Get Ready For More "Personalized" Online Learning

Not much on the education front in today's state of the state/budget address by Cuomo, unlike in previous years when he was slamming teachers for all the ills in society and calling for the "death penalty" for failing schools, but this proposal seems education-related to me:

PROPOSAL 10: Dramatically expand and improve access to high-speed Internet in communities statewide. Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul detailed this proposal shortly after the New York State Public Service Commission voted to approve the merger of Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, which will dramatically improve broadband availability for millions of New Yorkers and lead to more than $1 billion in direct investments and consumer benefits.

Additionally, the state issued a $500 million solicitation for private sector partners to join the New NY Broadband Program, which will greatly expand Internet access in all regions of the state, with a focus on unserved and underserved areas.

In order to begin shedding humans in the education system and switching to "personalized" computer learning, they need to ensure "unserved" and "underserved" areas have widespread broadband Internet access.

So the "dramatically expanding and improving access to high-speed Internet" proposal is not specifically about education but it is education-related.

The future is not only online education and testing in schools, it will be online schooling at home.

This will be a disaster for society in the long run of course, but in the short term it will be a boon to the state and municipality coffers when they shed payroll, building costs, et al.

With public sector unions expected to lose large swaths of their membership after the Supreme Court rules on the Friedrichs case, who will be around to stop them when they decide urban and rural areas are going to have "personalized" learning at home?

Sure the suburban parents will make sure this doesn't happen in their communities, but you can bet they're aiming to make it happen elsewhere where the pushback will be minimal.

Just add "dramatically expanded and improved high-speed Internet access" and you're ready to go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

There's so much wrong here.

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

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

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

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

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

Kathy Hochul Closing Her Appearances To The Media

What do you make of these items from the State of Politics "Here and Now" update:

At 1:30 p.m., LG Kathy Hochul tours KPH Healthcare Services, 6040 Tarbell Rd., Syracuse. (The tour is closed to members of the press, but a media availability will follow).

Ar 2:30 p.m., Hochul visits Destiny USA, NYS’ largest retail mall and a major CNY tourist attraction, 9090 Destiny USA Dr., Syracuse. (This tour is also closed to the press, a media availability will follow at Margaritaville Restaurant).

At 3:30 p.m., Hochul tours JMA Wireless, 7645 Henry Clay Blvd., Liverpool. (Again, closed press with an availability immediately afterwards).

Closing Hochul's appearances to the media and only holding an "availability" afterward suggests to me that the Cuomo administration has something to hide.

What, exactly, are they afraid of members of the press seeing at Destiny USA mall that they're keeping them away from Hochul's appearance there but offering an availability at "Margaritaville" afterwards?

Kathy Hochul: Who Cares About Criminal Probe, Buffalo Billion Is Creating Jobs!

That was her message today:

“I am so excited to tell the Buffalo Billion story. At this point already $875 million has been committed,” Hochul said. “We’re anticipating $8 billion in investment leverage as a result of this.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has pledged the investment in the Buffalo area — which is aimed at drawing high-tech companies and employment along with it — will create up to 14,000 jobs.

“Those jobs will be created,” Hochul said. “Those jobs are committed. SolarCity is committed and it’s going to to continue as planned.”
...

Hochul, meanwhile, insisted the investigation by Bharara’s office — which has placed scrutiny on both SUNY Polytechnic leader Alain Kaloyeros as well as the SolarCity project — won’t chill the anticipated job creation. Echoing comments Cuomo made earlier this month, Hochul said the investment in Buffalo has been a success.

“A day doesn’t go by where we don’t see a spectacular headline talking about increasing construction jobs, the tech jobs, the tourism jobs that are now coming back as a result of the governor’s commitment to Buffalo,” she said.

This is what is known as putting a happy face on the coming criminal charges/indictments.

You can see the latest on the investigation into Cuomo''s Buffalo Billion here, here and here.

As John Gielgud told Liza Minelli in Arthur: Good luck in prison...

MaryEllen Elia Sends Message: Nothing Of Substance Is Changing

The Buffalo News has a fluff piece on MaryEllen Elia and her "I'm Not Listening" tour, which continues apace.

The theme of the piece is how Elia is actually listening to parents, teachers and union leaders.

Sure she is:

“I’ve always been very involved with teachers and the things that happen in the classroom,” she said during a visit to Sweet Home High School in Amherst on Wednesday. “The parents, the teachers need to be very involved in how we improve education in New York.”

...

During visits to Buffalo, the Sweet Home district and Niagara Falls, Elia reiterated her call for high standards and more rigorous coursework to better prepare students for college and the workforce.

She leaned on her decades of experience working in schools in New York and Florida in her appeal to teachers, showing an understanding of and appreciation for the work they do in their classrooms.

At another Sweet Home district school, Glendale Elementary in the Town of Tonawanda, she commended staff – and in particular a fifth-grade math teacher – for work in improving student performance on the state assessments.

“Thank you so much,” she told the group. “Thank you all for your work.”

Oh please - the theme is the same from Elia as it was from her predecessor, John King:

Improve test scores or else.

You can even see it from the pat on the head she gave to the Glendale Elementary teacher for "improving student performance on the state assessments."

No one should be fooled by the PR, it's all about the tests and the test scores for Elia:

Elia later faced skeptical faces in meetings with teachers and parents at Sweet Home High, fielding many of the usual questions about evaluations, standardized tests and training for educators.

She promised to review the standards, look for areas to improve on and offer teachers support to implement them in their classrooms.

But she also held firm to the message she has delivered since taking over as commissioner – she will not back down in her push for higher standards.

The message from the Elia there is, nothing of substance in the state Endless Testing regime is changing, we're just making it look like we're listening to parents and educators concerns, but we're going to do what we want no matter what

Kathy Hochul said essentially the same thing yesterday:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest effort to examine Common Core isn’t an effort to pull the state away from the controversial education standards, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

Hochul told WCNY’s The Capitol Pressroom this morning that Cuomo “agrees with the goal” of the standards, but reiterated that the role out of standards was flawed.

“He is going to convene a commission of people who have studied this and thought about it, but also parents and educators to get their opinion,” she said in the interview.

...

Overall, the administration’s review of the standards is a stab at modifying Common Core in New York, Hochul said.

“He agrees with the goal of the Common Core standards, but the role out was flawed and it’s been confusing for parents as evidenced by the opt-out movement,” she said. “So, he has not said it’s going away. He has said, yes, we have standards in place, but let’s figure out how we can modify them.”

See what they're doing?

They're pushing some propaganda that they're listening, they're really listening, to parents and educators about Common Core and testing concerns and it's possible, just possible, that something about Common Core might be "modified."

Isn't that swell?

Nahh, because under all of that is the message that the standards and reform agenda will largely remain in place and nothing's really changing.

Here's how I think this plays out:

They'll tinker around the edges, find something that seems like it's a big give that isn't really much of a give (last time around, a Cuomo commission/panel recommended killing the inBloom data thing even though it was already on life support), then hail the "modifications" as a great improvement on what came before (and parent- and educator-led to boot!)

No one should be fooled by Elia's jive or the Cuomo/Hochul jive - the chances that anything really substantive will change about the Endless Testing regime and/or Common Core are about the same as Andrew Cuomo publicly apologizing to Bill de Blasio for being a jerk.

It isn't happening.

It's all about the tests and the test scores in New York and it will still be the way after the Cuomo/Tisch/Elia Common Core Review show closes down.

Kathy Hochul Hears It From A Teacher, Lies Directly To Her Face In Response

Governor Andrew Cuomo was supposed to be at the New York State Fair but he canceled his appearance and sent Kathy Hochul in his place instead.

Hochul met with a teacher protesting the Cuomo administration's imposed education policies and agenda:

Beth Chetney, a ninth-grade English teacher who has been teaching at the Baldwinsville Central School District for 24 years, gave Hochul a fair-sized litany of frustrations. On their list? Teacher evaluations, student testing, a growing lack of control they feel inside their own classrooms, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo himself.

"The stress that they are under right now is incredible," Chetney said of fellow teachers. "We have a lot of teachers that are feeling the pressure, that if they don't instruct based on what they can guess is going to be on this asinine test."

... 

The teacher described how five or six third-grade questions were released online recently, and most adults she knew were getting at least one of those wrong.

Hochul paid some lip service to saying the administration was dealing with these problems:

"The issues you raise are legitimate," Hochul said. "I assure you they are being talked about at high levels. And you're going to see some changes."

That's a lie, of course - these changes that have brought about more pressure, more stress, more emphasis on testing, and an increased sense of control over what teachers teach and how they teach it came DIRECTLY from the Cuomo administration and Cuomo himself.

Cuomo said not enough teachers were being fired under his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system, so he had it re-engineered as part of the budget process to ensure that more will be found ineffective and fired next time around (even though these changes actually keep "effective" teachers from teaching in schools with the most vulnerable populations.)

How in hell can Hochul look this teacher in the face and say ""The issues you raise are legitimate...I assure you they are being talked about at high levels. And you're going to see some changes" when Hochul knows this is exactly the way her boss, Andrew Cuomo wants things to work in the public education system?

After all, he said public education is a "monopoly" which he plans to "break" - that was a pretty clear statement of intent upon Cuomo's part, one which he stated more than once (here,  here and here.)

Chetney gave Hochul more:

Chetney, the president of the Baldwinsville district's teachers union, kept going. She said she feels the governor has targeted teachers, calling them unethical. Chetney said she's heard the governor say that student tests are meaningless to kids. If that's true, Chetney said, then why does the governor insist that 50 percent of the teachers' evaluations are based on those same test scores?

Hochul said it wasn't true that Cuomo has targeted teachers - another lie:

Hochul listened and then pushed back, not on the teacher eval argument, but on the claim that Cuomo doesn't care about teachers and the pressures they face.

"It's easy to pull out these sound bites that sound the most contentious," Hochul said. "But I've sat in rooms with him, and heard his real concern for teachers and the students. And I don't think that gets covered."

It isn't true that he hasn't targeted teachers, intentionally ratcheted up the pressures in the system, deliberately tried to raise test scores in the evaluation to 50% (even though he said those tests are "meaningless" for students and they shouldn't worry about them)?

Of course it's true, whether Hochul says this is a "contentious sound bite" or not.  As for her claim that Cuomo cares for teachers and students, here's what she's basing that on:

Then Hochul laid out some of Cuomo's education proposals that have become law: less testing in younger grades, more bonus money for stellar teachers, and free tuition for qualifying new New York teachers.

"I'm here to tell that you he has a true commitment to supporting the profession and making sure that New York state regains its position as No. 1 in the nation in education," Hochul said.

These Hochul claims are, at best, distortions.

Since the tests count for 50% of a teacher's evaluation, even for teachers teaching younger grades, the pressure around testing remains, the so-called "bonus money" is based upon a bogus evaluation system that is currently under review by a judge in the Lederman case for "irrationality", and the free tuition for qualifying teachers, well, that doesn't have much value for a career increasingly viewed as a losing proposition by young people.

Chetney finished up her conversation with Hochul this way:

As Hochul and Chetney finished their talk, the crowd around them clapped.

Chetney made a final plea to Cuomo: "He needs to really engage parents and teachers and let them be a part of the solution," she said.

Hochul again said the governor shares the same goal.

"I haven't heard him say that," Chetney said, "and I invite him to my classroom in Baldwinsville anytime he would like to come."

Of course he'll never take Chetney up on the invitation to visit her in her classroom because he doesn't care about what's going on there.

He has an agenda that has been paid for by his wealthy donors to "break" the public school "monopoly" and help them to profit off public education and by golly that's what he cares about.

Hochul's full of crap and her responses to Chetney were lies, deceptions, distortions or empty words.

Teachers know Cuomo has targeted them for destruction no matter what talking points Hochul uses to say differently.

Too bad the cowardly Cuomo doesn't have the courage to meet with teachers directly - either in their classrooms or at the state fair - to hear their grievances and criticism.

Cuomo Staff Tries To Keep Reporter From Covering Hochul Meeting With Kiryas Joel Leaders

Here's some news from the most open and transparent New York State government in history:

KERHONKSON - Satmar leaders heaped praise upon the lieutenant governor and governor Tuesday during visits by Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul to Orthodox Jewish girls’ camps in Sullivan and Ulster counties.

During visits to Camp Bais Rochel in South Fallsburg and Camp Rav Tov in Kerhonkson, Hochul watched camper performances, listened to speeches given by current and former campers, and met with Kiryas Joel Mayor Abraham Wieder and other Satmar community leaders.

Hochul and her entourage were an hour late arriving to Camp Rav Tov. In the meantime, camp staff welcomed press presence and sought to show off their campers’ model behavior. Hochul’s Chief of Staff Jeffrey Pearlman and David Lobl, Special Assistant for Jewish Affairs to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, tried unsuccessfully to have a reporter leave the grounds of Camp Rav Tov until after Hochul visited with campers. Lobl called the campers’ presentation before Hochul, which included chants, songs and thankful speeches about Hochul’s and Cuomo’s support of the Jewish community, “off the record.”

Photos shared on Twitter by the Village of Kiryas Joel’s Twitter account showed the village’s mayor meeting with Hochul and her staff at one of the camps.

Why would Cuomo's staff want to keep the press away from the Hochul meeting with Kiryas Joel leaders?

Well, there is this:

Hochul's visit to the Satmar camps came less than a month after Cuomo vetoed two bills that Kiryas Joel leaders lobbied fiercely against as a threat to the community's expansion plans. Within days of those July 8 vetoes, a Kiryas Joel man who controls Satmar land holdings in Monroe and Woodbury - including some of the vacant tracts contained in a pending 507-acre annexation petition - deposited $250,000 in the governor's campaign account through five limited liability corporations, records show.

Perhaps Cuomo's special assistant for Jewish affairs and Hocul's chief of staff were afraid she wouldn't be able to have an open and frank discussion about how much more Cuomo needs to have donated into his campaign if the Kiryas Joel community wants more payback from him?

The Rumor About Cuomo

Mary Ahern pointed out this article from the Buffalo Chronicle to me today:

William Hochul, Jr. is the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York. He is also the husband of Kathy Hochul, the Lt. Governor and Andrew Cuomo’s 2014 running mate. Last year, during the gubernatorial campaign, the US Attorney was criticized for not pursing a series of public corruption cases that exposed shocking conflicts of interest.

In recent months, he has been recusing himself from cases involving local political operatives.

A source close to the US Attorney tells me that he “fully expects” his wife to become the next Governor of New York, likely by the end of the year.

Cuomo is currently under investigation by the FBI and the State Attorney General’s office. Political operatives expect Cuomo to be pushed out of office under federal indictment later this year, and are wondering if Mrs. Hochul will have the staying power, tact, and political skills to build a governing coalition that secures her reelection.

Western New Yorkers from both parties have an extraordinary interest in ensuring that — when or if Hochul indeed becomes Governor — that her tenure is long and her political standing is formidable.

Some problems with this story:

First, it's sourcing is thin - "political operatives expect..." and "a source close to the US Attorney..." leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Who's the source close to the US Attorney? Someone who works with the US Attorney or the barista who serves him his morning coffee?

I realize Fred Dicker of the Post does the same thing in his Monday columns, but Dicker's been an Albany figure for decades, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there. Matthew Ricchiazzi, who runs the political blog The Buffalo Chronicle, is a 29 year old politician wanna-be who tried to run for mayor of Buffalo in 2009 before the Board of Elections rejected his petition to get on the ballot.

Maybe his sources are as good as Dicker's (or not as good - some people think at times Fred Dicker uses himself as a source!), but whatever the case, I'm not ready to put a lot of faith in them.

Second problem, Ricchiazzi been accused of misquoting people and "reckless reporting" in the past.

That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in me about this report.

Finally, Matthew Ricchiazzi, has his own notoriety in the news this year - for a DWI charge.

So while I enjoy the surfacing of the rumor that Cuomo is to be indicted by the feds before the end of the year, I'm not ready to ride the Buffalo Chronicle report any further than "rumor."

It does bear watching, however.

The NY Post had a leak from what seems to be the US Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York urging Shelly Silver and Dean Skelos to "deal" now that former majority leader Malcolm Smith got a seven year prison sentence for his corruption conviction.

The pattern out of Bharara's office has been a series of leaks every few months that sets up the next bombshell arrest - it started with the Silver leaks in 2014, continued with Silver's arrest the day after Cuomo's state of the state/budget address in January, continued again with leaks about Skelos right after the Silver arrest, continued with Skelos's arrest after the budget was completed in March.

We have now gotten at least one more leak about Silver and Skelos needing to "deal" if they don't want to go away to prison for a long, long time.

Unless I'm way off the mark, that's part of the Preet Pattern and we may just get some more interesting leaks before all is said and done - but I'm pretty sure the Buffalo Chronicle isn't going to be the recipient of them.

Preet's Working His Way Up The Food Chain

For the skeptics out there who remain dubious that US Attorney Preet Bharara is working his way up the chain to Governor Cuomo comes this theorizing from The Albany Project:

I think that it becomes clearer everyday that Preet Bharara neither Sheldon Silver or Dean Skelos are his ultimate target and that he is methodically arresting and indicting his way through Albany with a certain bigger fish in his sights. And he’s picked up some prime cooperating witnesses along the way while leaning hard on those he’s already nabbed to flip. 

Look at was happened in just the last few months. Bharara turned up the heat on Sheldon Silver after his arrest and indictment by then indicting his son-in-law for allegedly running a $7 million Ponzi scheme through a firm co-owned with Silver’s daughter who also serves as the firms CPA. A week later, he added some fresh charges to the former speaker’s indictment just to make sure Silver got the message.

Then Bharara’s office leaked that not only was Dean Skelos under investigation, but that Bharara was presenting a criminal case to a federal grand jury that targeted not only Skelos, but also his son. He then arrests them both on federal corruption charges. Then, to turn the screws on Skelos further, tosses in this new charge, one that wasn’t mentioned at all in the initial criminal complaint against Skelos and son, about the no-show job from the firm run by a guy with significant ties to Cuomo.

Along the way, Bharara flipped the bagman for the state’s largest political donor, a man responsible for spreading millions in campaign cash all over the state to politicians in both parties, and let it be known that he now had god-only-knows how many new wiretap targets thanks to Sheldon Silver. That sent shockwaves through Albany and has lawmakers all over town freaking right the hell out. Bharara is so far in their heads that they are too scared to even do typical end of session horse trading for fear that Bharara will nail them for it.

This is all reminiscent of how prosecutors run mafia cases, working their way up the food chain by arresting and pressuring the hell out of the underlings to make a case against the boss. Bharara is doing exactly that. He’s getting closer and closer to the top of the pyramid. He’s putting enormous pressure on both Silver and Skelos to cut a deal, and in New York, there’s only one chair above them on the org chart.  

... 

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Preet Bharara is not conducting a number of separate, unrelated investigations into corrupt Albany pols. He is conducting one massive investigation, one that is moving ever closer to the guy at the top.

Cuomo appointed the latest federal cooperating witness, Anthony Bonomo, to run the New York Racing Association in April.

Bonomo and family have donated $400K to Cuomo over the last four years.

Bonomo gave Dean Skelos' son, Adam, a no-show job worth a hundred grand.

Bonomo is cooperating with the feds in the case against the Skelos men.

I suppose you can make the case that Bharara is just taking a scattershot approach to corruption in New York, but the Albany Project theory makes a lot more sense.

He's working his way up the food chain.

One of the critiques on Bharara is that he's Wall Street's boy, that he's never gone after systemic corruption on the Street but instead has targeted insider trading cases and Madoff.

The critique goes that Preet, out of the Schumer shop, is being very careful not to antagonize the big boys so that if he does run for higher office some day, he doesn't have to worry about them trying to "Spitzer" him.

As a side note to this theory, it's said by some that Bharara won't take down Cuomo because he's Wall Street's puppet.

But I don't think that's necessarily so - the part about taking out Cuomo, I mean.

Kathy Hochul, the former bank lobbyist, would become governor if anything ever happened to Cuomo, so it's not like Wall Street's interests won't be taken care of if Cuomo goes down.

I would add that Cuomo's become a bit of a liability of late, what with all the Cuomo donors becoming cooperating witnesses and such, so you can make the argument that maybe, just maybe, Wall Street wouldn't be so sad to see Cuomo taken out and replaced with the equally amenable but much less troublesome Hochul.

We'll just have to see what happens.

Regardless, you can bet with all these Cuomo donors cooperating and with some other Cuomo cronies getting squeezed, Sheriff Andy isn't happy and doesn't really know what to do about it.

Today he argued that he has passed the "most dramatic" ethics reforms in history so you know, everything's cool.

I dunno, I'm no lawyer, but I'm going to guess that Bharara doesn't see it that way - not with the case he seems to be building against Sheriff Andy.

Is The Criminal Investigation Into Cuomo's Crony In Buffalo Politically Motivated To Get At Cuomo?

As I blogged yesterday, one of Governor Cuomo's political cronies was on the other end of a law enforcement search:

State and federal investigators Thursday searched the homes of three Western New York political operatives – confidants to the New York governor, Buffalo mayor and a member of Congress – sending shock waves across state Democratic and Republican party circles.

The investigation of G. Steven Pigeon, Steven M. Casey and Christopher M. Grant appears focused around an independent political committee called the WNY Progressive Caucus, which has ties to Pigeon. Investigators appear interested in the financial activities of the caucus and its ties to several political campaigns in recent years. The probe also includes questions about “elevated” payments for advertising, mailings and other political activities, a law enforcement official said.

The raids targeted three men who have been integral players in local and statewide politics, and that fact was not lost on party insiders in Buffalo and Albany.

Pigeon has vast political connections, from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to billionaire businessman B. Thomas Golisano.

Casey – dubbed the “shadow mayor” – was until last year the first deputy mayor under Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown.

Grant is chief of staff for Rep. Chris Collins, R-Clarence.

The Buffalo mayor, Byron Brown, says he is not a target of the investigation:

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown acknowledged he knows all three Western New York political figures involved in State Attorney General’s Office probe.  Brown told reporters Friday he was surprised by the raids and is in no way connected.

“I have been informed by law enforcement that I’m not involved in the investigation,” said Brown.

The Cuomo administration, however, had no comment:

Last year, Pigeon also gave $54,000 to Cuomo’s re-election campaign. He and Cuomo have been tight for years, and the governor has sent signals to people in and out of government in Western New York that Pigeon should be considered his go-to political point person from the area.

The Cuomo administration had no comment Thursday.

The Buffalo Chronicle wondered back in February if the investigation into Pigeon was politically motivated to go after Governor Cuomo:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been roundly criticized for failing to pursue public corruption cases against elected officials who have been accused of enriching themselves with public dollars.

So it is curious, they say, that he would allocate law enforcement resources into investigating a much more minor charge against the lobbyist G. Steven Pigeon, a former Chairman of the Erie County Democratic Party and an active figure in New York politics.

Pigeon, an intrepid political insider who engages in politics like sport, contributed $100,000 in personal savings to a PAC, managed by the political operative Kristy Mazurek. By all accounts, both are well versed in the legalities surrounding campaign spending and political action committees and insist that they adhered to those laws strictly.

...

Political observers say the investigation is a politically charged abuse of power that will backfire on the sitting Attorney General, whose central participation in the Moreland Commission debacle has raised serious ethics questions inside his office.

Pigeon is close to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is at odds with Scheiderman. In political circles, the AG is rumored to have cut a deal with US Attorney Preet Bharara on the Moreland Commission corruption scandal. Schneiderman’s deputizing of Commission members implicates him all sorts of legal improprieties. It’s rumored that he cut a deal to insulate himself from the scandal, but that has not been confirmed by either office.

Cuomo and Schneiderman have since been feuding intensely behind the scenes. Local operatives surmise that the AG is going after Pigeon as part of the tit-for-tat back and forth with the Governor’s political machine.

Schneiderman is known to be ambitious with his eyes set on the Governor’s mansion. Operatives close to Cuomo say that Schneiderman saw an opening to scandalize the Governor and, potentially, push him out of office.

It certainly sounds like someone from Cuomo's side was trying to get out the story that the investigation into Pigeon was politically motivated and bogus, that Schneiderman is behind it.

More and more, the tension between Schneiderman and Cuomo is out in the open.

This week, Schneiderman unveiled ethics reforms in a high profile speech meant to embarrass Sheriff Andy for doing little to clean up the cesspool that is Alabny politics.

Then came the Pigeon raid.

Pigeon, as detailed here, is close to the governor, has been "taking on more assignments from Cuomo" and was described as the governor's "top political person" in Western New York.

There's also a connection to Cuomo's lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul:

U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. has recused himself from an investigation into the political activities of G. Steven Pigeon, sources close to the probe told The Buffalo News on Friday.

Because of the potential political ramifications of the probe – including the fact that Pigeon has served as a top political adviser to his wife’s boss, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo – Hochul removed himself from the case weeks ago and named his top assistant – James P. Kennedy – to oversee the investigation and coordinate with the state Attorney General’s Office, the sources said.

The U.S. Justice Department requires a prosecutor to recuse himself or herself from a case when “a conflict of interest exists or there is an appearance of a conflict of interest or loss of impartiality.”

The investigation – which became public knowledge Thursday with the execution of three search warrants – is focused on the political activities of Pigeon, former Democratic Party chairman for Erie County; Steven M. Casey, a Democrat and former deputy mayor of Buffalo; and Christopher M. Grant, a Republican who serves as chief of staff for Rep. Chris Collins, R-Clarence.

While Hochul’s office declined to comment on the reports of his recusal, there is a clear thicket of potential conflicts created by his wife’s career in political office:

• Lt. Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul works for and with Cuomo, and Pigeon for years has served as a top political adviser to the governor. Pigeon donated $54,000 to Cuomo’s successful re-election campaign last year.

• Grant was the campaign chairman for the candidates who opposed Kathleen Hochul in two hard-fought Congressional campaigns. In 2011, Kathleen Hochul defeated Republican Jane Corwin in a race for Congress. In 2012, Collins defeated Hochul in a run for the same seat. Grant ran both campaigns against Hochul.

• Kathleen Hochul has long been associated with a faction of the Erie County Democratic Party that has had a heated rivalry with Pigeon. Former county Democratic Party chairman Leonard Lenihan – a longtime rival of Pigeon’s – lobbied hard for Kathleen Hochul’s appointment to her first major political office, as county clerk, in 2007. That appointment set the stage for her later rise to congresswoman and lieutenant governor.

• Government records show that Pigeon gave a small campaign donation to Kathleen Hochul – $250 – in 2011.

I'm not smart enough to know if Schneiderman is looking to use this Pigeon raid to embarrass Cuomo and tie him to corruption in Western New York while also advance his own corruption-fighting credentials for a future political run (perhaps for Cuomo's current job?)

But it does seem like that was the story Cuomo wanted out there in February, before the search warrants and the raids on Pigeon, Casey and Grant.

Kathy Hochul: Best Way To Support Public Schools Is By Taking Money From Them, Giving It To Private Schools And Charters

Here is a commentary by Kathy Holhul at Syracuse.com in which she asserts overcrowding and poor building conditions in public schools are good reasons to support more charter schools and tax credits for private schools:

Many critics try to argue that alternative schools, such as religious and charter schools, are somehow hurting the overall education system by taking away resources from traditional public schools. They argue that the governor should revoke all support for religious or charter schools – effectively abandoning those students – to focus just on public schools. They claim that this would be fair, but this just doesn't stand up to reason and here's why: 

There are roughly 4,500 public schools across the state – many of which are at capacity or overcrowded, and some are even utilizing trailers as classrooms. One hundred seventy-eight of those schools are failing, and many of them have been for 10 years or more.

Now imagine if the more than 400,000 students who are currently in charter or private schools – representing approximately 15 percent of the state's student population – had to attend one of those at-capacity, overcrowded or failing public schools. Who benefits from that scenario? Surely not the public school students who would find classroom space and resources stretched even further.

Can you follow the logic?

Many public schools are overcrowded, there's not enough space to house students in classrooms so decrepit trailers are used instead - and the way to solve these problems is to take money that could go to public schools and alleviate overcrowding and build new facilities and give that money to charters and private schools instead.

This is the same Kathy Hochul that AFT President Randi Weingarten robocalled for during the Democratic primary, claiming she was an excellent advocate for public schools.

Here's some advocacy for you - Hochul says public schools are overcrowded and falling apart, so let's take money that could go to public schools and give it to charters and private schools instead.

Randi Weingarten Says She Regrets Campaiging for Kathy Hochul

From the "She's Full Of Crap" file comes this:

BUFFALO—American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten regrets campaigning for Governor Andrew Cuomo's running mate in last year’s elections, she told Capital during a union convention on Saturday.

Weingarten, former president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, voiced a last-minute robocall supporting current lieutenant governor Hochul last September when the former Buffalo congresswoman faced what appeared to be a serious challenge from an anti-Cuomo insurgent candidate, Tim Wu, in the Democratic primary. (Wu, a Fordham University law professor, ran with Zephyr Teachout, whose surprisingly strong challenge to Cuomo led to an unflattering result for the governor.)

...

“Look, Kathy Hochul as a congresswoman was a terrific congresswoman,” Weingarten said, after addressing more than 2,000 New York State United Teachers members who gathered in Buffalo for their annual convention. “And on balance, she would have been, and she should be, a terrific lieutenant governor. But what’s happened is that actions speak louder than words.

 “In seeing what we’ve seen, I’m really disappointed, and I regret what she’s done, and I regret actually making it clear that she was terrific beforehand,” Weingarten said, when asked directly whether she regretted doing the robocall."

Hochul was a terrific congresswoman?

What the hell is Weingarten talking about?

Hochul was a congresswoman for less than one term.

She won a special election on May 25, 2011 to fill Representative Chris Lee's seat after he resigned from Congress.

She lost her re-election bid in November 2012.

She was a congresswoman for a little over a year.

After that, she became a bank lobbyist.

Yeah, a bank lobbyist.

Weingarten is so full of crap when she says she supported Hochul because she was a terrifc congresswoman.

She supported Hochul because this was a back alley way of supporting Cuomo.

Not that Cuomo cared because, as he said right in front of Weingarten at a Forbes forum months before the election, he planned to "break" public schools as soon as he was re-elected.

He's followed through on that promise and Weingarten is complicit in his crimes against public schools and public school teachers.

We've let her have it before over this, but she kept defending the robocalls.

I guess that defense, given the virulence with which Cuomo has gone after teachers, has even started to sound hollow in her own ears.

She's trying to walk back the robocall now, but she fools few with her jive.

Weingarten supported Hochul as a way to support Cuomo.

That was true then and it's still true now, no matter how she tries to spin it.

Bob Bennett: Opting Out Of The State Tests Is "Breaking The Law"

And we have the winner of the "Shrillest Push Back On The Opt Out Movement Contest" - it's former member of the Board of Regents, Bob Bennett:

New York state uses the results of the annual assessments to gauge the performance of students and teachers. And if enough of their students opt out of the tests, teachers are evaluated based on their local system.

...

Education leaders say approaches like that will backfire in the immediate future, harming teachers.

“They’re breaking the law,” said Bob Bennett, a former member of the New York State Board of Regents. “And so I don’t know how much clearer to make it. This is absolutely absurd to see adults behaving to advance a political cause because they don’t like the teacher evaluation law.”

Bennett, who got whacked off the Board of Regents this year, is wrong that opting out of the state tests is "breaking the law."

You can find resources and information about parents' rights in opting their children out of the Common Core tests at the NYS Allies For Public Education website.

But here's an excellent summary:




I've been wondering how shrill the push back over opt out would get, what with Regents Chancellor Tisch, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, Governor Cuomo and newspaper editorial boards weighing in on why they are opposed to parents opting their children out of the state tests but so far, Bennett wins for shrillest.

Congratulations, Bob - enjoy your retirement.

So Many Opt-Outs They're Having Trouble Finding Space For Them All

Jon Campbell in the Gannett papers:

ALBANY – On Tuesday, about one million New York students in grades 3-8 will sit for the first of six days of state-mandated English Language Arts and math exams spread over the next two weeks.
Tens of thousands of their peers — and maybe more — won't be joining them.

A parent-led effort to opt their children out of New York's standardized tests appears to have gained momentum in recent weeks as the head of the state's teachers union and various labor-backed groups threw their support behind the movement.

Now, with the latest test-refusal effort in its second year, the question isn't whether parents will refuse the tests, but how many.

...

The state doesn't tally the number of parents who refused the test on their children's behalf. But 67,000 students who didn't take the 2014 math exam had no "known, valid" excuse, along with 49,000 students who skipped the English Language Arts test, according to the state Education Department.

...
 
Some school districts are anticipating a sharp increase in opt outs this year, particularly in areas where parent-advocacy groups have been strong — including much of the Hudson Valley and parts of western New York.

In Fairport, Monroe County, more than half of the 2,740 eligible students have already said they intend to refuse the tests. Brian Monahan, interim superintendent of the Mahopac Central School District in Putnam County, said his district is anticipating 20 percent of elementary students and 30 percent of middle-school students won't take the exams.

The numbers have grown so much, Monahan said, that it's becoming a "challenge" to find space for opted-out students to read while their peers take the exams. At least one school will use its gymnasium to accommodate, he said.

A challenge to find space for opt-out students during the test period.

Wow.

I realize that kind of thing is going to be limited to a few district, but nonetheless, it's amazing when you think about it.

No wonder Merryl Tisch, Kathy Hochul and the pro-Endless Testing regime editorial boards are so shrill over parents opting their children out of the tests.

I wonder if we'll hear from Governor Cuomo about this before it's all said and done?

Oh, wait - we did:

Cuomo, who briefly stopped by the convention, also took issue with the opt-outs.

“It would have an effect on the teacher-evaluation system. But more importantly, it would have an effect where you wouldn’t qualify for federal money,” Cuomo told The Post.

 Nothing makes Cuomo sadder than sad than screwing with his teacher evaluation system.

Message From Education Reformers: Shut Up And Take Your Test

That's the message from the pro-Common Core, pro-Endless Testing regime shills at Newsday who ran this opinion piece by some deform group called "High Achievement New York":

There is a much larger issue at stake. We should not be teaching our children that if they don't like tests, they can simply refuse them. Opting out is the wrong approach to address what parents don't like about testing.

If there are problems with the tests, then parents and communities should work together to fix them. Shielding our children from the tests sets a bad example and delays the process of making positive changes to improve what is, like so many things in our society, an imperfect system. The way to change the process is through positive ideas, not simply telling kids to refuse an academic responsibility.

When it comes time to find a job, there is no "opting out." There is only unemployment. Let's make sure we are sending the right messages to our children now, so they do not face that reality in the future.

That's right, you must do what you don't want to do because it is good for you.

Sure, try and change what you don't like through "positive ideas," but if you can't (and make no mistake, you can't - education reformers do NOT listen to anybody outside of their own coterie), well, then you just have to tell your kids to suck it up and take their tests.

The message from the pro-Common Core, pro-Endless Testing regime groups these days and their political allies in power boils down to "Shut Up And Take Your Test" - life is hard and you have to do things you don't want to do.

We heard this from the Harvard public policy shill who wrote a Daily News opinion piece about how testing and evaluation are just like looking at yourself in the mirror when you're looking to gauge your health.

We heard this from Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul who criticized parents who opt their children out of tests because this won't prepare them for more tests in the future - like the SAT and global competition.

We heard it from editorial boards like the Buffalo News who claimed in an editorial that the opt out movement is made up of "ill-informed" parents who have been "hoodwinked" by the teachers unions (never mind that opt out began years ago and the teachers unions wanted nothing to do with it until earlier this month - that would be NYSUT - and the UFT still wants nothing to do with it.)

We heard it from Regents Chancellor Tisch who threatened parents with "national tests" if they opt their children out of the state tests, as if somehow parents can't opt their children out of the "national tests" too (which, btw, are made by the same company as the state tests anyway, so I don't see what the threat is here.)

Every day we see more and more propaganda from the pro-Common Core, pro-Endless Testing regime people who are TERRIFIED by the prospect of hundreds of thousands of parents opting their children out of the state tests this year leading to hundreds of thousands more opting their children out next year and the entire "Accountability Agenda" starving to death from lack of data.

The shriller they get, the more scared they are.

And from the shrillness we've seen this week from the pro-Common Core, pro-Endless Testing regime groups and individuals, we know they are very scared indeed.

Buffalo News Editorial: Parents Who Opt Kids Out Of Tests Are Being "Hoodwinked" By Teachers Unions

The opt out movement is parent-created, parent-led, has been around for a couple of years now and has been growing by the year.

For years, the teachers unions took little notice of the opt out movement and certainly never lent it any public support - until this year when NYSUT President Karen Magee changed course and suggested parents could opt their children out the state tests in order to starve the state of the data it needs for its education reform agenda.

In short, the opt out movement has existed for a long, long time without the support or acknowledgement of the teachers unions or their functionaries like Alliance For Quality Education or Working Families Party.

It is only since Governor Cuomo shoved through an unpopular education reform agenda (and the polling bears just how unpopular that agenda is - see here and here) that NYSUT, AQE, and WFP have jumped onto the opt out movement and lent it support.

Despite these facts, the Buffalo News published an editorial yesterday claiming that parents who are opting their children out of the Common Core state tests this year have been "hoodwinked" by the self-serving propaganda of the teachers unions:

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Improvement means change and New York State United Teachers are not much into that.

That’s why the unconscionable push by the state teachers union to get parents to opt their children out of state math and reading testing is so destructive. Ultimately, it hurts students, districts and the state, itself.

Parents are being hoodwinked and New York State United Teachers is the single most influential force behind the push.

As a recent News article by Denise Jewell Gee reported, an estimated 60,000 students refused to take state math and reading tests across the state last year. Now, anti-testing organizers hope to grow those numbers to 250,000 – about 20 percent of the third- through eighth-graders in the state – this month.

Ill-informed parents are being guided by groups large and small but none as powerful and well-financed as the New York State United Teachers, which has charted a roadmap to insubordination.

While not directly prodding parents until Monday, when President Karen Magee went public with her admonition that parents opt out of the exams, NYSUT has since January thinly veiled its intentions by providing detailed information to parents about their rights and potential consequences.

Those consequences can vary, as outlined in The News article. However, not taking the tests deprives state officials an accurate picture of progress. State Education Chancellor Merryl Tisch is absolutely right: “Why would you not want to know whether all students are making progress, not just the lucky few?”

Speaking of the disparities that are made clear through testing, a quick glance at a News chart showing graduation rates, English and math assessment for 2013-14 at the five Buffalo Public Schools in line to come under a new turnaround strategy speaks volumes. At Buffalo Elementary School of Technology, 4 percent of students scored proficiently on math assessments, up from 2 percent the previous year. The English Language Arts assessments logged 4 percent of students scoring proficiently, down from 5 percent the previous year. At Futures Preparatory, 1 percent of students scored proficiently, down from 2, and 0 percent of students scored proficiently in math, the same as the previous year.

Those are stark numbers but they have to be known in order to advocate for and to formulate plans for useful change. It’s not enough to clamor for more money. To be sure, adequate resources are key to education. But New York has been shoveling money into education for decades; even with cuts in recent years, New York spends more on education per student than any other state. Plainly, money is not the fundamental issue.

There is apprehension by teachers unions about having the tests linked to performance. Parents should be aware of the full measure of that concern and how they might unwittingly help in the delinking of test scores to evaluations.

In other words, this is not just about their children’s education. It is about job security for teachers. Is it fair to put that kind of pressure on a third-grader?

Students will face a myriad of challenges when they get older. Teaching them that they don’t have to do things they don’t like to do fails to serve them in the long run. Life doesn’t work that way; not for most people, anyway.

Some parents are worried about overtesting. It is fair to continue looking at the system to see if it can be made more efficient. The same is true for how the state evaluates teachers. Both should be seen as works in progress. However, it is foolish to expect predictable improvement without evaluation.

The lies and misinformation in this editorial are simply breathtaking.

Mitchell Rubenstein, a commenter on the editorial, does an excellent job of dispensing with them:

The opt-out movement began with concerned parents, NOT with the unions. The tests do NOT provide an "accurate picture of progress", as this article incorrectly states. Parents opting out of the tests are not ill-informed. I routinely argue the policy details with educators, policy wonks and politicians. The "ill-informed" people are the poor excuses for "journalists", who regurgitate Meryl Tisch's talking points without ANY critical analysis.

The assessments have been PROVEN to be an invalid measure of student or teacher progress. There is no reason that students should be wasting their time sitting for them. See the research published by the American Statistical Society, a well respected, professional, and unbiased group, which methodically proves the tests are useless measures when it comes to teacher evaluation.

The Democrat and Chronicle has an article where actual parents talk about why they're opting their children out of the state tests and none of them sound like they've been "hoodwinked" by the teachers unions.

Instead they sound like parents concerned with the damage the Endless Testing regime and the poor Common Core rollout is doing to their children.

The job of editorial boards is to spew the lies, misinformation and propaganda of the elites down to the masses.

This Buffalo News editorial certainly does that.

We see similar editorials from the Daily News, the NY Post, Newsday, the NY Times and other papers around the state that carry water for the education reform movement (only LoHud doesn't carry water for education reform) - but I haven't yet seen an editorial as breathtakingly deceptive as this one.

That the deform shills at the Buffalo News feel the need to get this shrill and deceptive tells us a couple of things:

First, the editorial board at the Buffalo News have no problem lying to the public in order to push their agenda. 

Subscribers to the newspaper should think about that the next time their subscription payment comes due.

Second, the education reformers in this state, from the politicians like Cuomo and Hochul to the political functionaries like Regents Chancellor Tisch to the water carriers like the newspaper editorial boards are scared witless that the opt out movement is going to take off like never before and put a shiv into the Endless Testing regime they so love.

In the end, the shriller they get, the more worried they are.

Kathy Hochul Criticizes Parents Who Opt Their Children Out Of State Tests

First we had Merryl Tisch threatening parents over the growing opt out movement, now we have Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul criticizing parents who opt their children out of the state tests:

“I understand the stress, I’m a parent I know what it was like,” Hochul told reporters during a stop in Williamstown. “The truth is, I think if you hold you’re children back from this kind of participation, it could be doing them a disservice. But if they want to make an individual decision going down that path, there are consequences in the future that I’d be concerned about.”

...

Hochul pointed to potential funding that is tied to taking state-based tests, which teachers unions officials deny.

“If people opt out all across the state that money is in jeopardy, number one,” she said. “Number two, I want to make sure our kids can win in this competition. It won’t be long before the Common Core methodology and standards will part of the SAT entrance exams.”

She added: “I don’t want our kids to be at a disadvantage. We are in a very competitive environment nationally, not just internationally.”

The threats over opt out are coming fast and furious from the political class and their functionaries, as are the lies and misinformation about what will happen if parents opt their children out of the state tests.

That's how you know you've got their attention.

You can go here for the truth about the rights of parents.

That should combat the jive Hochul is spewing.

Aren't you glad Randi Weingarten robocalled for her?

Weingarten Tries To Spin Her Support Of Bank Lobbyist/Ed Deformer Kathy Hochul

AFT President Randi Weingarten and Arthur Goldstein were having a twitter conversation today over Weingarten's support of Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul during the primary (which you can read about here.)

Weingarten robocalled for Hochul during a pivotal moment of the campaign when it looked like challenger Tim Wu could actually pull off an upset.

She wasn't the only "progressive" dragged out for the robocalls by the Cuomo campaign - NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio taped one as well.

After Wu lost the primary to Hochul, he said that his campaign's internal polls had shown him closing on Hochul, but the tide turned after the robocalls went out.

It seems prominent "progressives" like de Blasio and Weingarten supporting Hochul assured enough New York City voters that she was all right, they could safely vote for her.

Weingarten has continually claimed that supporting Hochul publicly was payback for Hochul's support of public education when she was in Congress - but Hochul was only in Congress a short period of time (less than one-full term), so that rationale for Hochul support is absurd.

Weingarten has also said she doesn't think Hochul is in the "everything against" camp when it comes to public education, but as we know from history, any time anybody works for Andrew Cuomo, you either do EVERYTHING Cuomo wants you to do or you don't take the job.

So Hochul's acceptance of the LG gig under Cuomo was an explicit admission that she would be in the "everything against" camp because that's where her boss, Andrew Cuomo, wants her.

Which is EXACTLY where she was this week as she keynoted for the Cuomo administration at Eva Moskowitz's pro-charter Albany rally.

I try and stay out of the Weingarten jive-fests on Twitter these days because it's unproductive trying to argue with a pathological liar, but every once in a while Randi's lies, half-truths and evasions get to be too much and I have to jump in.

This is one of those times:

@TeacherArthurG -I'm more disappointed abt her silence abt public schooling in general--- quite different from when she was in Congress
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) March 7, 2015

To which I replied:

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Who are you kidding? You knew EXACTLY what Hochul would be like as Cuomo's LG.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Anybody who works for Cuomo does EXACTLY as he wants - as Hochul is doing shilling deform.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Your robocalls for Hochul were essentially robocalls for Cuomo - as many have pointed out.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG And just in case you think this wasn't pointed out at the time http://t.co/AX9KMqVy3M
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Mary Ahern made another good point about the way Weingarten helped out the Cuomo campaign during the primary:

.@perdidostschool @TeacherArthurG Add this 2 @rweingarten 's defense of Cuomo's statemnts vowing 2 destroy pub. schl monopoly, I smell a RAT
— Mary Ahern (@mma718) March 7, 2015

Which reminded me about this:

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @rweingarten Yes - she excused it as just "campaign rhetoric," even though she'd heard him b4.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @rweingarten Randi was there when Andy trotted rhetoric out first http://t.co/pqyDwmvvCY
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Weingarten replied just once to my tweets:

@perdidostschool @TeacherArthurG -sorry to disappoint you- no deals...
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) March 7, 2015

To which I replied:

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Then who called you to tape the robocall at the EXACT moment Wu's poll #'s were rising?
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

So far, no response from Weingarten on that.

This back and forth with Randi gets tiring after awhile, which is why I don't engage in it much anymore, but every once in a while it's important to jump in a point out how full of crap Randi is.

To that end, I'll finish this post with I think the takeway from all this is:

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten I usually stay out of the Randi jive-fests these days, but her Hochul support is egregious
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten In Cuomo admin, she will do as Cuomo says. That's basis for putting her in "against" camp
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Time To Ask Randi Weingarten About The Kathy Hochul Robocalls Again

Back during the 2014 Democratic Primary for lieutenant governor, Cuomo's people started to worry that law professor Tim Wu, Zephy Teachout's running mate, could beat Cuomo's running mate, bank lobbyist Kathy Hochul.

Polls showed that Wu was indeed within striking distance, so the Cuomo campaign had some robocalls go out on her behalf.

One of the political personages taped for those robocalls was AFT President Randi Weingarten.

When Weingarten was criticized on Twitter for making robocalls for the Cuomo campaign (which is what these were, despite her claims to the contrary that they were only for Hochul), she said that Hochul was a reliable advocate for public education and she wanted to support Hochul for that.

There's news some morning that the reliable advocate for public education, former bank lobbyist and current lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul will be one of the politicians feting Eva Moskowitz at her pro-charter rally today:

Gov. Cuomo, unlike last year, will skip a large pro-charter school rally at the Capitol on Wednedsay, but his new lieutenant governor will be there.

Lt. Gov. Kathleen Hochul is one of at least nine elected officials scheduled to be in attendance. Many are from the Bronx.

Also set to attend is Senate GOP Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau County), Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeffrey Klein, Senate Education Committee Chairman John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County), Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx).

Among the Assembly members said to be coming is Marcos Crespo (D-Bronx), Michael Blake (D-Bronx), Ruben Sepulveda (D-Bronx), Robert Rodriguez (D-Manhattan ) and Mark Gjonaj (D-Bronx).

...

Cuomo, who last year attended the rally and is pushing a host of education reforms this year that includes a expansion of charter schools, will be in Rochester and Syracuse pushing Wednesday is plan to hike the minimum wage.

Let me ask Ms. Weingarten once more, why did she make robocalls for bank lobbyist, Cuomo running mate and charter shill Kathy Hochul?

These are robocalls that helped Hochul beat Tim Wu in the primary and now help push an anti-public education agenda.

Why would a union president who supposedly cares about public education make robocalls for a political campaign that is virulently anti-public education and anti-public school teacher?

The excuse that Hochul is an advocate for public schools doesn't work so well now that she's shilling for Eva Moskowitz and the charters.

Cuomo Raked In $1 Million From Real Estate Magnate

Via State of Politics comes this doozy of an item:

Billionaire real estate magnate Leonard Litwin has outspent all political donors.

The president and chief executive officer of Long Island-based Glenwood Management donated $1 million to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign. Litwin also donated almost a combined $500,000 to the state Democratic Party and Kathy Hochul’s campaign for lieutenant governor, according to data from the New York Public Interest Research Group cited by Crain’s.

The 100-year-old investor was also the biggest donor to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s re-election campaigns. The magnate donated $240,000 to Schneiderman and $130,000 to DiNapoli, 50 percent and 30 percent more than the next largest donor, the news outlet reported.

 Litwin is also a big donor to Jobs for New York, the Political Action Committee backed by the Real Estate Board of New York. [Crain's] – Claire Moses

Those of you wondering what Cuomo will do when the rent laws come up for renewal in NYC need only look at how much cash he and his fellow Democrats have taken from the real estate interests to get an inkling of where he'll go with his policy.