000 opt outs counted from 73% of the districts on the ELA exam, with 27% of district still to be counted, and the math exams coming up now with even higher numbers of opt-outs expected, it's not a winning political battle to take on parents.

So he, like some of the editorial boards around the state, like the awful reporting in the NY Times this week, tries to put the blame for the opt-out movement onto the teachers union.

Here's a message to the corporate media, the corporate journalists/public relations specialists, the educrats and the politicians:

Parents did NOT decide to opt their children out of the state tests because Karen Magee of NYSUT threw her support behind the movement after Cuomo's education reform agenda was shoved through in the budget deal.

The opt-out movement has been growing every year and the numbers were going to increase dramatically this year no matter what Karen Magee and NYSUT did or said about the movement.

For that matter, even as Magee and NYSUT have thrown support to opting out, Mulgrew and the UFT have criticized the movement and echoed the same jive warnings we're getting from the educrats, the politicians and the newspaper editorial boards (i.e., the feds will take school money away as a result.)

I don't quite get how the state teachers union, which couldn't manage to get Assembly members to vote the way it wanted to on the budget, somehow convinced 185,000 parents to keep their kids from taking the state tests, especially when the largest local in the state is warning against opting out of the state tests.

The only thing I can think is, the corporate-owned media, the educrats, the politicians, they need scapegoats for this massive grassroots rebellion raging in New York State and, as so often is the case these days, the teachers union provides a convenient target.

But they are fools if they dismiss the significance of the anger parents have over the state's Endless Testing regime and imposed Common Core implementation.

As Loy Goss, co-founder of United To Counter The Core wrote:

As we complete the first round of counts for ELA and move into the first round of counts for math, it is important to remember why parents do this.

Make no mistake, this wave of civil disobedience is not just about Andrew Cuomo and his teacher evaluation plan. Cuomo is the flavor-of-the-month in a long line of ill-prepared, ill-advised education reformers, each worse than the one before. These sometimes well-intentioned reformers have nevertheless damaged an entire generation of America's schoolchildren going all the way back to No Child Left Behind.

Hundreds of thousands of parents are not making political statements, they are looking at crying, defeated children around their kitchen tables and demanding meaningful change. NY parents and teachers want education reform that is educator-driven, that is tested and proven, that addresses the real problems facing our schools and our children, and that is implemented with a modicum of competency.

A reduction of testing or evaluations does not address the underlying issue. NY parents want what parents have wanted since time began - a better education for our children.

Education reformers and their propagandists are so used to winning the education reform battles with their reflexive teachers union- and teacher-bashing that they're missing the very real anger many parents around the state have toward the state's education reform policies.

UFT Runs Ad Attacking Cuomo After Months Of Helping Him Out

The UFT's kidding with this ad, right?

“For months Andrew Cuomo attacked teachers and public schools. Now, with his support at record lows, so-called education reformers and their billionaire backers are running TV ads trying to rewrite history. But we know the truth.

“Cuomo wants to pile on high stakes testing, privatize classrooms, and divert money away from public schools by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy.”

“Governor, New Yorkers agree: Put politics aside and put our kids first.”

First off, UFT President Mulgrew already declared victory after the budget:

The United Federation of Teachers on Sunday night declared victory in an email to its members, writing that most of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Draconian agenda” had been turned back by state lawmakers.

“Now all of our hard work is paying dividends,” the teachers union that represents mostly New York City teachers wrote in the email to members. “The governor’s Draconian agenda has, in large part, been turned back. We want to thank the Assembly and the Senate for standing up for our schools and school communities.”

It turned out that the governor's draconian agenda had not been turned back, that he had, in fact, gotten almost everything he wanted in the budget (including higher weight of test scores in evaluations, merit pay, school receivership for the state, tenure changes and certification changes), but that didn't stop Mulgrew and the UFT leadership from doing what they always do and declaring everything a victory.

This came after Mulgrew and the UFT gave Assembly Dems the okay to vote for the budget while NYSUT leadership told legislators not support the education provisions:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

Then came the opt out movement, which the NYSUT leadership supported but Mulgrew and the UFT leadership criticized.

And we got UFT functionary Peter Goodman blogging how the new Cuomo APPR evaluation isn't so bad and Randi Weingarten, Mulgrew's mentor, retweeting that post.

This is not to mention that when the time to really fight Cuomo was at hand - during the election - Mulgrew and the UFT did all it could to help him out without looking like they were helping him.

When the Working Families Party was fighting over whether to put Cuomo on its ballot or give the nod to Zephyr Teachout, Mulgrew and the UFT ensured that Cuomo got the nod by threatening WFP with financial dissolution if Teachout were nominated by WFP.

When Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, had a really good shot to knock off Cuomo's running mate, bank lobbyist Kathy Hochul, Randi Weingarten took to the air with robocalls for Hochul, helping her beat back Wu's challenge.

Now, after all the help Weingarten, Mulgrew, and the UFT have given to Cuomo, both before his re-election and since by barely fighting against his agenda, they send out an ad that's hard-hitting and calls Cuomo on his attacks.

It's too little, too late and useless for anything other PR for people not paying close attention - which is emblematic of nearly everything the UFT and AFT do.

Norm at Ed Notes called them a company union yesterday in a post.

Looking at how this re-election season and budget process unfolded, I think you can make a very good argument that is the case.

First the AFT and UFT ensured Cuomo would not have to face a third party challenger in November by threatening WFP with financial ruin if Teachout were given the nod, then helped ensure Cuomo would have his running mate, the bank lobbyist, instead of Teachout's running mate, the law professor, win in the primary.

When it came time to fight Cuomo's education reform agenda, they did just enough to make it look like they were fighting it without effectively fighting it.

Then they gave the okay to Assembly Dems to vote for it even as NYSUT leaders were saying not to.

The time for the tough ads attacking Cuomo, the really tough ones, was before the budget was passed, not after.

Alas, now that the battle is over and Cuomo won big time, the UFT trots out the attack ad.

Maybe that will fool a few rank-and-file that the UFT is fighting Cuomo.

But it doesn't fool those of us who have paid attention to this fight and have seen with our own eyes how they helped Cuomo out at critical junctures to ensure he got everything he wanted.

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch Lashes Out Over Opt-Out

Mulgrew and the UFT declared victory over the budget agreement announced last night wherein Governor Cuomo pretty much got everything he wanted on education reform (and what he didn't get - like the charter cap increase - he will get later in the legislative session), but NYSUT President Karen Magee was a little less thrilled with the budget deal, saying that she and her union "are encouraging parents to opt-out" of the state tests..."we will be taking further steps to make parents aware of this.”

The doyenne of testing herself, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, fired back quickly:

It used to be easy to ignore the most vulnerable students. Without assessments, it was easy to ignore the achievement gap for African-American and Latino students. Without an objective measure of their progress, it was easy to deny special education students and English Language Learners the extra resources they need. Without state tests, it was easy for a struggling 4th grader in a wealthy district to get lost. Obviously we still need to do more for those students, but now is not the time to put blinders back on. 

Gee, that's awfully close to calling opt-out supporters racists, isn't it?

That's how desperate the deformers have become to keep their House of Cards from toppling over.

High stakes testing and teacher evaluations tied to those tests is a civil right and if you're opposed to either of those, you're a racist.

One thing Cuomo hasn't banked on in this education reform fight - he can smear the teachers as lazy incompetents who don't want to be evaluated, he can pull his budget machinations and win the day for his deform agenda when he holds the state education aid hostage, but he can't force parents across this state to have their children sit for the state tests.

The battle now moves to the opt-out movement for the state tests - and if NYSUT actually does what Magee said they would do today and back it (and call me skeptical on that count), then we just may be able to starve NYSED and the Regents of much of their precious data and put a shiv into Cuomo's reform agenda anyway.

No wonder Tisch lashed out so quickly after Magee said NYSUT would back opting out of the state tests.

The Deform House of Cards can only stand so long as there's data at the base.

Get rid of the data and down come cards.

Back In The Day: Cuomo, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi, King Announce APPR Deal

As we await news of the latest teacher evaluation reform in New York State, let's revisit February 2012 for another big announcement on teacher evaluations by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, former NYSED Commissioner John King, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi:

ALBANY — Student test scores and classroom observations will be used to assess New York educators under a new evaluation system announced Thursday that Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded as a national model.

The agreement between state officials and union leaders ended two years of tense negotiations and put a court battle on hold.

With the clock ticking on a tight deadline, Cuomo and educational leaders on Thursday said they had broken through the major logjams standing in the way of the new teacher evaluation system — which would also bring in approximately $1 billion in federal funding over the next few years.

The move also strengthens the role of the state Education Department, which must approve the evaluation agreements developed by each of the state's 700 school districts.

"Today is a great day for the schools in the state of New York. Government works today," Cuomo said, as he was joined by Education Commissioner John King Jr. as well as Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzzi, heads of the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers.

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

To get the federal funding, the new evaluation system must be completed and implemented by year-end. Unions and management of local school districts, including the vast New York City system, had been at loggerheads over the weight to give student performance on standardized tests and the appeals process for teachers who receive the lowest rating.

With that in mind, Cuomo said he would impose his own system in his budget plan if unions and department officials couldn't agree by Thursday — which marks the deadline for the governor's 30-day amendments, or final touches, to his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The announcement followed an all-night bargaining session in which the warring sides appeared to compromise on two key issues. The New York City-based UFT and State Education Department agreed on a plan for appealing evaluations in which teachers scored poorly and might face firing; and NYSUT and the state resolved differences over the so-called local test portion of the evaluation.

Under the plan, teachers are evaluated on a 100-point scale: 60 points are based on classroom observations and student portfolios; 20 points come from scores that students get on a standardized state test; and another 20 points come from tests developed by the district or a third party.

Much of the fighting between the labor leaders and state officials was sparked by Cuomo's last-minute push to allow student test scores to count for up to 40 percent of an evaluation. Districts have the option to use state tests for up to 40 percent of an evaluation, but it must be bargained with the union. NYSUT's Iannuzzi said the union would likely end the lawsuit it filed last spring over the increased weight given to state tests once the new evaluation system is finalized.

Additionally, the State Education Department will now have veto power over evaluations that are deemed insufficient. Unions and school districts will also develop a "curve" for the point system by which teachers and principals are rated. Educators will fall in one of four categories: ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective.

Those rated "ineffective" could be fired if they do not improve.

King down played the concerns of some school administrators that the evaluation system would add significant new work to the strained staffing at many schools. He said the new evaluation system will also "dramatically change" the jobs of many principals for the better, by putting them in the classrooms where they can offer constructive feedback to their staff.

"The role of the principal is to provide their teams with instructional leadership," he said. "Principals should be spending significant time in the classroom."

So far, about 100 school districts statewide have agreed on evaluation plans and another 250 are close.

Still, questions remain about how the State Education Department will regulate this new system and whether it has the capacity to review and approve them all by year's end.

"Whether they are going to be able to approve these new evaluations as efficiently as it was described here today, I'm a little bit suspicious," said Tim Kremer, executive director of the state School Boards Association.

And Iannuzzi stressed that the relationships between school districts and their unions will still be a key factor in whether the evaluation plans go smoothly.

"The ingredient you can't write in law is the ingredient of collaboration and trust" between unions and management, he said.

It's interesting to see how much has changed in three years.

Where three years ago they were touting principals as the drivers of observations and fonts of educational wisdom, in the latest iteration of New York State teacher evaluations as pushed by Governor Cuomo, the principal has been superseded by outside evaluators.

Back in February 2012, they said principals would be in classrooms "where they belong", offering "feedback" to their staffs.

In the latest iteration, outside observers will drive by on some unknown timetable to observe teachers they don't know in schools they've never been to in order to provide meaningful evaluations of teachers.

Yeah, that'll work great.

Want to bet we'll be re-doing APPR teacher evaluations in a year or two again when the plan they're working on now turns out to be a miserable failure.

The one constant you'll notice in all the iterations of evaluations in New York State is that the union leadership is always there on stage next to Cuomo for the sell-out announcement.

Bet whatever comes in the next day or so that some teacher union head will offer some variation on the Iannuzzi prouncement from back in the day:

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

Because rhetoric about how good the sell-outs they negotiate never gets old or stale in the mouths of teachers union heads.

Cuomo Says Teacher Evaluations, School Aid Are Negotiable

From State of Politics:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has told lawmakers that ethics is his No. 1 priority this year and other contentious issues – school aid, teacher evaluations, and regional infrastructure projects – are negotiable, several legislators said.

The story's by Yancey Roy, it's behind a paywall at Newsday.

More on this as we get more details.

But let me remind everybody out there that NYSUT President Magee and UFT President Mulgrew have already had one semi-secret meeting with Cuomo aides that made it into the news.

I wonder if they have any more semi-secret meetings in the works?

Nothing Would Make Me Happier

Ken Lovett reported that UFT President Mulgrew and NYSUT President Magee met with Cuomo aides on Friday after the unions unveiled attack ads against Cuomo's education budget and reform agenda.

Lovett wrote:

Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads, leaving some insiders to question whether the sides are trying to hammer out some type of agreement on how to move forward.

Norm Scott heard "secret meeting" between Cuomo aides and the union heads and smelled sell-out.

So did I (here and here.)

Because whenever I hear the words "secret meeting" and Cuomo, I have these painful flashbacks to the meetings they had to bash out the APPR agreement back in 2012 or the CCSS test safety net deal that Cuomo reneged on - so why wouldn't I smell sell-out since that's what's happened before?

But my friends on Twitter, many of them part of locals around the state, assure me I have nothing to fear - here's a few tweets from Martin Daly that do a good job of explaining their perspective:

@perdidostschool DOn't let one article blind you to all that is happening across the state- the union is fighting this war on may fronts.
— Martin Daly (@marty10707) February 10, 2015

@perdidostschool @NYGovCuomo I have seen no evidence of a deal or of the union backing off.
— Martin Daly (@marty10707) February 10, 2015

@perdidostschool @klnynews I think the union is keeping @NYGovCuomo on the defensive - we'll negotiate from strength
— Martin Daly (@marty10707) February 10, 2015

Now, nothing would make me happier in life than for Martin to be right about this and me to be wrong.

Seriously.

But I'm a little skittish, both as a UFT member who's seen his share of "compromises" from the leadership that ended badly for teachers and as an NYSUT member who's seen at least two in the last few years between NYSUT and Cuomo (the 2012 APPR deal and the CCSS safety net deal.)

So forgive me if I'm a little skeptical when I read a report from a reputable, excellent reporter like Ken Lovett (who broke much of the Moreland story before anybody else) about secret meetings between Cuomo aides and the union heads.

I'm glad to hear Martin Daly say the unions haven't pulled the ads, that there is no evidence that the union is backing off from the fight against Cuomo.

Nothing makes me happier than to hear that.

But the "secret meetings" thing concerns me a bit, because now is NOT the time to be doing any talking to Cuomo.

As I wrote yesterday:

There is no reason the unions should be talking about anything with Cuomo, not after he broke his promise over the CCSS safety net, not with him taking heavy damage from both political sides.

The unions ought to be doubling down on the ads, running more of them, exposing more of the Cuomo agenda for the brutal vendetta it is, weakening him so that when the time to talk does come, he's soft and pliable from the beatings he's taken.

The time will come for talk, but it surely hasn't come yet - there's more attacking to be done to make sure that when the talk time does come, Cuomo's beaten up enough to actually listen to what other people have to say.

I stand by those words today.

We didn't want this war but Cuomo brought it on us.

The time for talk will come - but we're not there yet.

Cuomo wanted a war.

Well, let's give it to him.

NYSUT President Magee Calls Cuomo's Tying Of School Funding To Passage Of His Reforms "Criminal"

From State of Politics:

New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee in an interview on WCNY’s The Capitol Pressroom knocked Cuomo and his administration for withholding the school aid runs — a line-by-line accounting how much school districts are projected to receive in the budget proposal traditionally released when the spending plan is announced — because much of the $1.1 billion spending increase is tied to the governor’s reforms.

“The governor has declared a war,” Magee said. “He’s declared a war on every single teacher in New York state.”

It’s potentially problematic for school districts considering they have to have their budgets before voters in May; the state’s budget is due March 31.

“It just again tells you the governor doesn’t understand how the school districts work,” she said. 

“It’s criminal for the governor to try to strong-arm his agenda through this way,” Magee added.

Strong words from Magee - all well and good.

Now she should back those strong words up with a barrage of ads telling New Yorkers what will happen if Cuomo gets to tie 50% of teacher evaluations to student test scores.

She can start that process by running an ad featuring Sheri Lederman, the award-winning teacher who was rated "ineffective" by NYSED on her test component via their value-added algorithm even though Lederman's students all passed their state tests and scored well above the state average.

She can tell New Yorkers that Lederman is suing the State Education Department over this rating and that so far, NYSED has been unable to provide an explanation for why Lederman was rated "ineffective" even though her students passed the state tests with scores well above the state average.

She can note that if Cuomo gets his way, many more teachers will be rated "ineffective" via an inscrutable NYSED value-added measurement algorithm that nobody from SED or the Regents seems able to explain.

And she can end the ad with Lederman's principal telling New Yorkers that if Cuomo gets his way on the rating reforms, one more "ineffective" rating on the inscrutable, unexplainable NYSED VAM will have Lederman fired and her students losing a highly effective, well-respected teacher.

Strong words on an NPR radio show are one thing.

Backing those strong words up with an effective PR campaign to alert the public to what Cuomo is doing and what the consequences will be if he gets his way is something else.

Strong words from the union president without the effective PR campaign that seeks to win the public over are, in the end, meaningless.

Teachers Unions Will Fight Cuomo On Funding, Not Evaluations

From Daily Politics:

The state teachers union on Thursday morning will begin a six-day ad campaign calling on Gov. Cuomo to better fund schools, the Daily News has learned.

The ad buy, which will run on broadcast and cable television in the New York City region and Albany, is timed to lead up to Cuomo's combined State of State and budget address on Wednesday that is expected to call for major education reforms opposed by the teacher unions.

"It reminds the governor that the state has failed in its responsibility to adequately and equitably fund public schools--and that should be the central issue in this legislation session," said Carl Korn, spokesman for the New York State United Teachers. "Everything else is peripheral."

The unions and other public education advocates have made the issue of reducing the funding equity gap between poor and rich schools their top priority this year as Cuomo is expected to aggressively push a host of other initiatives such as an increase in charter schools and tougher teacher evaluation standards.

Arthur Goldstein gave a play-by-play from the UFT Delegates Assembly tonight at 52 Broadway on Twitter.

The takeaway from Mulgrew at the DA?

@TeacherArthurG Is Mulgrew waving a white flag?
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) January 14, 2015

@TeacherArthurG In short, UFT/NYSUT will not fight evaluation changes. Instead will fight over $.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) January 14, 2015

@TeacherArthurG I called this yesterday - http://t.co/VDcd9Rb0Qv - Was hoping was wrong, but apparently am not.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) January 14, 2015

War's over, folks.

Union heads are going fight for more dollars while they cave over the charter cap, charter funding, teacher evaluations, etc.

They'll probably win a few extra bucks out of Cuomo in return for the "reforms" he wants for charters, evaluations, etc.

The irony is, those few extra bucks the union heads win out of Cuomo will go to force new compliance measures on you and your schools.

Will The UFT And NYSUT Have A Smart Strategy For Fighting Cuomo?

I posted some good news yesterday morning, courtesy of Ken Lovett at the Daily News, that Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver and his Assembly Dems were signaling they are ready to fight Governor Cuomo on his education policy power grab.

Some teachers are understandably dubious that the teachers unions will mount an effective opposition to Cuomo, thus negating Silver's willingness to go to the mattresses against Cuomo.

Silver will fight Cuomo on parts of the power grab that infringe on his own power - like Regents appointments and structural changes that would give the governor more power over education policy.

But when it comes to many of the items in Cuomo's education reform agenda that directly effect teachers and schools - like the charter cap or the APPR evaluation system - Silver's going to take the lead of NYSUT and UFT and fight only what they want fought.

Earlier this year, Silver didn't fight the charter school giveaway that Cuomo stuck in the budget, forcing NYC to either co-locate every charter school or pony up for rent for private space - because NYSUT and the UFT didn't want to fight it.

That gave Eva Moskowitz and her charter school edu-entrepreneurs an easy slam dunk victory on the co-location/rent issue.

James Eterno left a comment on the Silver post that suggests the teachers union leadership may follow suit this time around too:

We said at the ICE-UFT blog that Silver ' s caucus was our only hope. We survived Pataki but here is the problem: Cuomo is asking for everything. NYSUT will be asking for virtually nothing. The center of gravity will move toward Cuomo and we will lose some of that low hanging fruit like the charter cap.

NYSUT will claim victory because we didn't lose the whole store. The smart strategy for NYSUT would be to go on offense. For example maybe we demand a repeal of the evaluation system and rejection of common core. Then wheeling and dealing is more likely to go in our favor.

Look at the UFT'S legislative priority for 2015. We will be on our heels playing defense and not attacking. You can be pretty sure of this.

What do you think?

Will NYSUT and the UFT have a smart strategy for fighting Cuomo on his education power grab or will they take a loss and claim it as victory because it isn't a total rout?

In short, will they say something along the lines of "Sure Cuomo got his quota forcing districts to rate a certain number of teachers 'ineffective' every year, but he wanted 10% and we fought him down to 5%!  That scrapes the skies, it's such a good deal..."?

Time For Teachers Unions To Put Away The "Seat At The Table" Strategy

For years now I have heard teachers union leaders say the reason they continue to support politicians - mostly Democrats - who push anti-teacher, anti-public school reforms is because it is important to have "a seat at the table" where decisions on policy get made.

This is why I heard it was important to support Barack Obama in 2012 even though he had spent his first four years in the White House pushing education reform policies that I am almost certain the teachers unions would have opposed had it been George W. Bush pushing them.

This was also why I heard it was important we supported Andrew Cuomo for governor in 2010 (even though he had already signaled that he was going to be a reform-friendly governor taking a lot of reformer cash) and it was also why I heard it was important we not pick public fights with Cuomo even as he turned increasingly anti-public school/pro-charter as his first term waned.

Last May, the unions could have supported Zephyr Teachout for the Working Families Party nomination, an event that terrified Andrew Cuomo because polls showed he would struggle to get 50% in the general election with a third party candidate from the left on the ballot.

The union heads - including Michael Mulgrew at the UFT - instead decided to throw their lot in with Cuomo, threatening WFP activists with the dissolution of the party if Teachout were given the ballot nomination.

They wrested "concessions" out of Cuomo, including a hostage video he made where he pledged to push for policies and items WFP activists wanted, but the video camera wasn't even cool yet by the time Cuomo started breaking those pledges.

Having failed to get the WFP nomination, Teachout ran against Cuomo in the Democratic primary and, behind the scenes, the unions helped Cuomo and his running mate, Kathy Hochul, fend off her challenge.

When it looked like Teachout's running mate, Columbia law professor Tim Wu, might beat her in the primary, AFT President Randi Weingarten began making robocalls for Hochul in order to help her win her primary.

In the end, even though most unions did not endorse Cuomo, the unions did a lot to help him win this past election.

Without union help, Cuomo might have had a third party challenge in the general election take double digit support away from him, making the 13 percentage point victory he won over Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino much, much closer.

With Teachout on the ballot in November, it was possible Cuomo could have barely eked out a victory at all or even lost to Astorino.

But he never had to worry about that possibility because the union heads - including the teachers union heads - made sure Teachout was not on the ballot in November.

In the days before the election, the Daily News revealed that Cuomo was threatening to "break" the public school system after re-election - that he saw public schools as a "monopoly" that needed to be busted.

Rather than express alarm at that statement, AFT President Randi Weingarten merely dismissed it as "campaign rhetoric" and said there was nothing to worry about, she would make Cuomo aware through a private letter that he was wrong in his statements.

It turned out later that Weingarten had heard Cuomo make the monopoly statement personally before that - she was sitting next to him at a Forbes forum on education in June when he first trotted out the "break the public school monopoly" rhetoric.

So Weingarten should have known - indeed, probably did know - that Cuomo wasn't kidding when he said he was going to "break" the public school system.

Alas, we still had our "seat at the table," so teachers union heads signaled no change in strategy toward Cuomo.

Fast forward to this week - Cuomo publicly said his APPR teacher evaluation system is in need of "toughening" since not enough teachers were rated ineffective last year and he planned to address that problem in the next legislative session.

The next day, he made public a letter from his state operations director to outgoing NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch that signaled he intended a large-scale reform of the education system in New York in the next budget negotiation and/or legislative session.

The letter indicated that Cuomo would look to reform or address:

1. The evaluation system
2. The 3020a disciplinary process
3. The ATR pool in NYC
4. Teacher certification
5. Probationary period for teachers
6. Making it easy to close schools
7. Increase in charter schools, especially in NYC
8. Adding more technology to the system, including online classes
9. Consolidating districts
10. Reforming the Regents appointment process
11. Making the hiring of NYSED Commissioner King's replacement transparent

Post-letter, it is clear Cuomo's planning a broad assault against public schools and teachers in his next term, but also planning to subsume as much power from the rest of the education bureaucracy into his own office as he can.

This broad and sweeping attack was not lost on members of the Board of Regents or the legislature - Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY reported they will be pushing back against Cuomo to make sure that he does not get control over NYSED or Regents appointments (as he indicated he would like in the letter.)

This broad and sweeping attack was not lost on the heads of the teachers unions either, who immediately put out statements pushing back against Cuomo's planned reforms.

Here was NYSUT President Karen Magee:

The governor says he wants to put students first,” Magee said. “If that were even remotely true, he would listen carefully and act on the advice of the real experts — parents, educators and students — about what’s best for public education,” she said. “Instead, New Yorkers get clueless, incendiary questions that do the bidding of New York City hedge fund billionaires who have letterhead and campaign donations, but know absolutely nothing about how public education works. If the governor wants a battle, he can take the clueless New York City billionaires. We’ll take the parents, teachers, higher education faculty and students in every ZIP code of the state.”

And the UFT's Michael Mulgrew:

“This letter comes right out of the playbook of the hedge funders for whom education “reform” has become a pet cause and who poured money into the Cuomo re-election campaign,” Mulgrew said. “The Governor owes these people big time, but unfortunately the children of New York will end up paying his debts.”

Cuomo plans to destroy the public school system and the teaching profession, is looking to pay back his charter school and education reformer donors by privatizing the school system, making teaching into an at-will job, lowering labor costs by increasing the burn and churn in the teaching force, and increasing the opportunities for the edu-entrepreneurs to make millions off the system reforms.

There can be no more equivocation by the leaders of the teachers unions - Weingarten, Mulgrew, Magee - that Cuomo means no harm, that this is "campaign rhetoric" or "just politics."

He means business and his business is destroying us - he has picked up the proverbial "seat at the table" the union leaders like so much and is beating us to a pulp with it.

I am happy to see that the leaders of NYSUT and the UFT have responded with public alarm over Cuomo's letter.

In the past, they might have ignored the letter or defended it in some way (as Weingarten did earlier with the "campaign rhetoric" statement), but this time around, they seem to understand that open warfare has come and there can be no working with Cuomo on this.

Now it is time for action from the unions to back up the words.

We saw plenty of action from them over the last four years helping Cuomo (as I detailed above), so I know they're capable of taking actions to hurt him too.

There are plenty of stakeholders who are going to be upset about the coming Cuomo attack on the education system.

Two items Cuomo did NOT address in the reform letter were Common Core and high stakes testing - two items that really, really concern many parents in the state.

If anything, Cuomo's planned reforms to the evaluation system are going to exacerbate the problems the state has with Common Core and testing, so common ground can be forged with parent activists on both right and left who have been fighting the education establishment on CCSS and testing.

Of course, since the unions still support CCSS, that may have to mean a shift in stance on the standards, but given the alternative - fighting Cuomo without parent allies - I think a modification on the CCSS support is warranted here.

Next, Cuomo is not a very popular governor.

As I detailed yesterday, his job approval in the Siena poll taken this week is 15% underwater:

 How would you rate the job Andrew Cuomo is doing as Governor?

Excellent - 7%
Good - 35%
Fair - 40%
Poor - 17%
Don't Know - 1%

The way these polls get analyzed, excellent and good become the "approval" number, fair and poor become the "disapproval" number.

Take a look at those approval numbers for Cuomo just six weeks after he won re-election with 54% of the vote.

He's underwater in approval by 15%.

For some reason Siena led with Cuomo's favorability rating (58%) in their press release and the media coverage of the poll followed suit, making Cuomo sound more politically powerful that he is right now.

The truth is, he has a 42% job approval rating, the casino and fracking decisions he made this week may win him some fans on one side of those issues, but they're going to lose him some fans on the other side, so I don't think those approval numbers are going to move much in a positive direction.

But even if they did shift up, so what?

He's 8 percentage points under 50% job approval, 15% under water overall, he needed to outraise his GOP opponent Astorino 9 to 1 in campaign donations and he still won the lowest vote total of any New York governor seeking re-election since FDR in 1930.

Let me state again, this is NOT a politically popular governor, he does NOT have the political juice to pull off the large-scale attack he plans on schools, teachers, the education system or the political system.

Finally this dude's got more enemies than you can number.  He's spent the last four years running roughshod over his fellow politicians, other politicians and the education establishment in Albany are already indicating they view his power play over the system with alarm, and he's got a federal prosecutor looking into him for tampering with the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption.

As I wrote yesterday, Cuomo is NOT coming from a place of strength, but he wants us to think he is, which is perhaps why he is signaling he's going to go for total reform of the system rather than little nicks and cuts.

It's a head fake to get you to think, "Geez, he must really be powerful if he can do all of this!" when the reality is, he can do NONE of this if we fight him on it.

Which brings me back to the "seat at the table" strategy.

For a long time now, we have had that seat at the table and here is where it has brought us - Cuomo beating us over the head with it.

It is time to put away the "seat at the table" strategy and replace it with a "mattresses strategy" a la The Godfather.

We are at war with the governor, we did not want this war but he has brought it on us and now we have to "Go To The Mattresses" in order to defend ourselves.

I implore the teachers union leaders to back up their words of alarm with action now that open warfare has come.

Partner with parents, develop a public relations strategy to counter the one that is sure to come from Cuomo (though it will probably be funded by private interests like his campaign donors), work to weaken Cuomo further in a war of attrition that will leave him politically battered when all is said and done.

He CAN be beaten in this war over public education and the future of the school system and teaching profession.

But in order to do it, we must put away the "seat at the table" strategy for good, acknowledge he is our enemy, and there can be no compromise strategy with him any longer.

Teachers Union Leaders Sell Out Members Because They've Got No Skin In The Game

Sean Crowley left this comment on a post I wrote this morning about the need for the teachers unionr to get rid of their failed political strategy:

I think I like the idea of union leadership made up of full time teachers not lounge lizards screwing around on their ipads all day and flitting to different corners of the state for meetings where the refuse to answer questions. Doesn't PJSTA President Beth Dimino still teach? I think we need that connection and we need leadership's neck on the same block as the rest of us. Messner, Magoo, Palotta, Weingarten et al are useless. They work to fatten their own wallets and feather their own nests. They have no skin in our game. And that's a huge problem that leads to a lot of cowardly collaboration in place of bare knuckled unionism. No more executives, managers, coasters and loafers. The job is too damned important to be filled with idlers and dead weight.

Sean's got something here.

With no skin in the game, teachers union leaders think nothing of selling out the membership, then coming back to tell them that's the best they can do in such an adverse environment.

Why should the union leaders care when they've got their six digit salaries, double pensions, paid expense accounts and all the other perks that come with these plum gigs?

How Randi Weingarten And Other Union Leaders Help Andrew Cuomo Bring The "Death Penalty" To New York's Public School System

Last year, Andrew Cuomo promised to bring the "death penalty" to "failing schools."

This year, Andrew Cuomo has called the public school system a "monopoly" which he plans to "break" in his second term.

Cuomo doesn't seem to like teachers any more than he seems to like public schools.

Cuomo has promoted a punitive teacher evaluation system that superintendents in the Lower Hudson Valley have said is a disaster that needs to be changed as soon as possible as one of the best in the nation.

Last month, Cuomo said that teacher evaluation system needs to be revised because too many teachers are being rated "effective" or "highly effective" with it.

Last week, a highly-respected 17 year teaching veteran filed suit against the NYSED commissioner after she was rated "ineffective" in this system as a result of her students' test scores - even though her students' test scores were high in comparison with other students' scores around the state.

Last week, Cuomo promised to make the teacher evaluation system that rated a highly respected teacher "ineffective" even more punitive by adding "real sanctions" to it.

Last week, AFT President Randi Weingarten defended Cuomo's "monopoly" comments by saying they were "campaign rhetoric."

Cuomo made these comments twice - he doubled down after the Daily News first reported them - so the comments seem less like "campaign rhetoric," more like campaign promises.

Yet Randi was running interference for Cuomo even as she was also mounting a symbolic battle against TIME Magazine over a cover they ran about teacher tenure.

This wasn't the first time Randi Weingarten helped out her buddy Andy during the election cycle.

Back in the spring, Weingarten, along with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, engineered a putsch within the NYSUT to toss out the old NYSUT leadership when it started to show guts and take on Cuomo over issues and replace them with a more Cuomo-compliant leadership.

Also last spring, union leaders put pressure on the Working Families Party to endorse Andrew Cuomo over Fordham President Zephyr Teachout when they threatened the party with dissolution and financial ruin if Teachout were given the party's ballot line.

You can be sure the UFT was not part of that pressure on WFP without Weingarten's okay.

This September, when internal polling showed Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, with a real shot to beat Cuomo's banker lobbyist running mate, Kathy Hochul, in the primary, Weingarten joined NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio in making robocalls for Cuomo's running mate, Hochul.

Hochul won her primary - Wu said the momentum in the campaign turned against him when the robocalls started.

This morning on Twitter, Randi Weingarten defended her defense of Andrew Cuomo's comments, saying she had criticized him and what more could she be expected to do?


Well, what she has done is quite clear - and quite helpful to Andrew Cuomo.

To reiterate:

She helped engineer a putsch against the old NYSUT leadership and helped install a new, Cuomo-compliant leadership at NYSUT.

She helped other union leaders push for a Working Families Party endorsement for Andrew Cuomo, a huge thing that meant Cuomo wouldn't have to worry about a third party candidate from the left during the general election (and multiple polls had shown Cuomo losing a lot of support if that happened.)

She made robocalls for Cuomo's bank lobbyist running mate when it looked like she might lose and helped the bankster lobbyist win her primary.

And now she defends Cuomo's plan to "break" public schools by calling the comments (which he made twice) "campaign rhetoric."

As I noted above, Cuomo has promised to bring the "death penalty" to schools he considers "failing" - and from comments he made this week, he seems to think the entire public school system around the state is failing.

When Cuomo "breaks" the school system, when he takes a sledgehammer to the public schools and gives them the "death penalty," that sledgehammer will have the fingerprints of AFT President Randi Weingarten on it.

Cuomo's Attack Against Teachers, Public Schools Is A Direct Attack - Not A Distraction As NYSUT Prez Says

If you were expecting NYSUT to take off the gloves and fight against Governor Cuomo for declaring the public school system a "monopoly" which he plans to "break" in his second term, you will be disappointed by the statement NYSUT President Magee offered as retort to Cuomo:

“Public education is for the public good,” said NYSUT President Karen Magee in a statement. “It is not a monopoly. It is the centerpiece of our democracy and what makes our nation great. Reclaiming the promise of public education should be our singular focus. The governor’s comments are an unfortunate distraction from the serious conversation we must have in this state about addressing poverty, funding and real solutions that ensure that every child receives fair and equal to a high quality education.”

The governor's comments are an unfortunate distraction?

What the hell is Magee talking about?

The governor's comments are a DIRECT attack against the public school system and public school teachers by Governor Cuomo.

If President Magee thinks a direct attack is nothing more than a distraction, than she is even more clueless than I thought she was when she was first elected president of NYSUT.

We've been over this before, but I want to go over it again:

The various union leaders at the AFT, UFT and NYSUT have helped Cuomo out considerably these past four years.

The reason why NYSUT President Magee is NYSUT president is because UFT President Mulgrew and AFT President Weingarten launched a putsch against the old NYSUT leadership when it started to push back against Cuomo's attacks on teachers and schools.

The reason why Governor Cuomo doesn't have a third party candidate from the left battling him on the Working Families Party line next Tuesday is because the UFT leadership threatened the WFP with dissolution if Zephyr Teachout was given the ballot line.

One of the reasons why Governor Cuomo has his running mate, Kathy Hochul, running with him on Tuesday and not Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, is because AFT President Randi Weingarten, along with NYC Mayor Bill de Blaiso, made robocalls before the primary in support of Hochul.

So Cuomo's gotten a lot of help from the leaders of the teachers unions and how does he repay that help?

With threats to "break" the public school "monopoly" and bring more "rigor" to his mess of a teacher evaluation system in his next term.

NYSUT supporters argue they got the governor to support a teacher evaluation safety net for teachers whose students take the Common Core exams, but the governor has yet to sign that bill into law, so in essence, the Revive NYSUT leadership has gotten NOTHING in any fight it has had with Governor Cuomo these past months (except for the double pension giveaway for the NYSUT leadership, as a commenter below points out.)

Now we have NYSUT President Magee calling Cuomo's direct attack on schools and teachers a "distraction" when it is anything but.

We are going to be in for a rough four years if and when Cuomo wins re-election because it's clear NYSUT leaders have no desire to take him on.

I'll have more later about the UFT and AFT leaderships, but suffice to say, they don't have any appetite to fight Cuomo either.

We're on our own, folks.

And Cuomo's coming for us.