Flanagan Suggests De Blasio Should Lose Mayoral Control Of The School System

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s prospects of getting the Legislature to renew his control of New York City’s schools were thrown into doubt on Thursday, when the leader of the State Senate issued a statement harshly criticizing Mr. de Blasio’s performance at a hearing on the issue.

“Too often, the mayor showed a disturbing lack of personal knowledge about the city schools,” the Senate majority leader, John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, said in a statement. “In addition, he has left too many unanswered questions and failed to provide specifics on many of the issues raised by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

“Until that occurs,” Mr. Flanagan added, “I will not entrust this mayor with the awesome responsibility of operating the New York City school system.”

According to the Times, de Blasio was asked a question about our back pay which he did not have a ready answer for.

That, along with the political animus state Senate Republicans have for de Blasio, may be the underlying rationale for the letter from Flanagan yesterday, which the Times described as a "sneak attack" since there were few fireworks at the hearing in Albany between de Blasio and state Senate Republicans.

In any case, before you get excited thinking de Blasio will lose mayoral control of schools and Farina's going to be shown the door the way she has her administrators showing the door to veteran teachers, understand that John Flanagan takes a lot of money from the ed deform lobby, including StudentsFirstNY.

Whatever scheme Flanagan and Cuomo cook up to replace mayoral control (or even tweak it), it will not be to our benefit but rather be some kind of change that benefits the charter school sector and Eva Moskowitz in particular.

Campaign Finance Investigation Focuses On UFT And NYSUT Donations In Buffalo

Just up in the last hour at the Buffalo News:

Erie County prosecutors are asking questions about campaign donations to a Buffalo-based State Senate race in 2014 as part of a burgeoning statewide investigation that extends to the mayor of New York City.

Acting Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Flaherty Jr. said he will not discuss details, but acknowledged his office is involved. Sources familiar with Flaherty’s effort say it revolves around the 60th District race between Republican Mark J. Grisanti and Democrat Marc C. Panepinto, which Panepinto won.

...

It is expected Bonanno’s investigation will center on whether any illegal coordination occurred between contributing committees and individual campaigns. Suggestions of such activity surfaced during the 2014 campaign, according to Erie County Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph M. Mohr.

“There were complaints that there was coordination between the teachers union and the Panepinto campaign,” Mohr said, “in the general campaign and specifically with signs.

“But there was never any formal complaint,” he added.

It is also expected that transactions The Buffalo News reported last July between the Erie County Democratic Committee and a political action committee linked to a state teachers union will be involved in the probe.

Some of the details:

The News reported that a significant donation to the Erie County Democratic Committee for Panepinto’s campaign – involving some of the same unions and consultants now under scrutiny – was never recorded. Campaign finance reports showed the United Federation of Teachers Committee on Political Education sent $100,000 on Oct. 28, 2014, to Erie County Democrats. Two months later, the local Democrats sent $50,000 to the Red Horse Strategies political consulting firm in Brooklyn, which was working for the Panepinto campaign.

Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner said at the time that the committee never received money from UFT/COPE, a teachers union political committee. In fact, he said he never reported the income and never cashed a check because he never received one.

A UFT spokesman also said at the time that the union cut a check for Erie County Democrats on Oct. 28, 2014, as part of its efforts to aid Senate Democrats, but never sent it after establishing other priorities.

Campaign finance records show the New York State United Teachers union spent more than $1 million on the 2014 race to defeat Grisanti.

Campaign finance law in New York State is opaque and complex, so your guess is as good as mine whether there's anything here for the UFT and NYSUT to be worried about.

NYSUT dropped $1 million to defeat Grisanti in 2014, which sounds like an awful lot of money, until you hear that charter school proponents spent $1.5 million+ in the recent special election to replace soon-to-be imprisoned Dean Skelos in his Long Island state Senate seat (their guy lost anyway.)

Quite frankly it bothers me a bit that de Blasio's getting a campaign finance colonoscopy for his 2014 efforts to win the state Senate for Dems when nobody blinked at Cuomo for raising $17 million from undisclosed sources for his Committee To Save New York and using $10 million of that to fund TV ads touting his agenda.

It also is bothering me that the teachers unions are getting this scrutiny for their donations but nobody's looking at the hedge fund managers and education reformers spending millions to elect their guys and push their anti-union/pro-charter school agenda.

Quite frankly, somebody ought to be looking into how StudentsFirstNY, Families for Excellent Schools and some of the other ed deform/Wall Street entities are spending their cash and the same goes for Cuomo.

Cuomo's Education Reform Agenda Gets Hammered At His Common Core Task Force Public Hearings

Bethany Bump in the Times Union reports on the Common Core task force public hearing last night in the Capital Region:

COLONIE — The whole thing is a train wreck. The teacher evaluations are an unmitigated disaster. Students are being drained of any creativity. The material isn't developmentally appropriate. Children are being used as political pawns.

A majority of people who spoke at one of five public hearings Friday on the state's Common Core program had these and lots of other negative things to say about New York's implementation of the stringent educational standards. The Capital Region was home to one of those hearings — the first since Gov. Andrew Cuomo charged a task force in September with reviewing the Common Core standards, curriculum and assessments for a "total reboot."

About 100 people turned out to the Crossings of Colonie Friday afternoon for the Capital Region hearing. They were parents, current and retired teachers, school administrators, school board officials and business representatives. Other hearings were held simultaneously Friday evening in the Finger Lakes/Western New York, Hudson Valley, Long Island and New York City regions.

"These kids see no relevance to these tests they now have to take," said Stacey Caruso-Sharpe, a math teacher in the Amsterdam City School District, where she's worked for more than 30 years. "The governor says they don't mean anything yet, and then you want to tie them to a teachers' score? It doesn't make sense."

John Hildebrand of Newsday on the Common Core hearing at Stony Brook:

Common Core opponents predicted at a state-sponsored forum Friday in Stony Brook that 500,000 students statewide in grades three through eight would boycott spring tests unless Albany pulls back from unpopular new exams and teacher evaluations tied to students' scores.

A standing-room-only crowd of parents and educators cheered and applauded as Jeanette Deutermann of North Bellmore, leader of Long Island's testing opt-out movement, warned that boycott numbers could more than double in April from more than 200,000 recorded last spring.

Other forum speakers followed suit.

"You are going to see a tsunami of test refusals," said Beth Dimino, president of the teachers union in the Comsewogue school district.

The 2 1/2-hour session, organized by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office, was held in a small auditorium of Stony Brook University's Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology. It was one of five simultaneous "listening sessions" across the state attended by members of the governor's appointed Common Core Task Force.

Several teachers and superintendents at the hearing called for a two-year moratorium on education reforms.

"What we have is a culture of standardization," said Patchogue-Medford schools chief Michael Hynes, a vocal opponent of overtesting and the linking of student scores to teachers' and principals' performance evaluations. He called for separating student scores from job ratings and "getting rid" of the Common Core.

For the most part, the forum was an orderly affair, in contrast to a raucous session held two years ago at Ward Melville High School, less than six miles away. At the earlier public hearing, then-Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. was at times shouted down as he tried to defend state education policies before an emotional crowd of 1,500 parents and educators.

Friday's session drew more than 150 parents, educators and others, and speakers were limited to three minutes each. Those who voiced criticism of the Common Core standards, curriculums and tests -- implemented in districts across the state largely over the last three school years -- were clearly the large majority. The national guidelines were adopted by New York in 2010.

"Common Core is destroying the dignity of the learning process," said Dan Campbell, a fifth-grade teacher in the South Huntington school district. He said one parent told him that his 10-year-old son cries at the bus stop because he doesn't understand the math curriculum.

Campbell said he wanted to tell the parent, "Your son is being bullied by the state."

A rare exception to the opponents was Preston Tucci, an eighth-grade math teacher in the Middle Country district, who was jeered by some audience members when he described how his students are enthused by a Common Core algebra curriculum.

"Your time's up!" several shouted as an electronic stopwatch that was used to limit speakers' time wound down. "Very disappointing!" another hissed.

Some participants began lining up more than an hour in advance for the "listening session," which began at 4 p.m., with people allowed to speak on a first-come, first-served basis. Check-in for the event started at 3:30 p.m., and all 45 speaking slots were filled shortly after the meeting began.

Dawn Wylie of North Babylon, who has pulled her two children out of state standardized tests for the past two years and plans to do so again in the spring, was among those in attendance.

"This is the most important thing happening right now," she said. "Our children are suffering -- collateral damage."

Before the hearing, Tucci told Newsday that he had come to speak in favor of new math standards that emphasize "real-world" problem solving.

"In a 15-year career, last year was the first year I haven't had a kid ask me, 'When will I ever use this?' " he said.

Dimino, of Rocky Point, who teaches eighth-grade science in Comsewogue schools, said she had testified last year against the standards and the state's teacher evaluation system. A vocal critic of Common Core, she said she has refused to administer the exams even if it means she is given an "ineffective" job rating.

Before the forum began, she said she was disappointed by both the timing of the event and the size of the meeting room. Organizers should have held it later in the day and in a larger space, she said.

"I am hoping this is not a nonsensical tour," Dimino said. "I am hoping this is a hearing tour."

Earlier this week, parents and educators complained that state officials had not given enough advance notice of the hearing, and that the time and location would make it difficult for many to attend.

Over the past three years, implementation of curriculums and tests aligned with the Common Core standards has spurred a growing test-boycott movement in states across the nation, with parents pulling children out of standardized tests.

Last spring, the revolt in New York was the largest in the country. More than 200,000 students in grades three through eight opted out of state tests in English language arts and mathematics in April, with about 70,000 of those students in school districts on Long Island.

As has been the case with hearings on education reform before, the hearing in the city was attended by the professional Common Core class - civil rights "activists" on the Gates Foundation payroll, an executive director for a corporate-sponsored pro-education reform group and members of StudentsFirstNY:

The first public hearing of Gov. Cuomo's Common Core Task Force in the city drew about 100 people to LaGuardia Community College Friday afternoon – parents, educators and students bitterly divided over the issue.

About two dozen signed up to speak, asking task force members Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan and Brooklyn teacher Kishayna Hazlewood to toss the Common Core, saying it was forcing a test-driven curriculum in schools while others expressed the need to keep high expectations of students.

"I think our children are capable of learning," said Nina Doster, a mother of two from Queens who signed up to speak in favor of keeping the Common Core standards. "Children in other areas get their best education and sometimes our children are left out of that."

A large coalition of pro-Common Core advocates attended the hearing, including Urban League President Arva Rice, Stephen Sigmund, executive director of High Achievement New York and more than 50 parents from StudentsFirst NY.

But City Councilman Danny Dromm, a former teacher who heads the Council's Education Committee, said the state needs to step back from an emphasis on standardized testing.

"The kids are getting bored to death with being beaten over the head with test prep, test prep, test prep," said David Dobosz, a retired teacher who worked in Brownsville and Bushwick. "We are giving kids a narrow education."

As with all of Cuomo's task forces and commissions before, it is suspected that the "reforms" this Common Core task force is going to come up with are already written in stone, so these public hearings are probably nothing more than dog and pony shows to give the illusion that Cuomo is listening to parents and educators.

Nonetheless Cuomo felt threatened enough by the possibility of another Poughkeepsie (where John King had his public meltdown after parents and teachers challenged his reform agenda) that the Cuomo administration did its best to limit attendance at these hearings by having them held during school time and in small spaces.

They eventually made the hearings a little later after challenged over the scheduling, but even so, the message from the Cuomo administration on this is clear - they're not interested in hearing differing points of view on Common Core and the Endless Testing regime, just making it look like they are before they issue the already written Cuomo "reform" plan for the education system.

But one important part of the dog and pony show is it does put pressure on Cuomo, mirroring the polling on his handling of education issues as well as support for Common Core (both of which are very low) and showing that Common Core and the Endless Testing regime are deeply unpopular in most of this state.

I maintain that until politicians pay a political price for their support of the Core and the Endless Testing regime, we will get no substantive change to the reform policies.

Still, for Cuomo's sham force to hear so much criticism and negativity on Common Core and testing is important, because it continues to ratchet up the pressure and makes it harder for Cuomo to defend the "Steady as she goes" reform plan we're going to get on this in the end.

StudentsFirstNY Attempts to Mobilize Parents In 100 "Failing" NYC Schools

Lisa Colangelo in the Daily News:

A group of education advocates spent the first days of classes trying to mobilize parents at the city's 100 worst-performing schools, saying Mayor de Blasio's recently unveiled agenda is not enough.

Community organizers from StudentsFirstNY said they mapped out and then visited each of 100 sites where few or no students passed vital statewide tests.

"The students in these schools deserve action now and frankly, the mayor's recently announced programs are just not enough," said Tenicka Boyd, director of organizing for StudentsFirstNY. "They do nothing to improve the quality of teachers in the classrooms and nothing to give families access to better school choices."

You see, the plan doesn't fire teachers and close schools, so it's no good.

This is why StudentsFirstNY will no doubt be one of the backers of Governor Cuomo's efforts to knock de Blasio off in a primary and elect a pro-charter, anti-union alternative. 

Some of the names bandied about as potential opponents include Hakeem Jeffries and Scott Stringer.

There will be a concerted effort in 2017 to put somebody into City Hall who brings back the First Teachers/Close Schools program Bloomberg pursued.

How Andrew Cuomo's "Reformy" Teacher Evaluation System Keeps "Great Teachers" Away From Schools That Serve The Most Vulnerable

Back in 2013, education reform organization StudentsFirstNY called for a strengthened teacher evaluation system to help ensure that every child has access to the best teachers in the school system.

They claimed to have done an analysis that showed "that New York City’s most vulnerable students have a disproportionate share of the city’s unsatisfactory-rated teachers" (this was under the old rating system when teachers were still given either "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" ratings.)

Their solution to this so-called inequitable distribution of excellent teachers across the system?

Why, a data-driven teacher evaluation system that incorporated student performance measures into the ratings, along with some other reforms like the following:

• Require parental consent for a student to be taught by an ineffective teacher
  
• Provide significant salary increases to highly effective teachers who stay in the classrooms of high-needs schools
  
• Prohibit schools from assigning to the class of an ineffective teacher any student taught by an ineffective teacher in the previous year
  
• Make it easier for top college graduates to enter teaching, and provide financial incentives for them to do so
  
• Impose a cap on how many ineffective teachers may be allowed to remain at any one school year after year
  
• Require annual reporting by the New York City Department of Education on the distribution of teacher quality across schools and student populations
  

Sounds swell, right?

They're going wash those "ineffective teachers" right out of schools with the most vulnerable student populations through a combination of a more rigorous teacher evaluation system that relies upon students' test scores to prove teacher effectiveness and reporting and capping measures for how many "ineffective" teachers can be at individual schools or teach individual students.

Ah, except that the new APPR teacher evaluation system hawked by education reform groups like StudentsFirstNY and imposed upon the state by Governor Andrew Cuomo (a recipient of much StudentsFirstNY/education reform group largesse) actually keeps "excellent teachers" from going to schools that serve the most vulnerable student populations because it ties 50% of a teacher's rating to student test score performance and few teachers want to teach at schools that have low test scores.

Here is a comment left at a Perdido Street School blog post from yesterday on the irrationality of the value-added measurement system that NYSED uses on teachers to prove so-called "effective teaching":

I am an assistant principal in the Bronx on the HS level. Unfortunately, we cannot attract teachers to our school due to our graduation rate, deriving from low scores (international school). I wanted to recruit an Earth Science teacher. She told me she'd never work at my school because 50% of her overall rating would basically give her a Developing as the HIGHEST rating. You see, the schools are taking a hit too with recruitment. Great teachers go to specific schools. You want to talk about segregation? Here it is at its finest. There are other HS in the campus that are premium. We are in the same campus but can't offer our kids a vibrant Science education, but the other school are. This is terrible and should additionally be reported from an administrators viewpoint. 

How ironic, that the very system StudentsFirstNY called for, paid for and had imposed on the state that they said would ensure that "all students, regardless of zip code, race or socioeconomic status, are afforded a quality education" by having access to quality teachers actually does the opposite.

Education people knew that this would happen, that the more "rigorous" teacher evaluation ratings would harm any teachers who teach in schools with the most vulnerable populations because the VAM rating based upon test scores would be brutal.

This is why NYCDOE Chancellor Carmen Farina said that she wanted to put an asterisk next to the names of "highly effective" teachers who go to teach at Recovery Schools, the pool of schools that the state has labeled "struggling" or "persistently struggling" and will take over in a year or two if performance doesn't improve.

The cynic in me thinks the education reformers at StudentsFirstNY and elsewhere knew that the teacher evaluation system they got Cuomo to impose on the state would do the opposite of what they claimed, that it would harm vulnerable student populations they claim to care about by keeping any teacher who wants to remain in the system for more than two years away from schools where they are likely to get mauled on the APPR test score VAM.

I dunno exactly what the game is, perhaps just making things worse at the most vulnerable schools so that they can claim the public school system sucks and needs to be blown up, perhaps ensuring that many of the schools that serve the most vulnerable populations end up in receivership and get handed over to charter operators, perhaps a combination of the two.

In any case, the rationale behind the APPR teacher evaluation system tied to test scores was always to harm public schools, harm the teaching profession and push as many teachers out of the system as possible by a) increasing the ineffective ratings (two consecutive "ineffectives" in a row can get a teacher fired these days) and b) making the workday so onerous and odious for teachers that they quit in droves and new ones don't come to replace them (both of which are happening all across the country now.)

Keep in mind, education reformers have made sure that charter schools don't have to abide by any of these evaluation reforms, just public schools.

StudentsFirstNY claims to care about students and children, claims to speak for and stand up for the most vulnerable, but the net effective of their reform efforts has been to harm those very students and the schools that serve them.

Michael Mulgrew: Governor Cuomo Is For Sale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don't say.

Here's more:

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

For once, I agree with Mulgrew.

Must be a blue moon out there.

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

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

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

Cuomo left with plenty of promises for future campaign cash:

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Education Reformers Fund Their Reform Lobbying Efforts Without Revealing Their Donors

Chris Bragg of the Times-Union with an illuminating piece about how education reform groups push their political agenda without revealing who's funding it:

Three groups pushing education reforms that spent heavily lobbying state government this year funded at least a portion of their efforts though donations whose original sources are essentially untraceable.

...

StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, the Coalition for Opportunity in Education and Families for Excellent Schools spent more than $8.3 million during the 2015 legislative session lobbying state government to promote charter schools and other issues, according to recent lobbying disclosure filings.

Here is one of the games the education reformers play to hide where the money's coming from:

Manhattan-based group StudentsFirstNY Advocacy, which pushes for charter schools and other causes, spent $2 million this year, but the sources behind roughly half that spending are unclear..

One million dollars were donated to StudentsFirst NY Advocacy by another nonprofit, StudentsFirst NY Inc., that heavily overlaps with it: The two groups share an office suite and staff.

Both StudentsFirst NY Advocacy and StudentsFirst NY Inc. are issue-oriented nonprofits that must disclose their donors if they engage in substantial lobbying spending. If StudentsFirst NY Inc. had itself spent its $1 million on lobbying, it would have had to disclose the sources behind the funds.

But because the $1 million passed from StudentsFirst NY to StudentsFirst NY Advocacy, which then spent heavily on lobbying, only the name of StudentsFirst NY Inc. appears on the lobbying disclosure filing submitted by the Advocacy arm in July.

How did StudentsFirstNY explain the interesting arrangement of having one wing of StudentsFirstNY write the other wing a check, have that second wing do the lobbying and thereby hide where the money was coming from?

 StudentsFirstNY responded with this:

Asked if the money transfer was meant to obscure the identity of donors, a StudentsFirst NY spokesman maintained the $1 million came from pre-existing StudentsFirst NY funds — not from new donations funneled through the group.

Jenny Sedlis, executive director of StudentsFirst NY, added in a statement that "StudentsFirst NY is proud of the campaign we ran to increase high quality school choices for kids." Sedlis is also listed as a lobbyist for StudentsFirstNY Advocacy.

In short, the ends justify the means and that's that.

But wait, it gets better.

The StudentsFirstNY suite must be a pretty big place because it turns out the education reformers at Families For Excellent Schools also list the StudentsFirstNY suite as their base of operations - and boy do they drop some murkily-sourced cash on political lobbying:

Families for Excellent Schools, another Manhattan group that also lists the same address as StudentsFirst NY but says it operates separately, has taken a much more direct approach that has allowed its donors to remain anonymous.

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

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

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

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

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

The shell games the charter school advocates, hedge fundies and education reformers are playing are similar to the games Governor Cuomo plays with the LLC loophole - it's all about funding a political agenda with a lot of cash, doing it murkily but legally and ensuring that a small segment of the population (i.e., really, really wealthy interests)  can impose most of their political agenda on the rest of the state.

The corruption in this state is endemic and so deep-rooted that the US attorney can literally cart out most of the political leadership in Albany on corruption charges but the bribery, kickbacks and larceny continue apace like nothing's happened.

Hedge Fundie Who Made Homophobic Hillary Joke Holds Fund Raiser For Andrew Cuomo

Daniel Loeb, founder and chief executive of Third Point LLC, a New York-based hedge fund with a portfolio reported worth $14 billion, is holding a $5,000 a head fundraiser for Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The fundraiser will be held at Loeb's East Hampton residence on July 11. 

Loeb is quite a piece of work.

Loeb sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY and chairs Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy board.

He has given money to Cuomo before and was instrumental in helping Cuomo to push for legalized gay marriage in New York back in 2011.

But those are just the above-board descriptions of Loeb. 

The real Loeb is a vindictive, vitriolic sociopath who goes out of his way to destroy people.

Sounds like the perfect person to raise funds for Andrew Cuomo.

Loeb's reputation as a hedge fundie is that "he doesn't give a fuck" how he goes about making money.

Check out the whole Vanity Fair piece about Loeb I linked to above, but here's a little taste of how Loeb is perceived within the financial world:

A colleague who has known Loeb for decades says Loeb “can write the most obnoxious letters on the planet, make up shit—[because he does] not really care … whether or not you hurt people or don’t hurt people. You just don’t care. The only thing you care about is making money on their stock. . . . [His letters] were juvenile, sophomoric, and cringe-making. Horrible. If you’re a decent member of society you [don’t do] shit like that. But he did. That was his business strategy. He was very smart. Because other people—most of us—have certain values and certain norms, and there are certain boundaries we just won’t cross. And he just obviously doesn’t have those same kind of limitations. Never has.”

Loeb is also a hypocrite - he looked to manage some of the teachers pension fund as a hedge fund manager even as he worked as an education deformer to slash teachers benefits (from Vanity Fair piece linked above):

Loeb’s pugnacious side was also on view earlier this year when the powerful American Federation of Teachers—the nation’s largest teachers’ union—accused him of trying to solicit a chunk of the union’s $800 billion pension fund to manage while being an enthusiastic supporter and board member of StudentsFirst, a national organization that advocates, among other things, replacing teachers’ defined-benefit pension plans with defined-contribution plans. “Loeb has been soliciting the retirement money of public workers, then turning right around and lobbying for those same workers to lose their benefits,” Matt Taibbi wrote on his Rolling Stone blog. “He’s essentially asking workers to pay for their own disenfranchisement (with Loeb getting his two-and-twenty cut, or whatever obscene percentage of their retirement monies he will charge as a fee). If that isn’t the very definition of balls, I don’t know what is.”

Loeb got into it a bit with AFT President Randi Weingarten after she wanted a meeting with him:

When Randi Weingarten, the president of the A.F.T., learned that Loeb was giving a speech in Washington, at the April meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit association of pension and endowment funds, representing more than $3 trillion of assets (where Loeb may well have intended to do a little soliciting), she suggested a meeting with him. “Given your strong support for StudentsFirst, an organization which is leading the attack on defined benefit pension funds around the country, I was surprised to learn of your interest in working with public pension plan investors,” she wrote.

Loeb agreed to meet with Weingarten, but in the end he canceled his speech and the meeting, saying that his plans had changed and he had to get back to New York. He offered to meet with her at another time. But that never happened. He also decided to give $3 million, instead of $2 million, to Success Academy Charter Schools, a network of 22 New York City charter schools, which many teachers see as undermining public education. “Rather than intimidate me, [the accusations of conflict of interest] had the effect of redoubling my commitment and making me realize how important our work is because these kids face such obstacles,” he told Bloomberg. Weingarten now says of Loeb, “He got very angry when Rolling Stone and others wrote about it, and he’s just been going after me ever since.” She says it was a shame that “he thought he was punishing me” by giving more money to charter schools, but “we should be working together” to improve education for all students.

Someone who knows Loeb asked him about his fight with Weingarten, and, the source says, Loeb replied, “She’s fucking with the wrong person.”

Dan Loeb is a vitriolic sociopath with no core values other than his own success and ego aggrandizement - sounds like a perfect fit for a Cuomo fundraiser.

But wait - it gets better.

You would think given Loeb's support for Cuomo's push to legalize gay marriage in New York, Loeb would be sensitive to homophobia, but you would be wrong about that:

Hedge-fund billionaire Daniel Loeb — one of the biggest and most feared investors on Wall Street and a vocal backer of same-sex marriage — posted a joke speculating about Hillary Clinton’s sexuality on his personal Facebook page.

“Dear Abby,” he posted May 9. “My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything. What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job 14 years ago, he hasn’t even look for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and shoot the bull with his buddies, while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn’t even pretend to like me, and even hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do? Signed Clueless.”

“Dear Clueless,” the post continues, “Grow up and dump him. Good grief woman! You don’t need him anymore! You’re running for President of the United States. Act like one.”

The anti-Clinton diatribe wasn’t Loeb’s own joke or words — it appeared to be a right-wing meme that has been circulating online since Clinton’s first run. The same faux “Dear Abby” column was also posted on the Facebook page of actor Kevin Sorbo, best known for his role as Hercules in the TV series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.”

The resurfacing of the old attack on the Clintons this cycle — on the page of a prominent billionaire — indicates how ugly attacks could get if Hillary Clinton gets into the uncharted territory of a general election.

Loeb, who bundled money for Barack Obama in 2008 before turning on him and backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012, has shown interest in a few of the GOP candidates this cycle.

...

 

Loeb promptly deleted the Dear Abby post after POLITICO contacted his office about it.

“This widely circulated, old meme ended up on my Facebook page inadvertently and as soon as I was informed of it, I took it down,” Loeb said in a statement. “ As a longstanding public supporter of gay and women’s rights, it does not represent my views.”

The "widely circulated, old meme" ended up on his Facebook page "inadvertently"?

Add "full of shit" and "bald-faced liar" to the other descriptions of Dan Loeb like "sociopath...who doesn't give a fuck."

This is the guy Cuomo's allowed to host a $5,000 a head fundraiser for him.

Says an awful lot about Andrew Cuomo, doesn't it.

There are protests scheduled for the fundraiser by some labor groups.

Success Academy Board Member Daniel Loeb Hosts $5,000 A Head Fundraiser For Andrew Cuomo

Governor Cuomo came through for charter schools once again this legislative session, raising the charter cap by 180 and imposing a ton of new mandates on public schools that do not count for charters (i.e., the teacher evaluation system.)

And so the charter school supporters will pay Cuomo back for his political largesse:

Hedge fund manager and charter school advocate Daniel Loeb is standing by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

On the evening of Saturday July 11, he and his wife Margaret Munzer Loeb will host a fund-raiser for Cuomo at their residence in East Hampton, according to an invitation sent out to multiple donors and acquired by Capital.

Individual tickets for what is billed as an "intimate reception" will cost $5,000 each, though host committee sponsorships "are available."

Loeb had no comment as to why he was fund-raising for the governor.

He and his wife have donated to the governor in the past.

The Third Point C.E.O. serves on the board of StudentsFirstNY, a pro-charter advocacy group whose board members also include former schools chancellor Joel Klein and Success Academy Charter Schools founder Eva Moskowitz.

Loeb also chairs Success Academy's board and is one of Moskowitz's most stalwart supporters and defenders.

The hedge fund managers/charter school supporters started paying Cuomo off with cash before he ran for governor and it continues all the way until today.

He's gotten more than $4.8 million dollars in contributions from 570 hedge fund managers since 2000.

In addition, some of those same hedge fund managers contributed millions to a charter school shell group called Families For Excellent Schools that ran ads and lobbied for charter causes on Cuomo's behalf. FES was the winner in "Who Spent The Most Money Lobbying?" competition, dropping $9.7 million in 2014 on lobbying expenditures.

Then there was the shadowy group called the Committee To Save New York that spent millions on pro-Cuomo ads touting the governor's agenda. The group raised $12 million dollars from just 20 donors to help Cuomo out politically.

CSNY closed up shop when the law was changed and donors and contributors had to be revealed, but you can bet that there were some of the same names on the CSNY list that are on the Families For Excellent Schools, Students FirstNY and Success Academies list.

And let's not forget that StudentsFirstNY helped create New Yorkers For A Balanced Albany, an independent expenditure committee that dropped $4.2 million in support of a Republican takeover of the New York State Senate - having Republicans in charge in the state Senate has helped Cuomo push through his pro-charter, anti-public school agenda.

Judging from how much they've paid him over the years and how they continue to pay him now, shilling for charter schools and education has been a very profitable enterprise for Andrew Cuomo.

StudentsFirstNY Sad That Assembly Watered Down Some Cuomo Education Reforms

From Capitol Confidential:

The Assembly passed Wednesday an omnibus education reform package that addresses both the updated teacher evaluation system and the Common Core standards.

The bill, which was introduced earlier this month, is a wide-ranging one-house proposal that grants an extension to when schools must fully implement the new evaluation system, delinks funding from the full implementation of the standards and requires the state Education commissioner to review the Common Core standards, among other things.

It would provide $8.4 million worth of funding to the state Education Department.
The bill passed 135-1.

There's not much positive to the bill in actuality - a kangaroo panel at SED to review Common Core, a slight delay in evaluation implementation, more money provided to SED for testing - but still this bill passage made education reformers StudentsFirstNY sad:

StudentsFirstNY, a group that has supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s teacher evaluation and education policies, didn’t view passage in the same light Wednesday.

“It’s disheartening to learn that certain lawmakers who approved teacher assessment reforms during the budget process have flip-flopped after a special interest group complained about the agreement,” StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis said in a statement. ”If New York State is serious about improving education, it must move forward with a better teacher evaluation system.”

A special interest group complained?

The heavy hearts in the Assembly were reacting to the opt out surge by parents all across the state, not to complaints by NYSUT.

Some commenters at Capitol Confidential pounced on StudentsFirstNY:

“It’s disheartening to learn that certain lawmakers who approved teacher assessment reforms during the budget process have flip-flopped after a special interest group complained about the agreement,” StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis said in a statement.

And:

“It’s disheartening to learn that certain lawmakers who approved teacher assessment reforms during the budget process have flip-flopped after a special interest group complained about the agreement,”Earth to Jenny Sedlis: Lawmakers are responding to the special interest group called “Taxpaying Parents of Abused Students” or TPAS for short….

Your organization is the Special Interest group, (The Executive Director title gives you away.) But, that’s what Republicans do best, renaming a hurtful policy with an Orwellian reverse speak… Student Advocate instead of test company-financed politicians, PeaceKeeper missiles instead of Weapons of Mass Destruction.. etc..

Also:

StudentsFirstNY Board of Directors: Mikael Andren, President, Jones Family Office ; Douglas J. Band , Counselor to President Clinton : David Boies , Chairman, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner LLP ; Tiffany Dufu , Chief Leadership Officer, Levo League ; Carl C. Icahn , Foundation for a Greater Opportunity ; Gail Golden Icahn , Foundation for a Greater Opportunity ; Paul Tudor Jones , Co-Chairman & Chief Investment Officer, Tudor Investment Corp. ; Peter Kiernan , Kiernan Ventures ; Joel I. Klein , CEO, Education Division, News Corporation ; Kenneth G. Langone , Chairman and CEO, Invemed Associates, LLC ; Daniel S. Loeb , CEO, Third Point, LLC ; Eva Moskowitz , Founder and CEO, Success Academy Charter Schools; Michelle Rhee , CEO and Founder, StudentsFirst ; Jabali Sawicki , Instructional Designer, Zearn ; Dan Senor , Author, Start-Up Nation; Senior Advisor, Elliott Management ; Michael Sullivan , Managing Director, SAC Capital. Special interest group, indeed!

Finally:

To clarify, not just special interest groups complained. Many informed parents had their students (over 200,000) refuse / opt out of the test. In this bill the legislature is trying to represent their constituents, hopefully they will be able to come together on a bill and make it veto proof. This would allow parents and teachers to see the exam in their entirety (like regents exams) and review their students individual results. Hopefully the length of test will also begin to mirror the regents exams. An 11th grader spends 2-3 hours on the English regents, but those in grade 4-8 spend three days and multiple days of prep to evaluate the same subject.

Only in Education Reform World are over 200,000 parents a "special interest group" but a small coterie of education reformers funded by some of the wealthiest interests in the country a grassroots organization devoted to improving education.

Reminds me of when former NYSED Commissioner John King had his meltdown in Poughkeepsie and claimed parents complaining about Common Core and the state's Endless Testing regime were "special interests."

StudentsFirstNY Calls Evaluation Plan With 10 Minute Observations "Thoughtful"

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY on the NYSED/Regents evaluation plan:

Districts would use the same rubrics they’re using now for observations. The duration and length of the observations would be locally determined, but there would have to be at least one observation from each the principal and “independent” evaluator, and each would have to be 20 minutes long for non-tenured and previously low-rated teachers and 10 minutes long for previously high-rated tenured teachers. At least one of the observations would have to be unannounced. Short “walk-through” observations of five to 10 minutes are also permissible under the regulations.

Observations could be performed live or through live or previously recorded video.

10 minutes for an observation?

Seriously?

Oh, yes - seriously.

Some members of the Board of Regents pointed out this is absurd:

Some regents argued that 10 to 20 minutes was not long enough, depending on the grade level and subject.

But StudentsFirstNY loved the plan:

StudentsFirstNY, an education-reform group that has pushed for stricter evaluations, called the proposal “balanced” and “thoughtful.”

A 10 minute observation twice a year is "balanced" and "thoughtful."

Wow.

They're not even trying to make it look like they're trying to improve stuff, are they?

John Flanagan's Another One Of Those "Blame Teachers" Politicians

Tom Precious in tha Buffalo News looks at John Flanagan and his education "expertise":

Flanagan, 54, has a long reputation with Albany insiders as a student of the issues. Some lawmakers spend little time actually reading bills, but Flanagan, following in the path of his father, a former assemblyman, has a voracious appetite for reading up on and talking policy matters.

As chairman of the committee on education, Flanagan has spent much of his time on the subject in the last four years. He understands, as much as anyone, the state’s extraordinarily complex annual maze that devises the school funding formula. He understands the problems related to Common Core-based standardized tests but insists that better training for teachers is the key to improving student performance.

Ah, yes - teacher training is the key to improving student performance.

Not funding, not smaller class sizes, not moving away from a test-centric education system for one where that attempts to reach the whole child.

Nope - teacher training.

In short, problems in the education system are the fault of teachers and can be addressed by focusing on "improving" teachers via training (and if that "fails," firing.)

I wouldn't expect any other take from a politican squarely on the StudentsFirst payroll.

The last five senate majority leaders have been arrested on criminal charges.

I look forward to the day when #6 gets carted out.

New Cuomo/Deformer Meme: Cuomo's Evaluation System "Reduces Testing"

Governor Cuomo and his education reform/charter school backers are working overtime to sell the public that Cuomo's new evaluation system "reduces testing."

Here, for example, is an ad released today by StudentsFirstNY that says just that:




Before the budget, an anonymous Cuomo official told reporters that the new evaluation system eliminates local assessments and replaces them with an "optional" second test.

The aim of this move is to have the public blame teachers for "overtesting":

New teacher evaluation criteria that is being proposed in the state budget would potentially put the onus on local teachers unions as to whether a second test should be added for students which would count to a performance rating, according to a Cuomo administration official.

“It’s an option and it’s a risk,” the official said on Monday night. “It is a risk to have that second test. We’ve design it in the system because we’re trying to reduce testing.”

...

"It puts the burden on them and in many ways belies the myth the state was asking for more test,” the official said. “Now, if they want the second test, they’ve going to need to ask for a second test.”

Cuomo and his deformer backers think they can fool parents into thinking there is "reduced testing" under Cuomo's new APPR evaluation system because the state eliminated the local assessment component in the system even as they ratcheted up the percentage of a teacher's rating that is based upon state tests.

Clearly they think people are stupid.

If you eliminate the local test component that used to be worth 20% of a teacher's rating and take a state test that used to be worth 20% and make it worth 40% or 50% of the rating, you are not reducing testing even though you've gotten rid of one set of tests.

What you've done is increased the stress, pressure and anxiety on the state test scores, which teachers must show growth on or risk a low rating that could lead to a loss of their job.

The problem with overtesting is not just how many tests are given in the school system - it's the high stakes that are attached to them that cause stress, pressure and anxiety for both children and educators in schools

If anything, Cuomo's APPR re-do exacerbates that problem by putting so much weight on literally one test.

Cuomo and his ed deformer backers can try and spin the new system as "reducing testing" all they want with their ads and PR.

Parents will not be fooled by their jive.

Teachers didn't create this system, Cuomo did - and they will know where to place the blame for the testing problem that is going to get worse under Cuomo's new system.

Cuomo Administration Echoes StudentsFirst: Teachers Are Special Interests Who Fail Children

Here's the Cuomo administration response to educator protests over the Cuomo reform agenda

"It is mind-boggling that people who claim to be on the side of students can defend the status quo while 250,000 of them have been condemned to failing schools in the last 10 years. The louder special interests scream, the more we know we're right." -- Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever

Hard to tell if that's a Cuomo administration official statement or a StudentsFirstNY statement:

There are 250,000 students in New York who have attended failing schools. Only one in three can read and do math on grade level. StudentsFirstNY is a grassroots member organization made up of parent activists who believe we need fundamental reform of our public schools — a position that is supported by an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers.

We advocate for improving public schools and believe charter schools provide additional and much-needed choice for parents of children in communities that have been underserved by district schools. These schools do not generate profits, but operate independent of the bureaucracy and protections of ineffective teachers who have prevented real reforms from taking place in traditional public schools.

Unlike the state teachers' unions, which have spent close to $60 million on political ads and lobbying over the past four years trying to protect their public education monopoly, our supporters have no personal financial stake in the education reform debate.

The broken status quo that has been created by NYSUT and their political allies has led to New York spending more on education than any other state, while getting only mediocre results.

We believe that our children deserve better than that, and we are proud to stand with Gov. Andrew Cuomo as he works to improve public schools across the state.

Jenny Sedlis
New York City
The writer is executive director of StudentsFirstNY.

Calling Out A StudentsFirstNY Shill

I was teaching today, so I wasn't able to watch any of the budget hearings on Cuomo's education proposals, but apparently this happened:

@leoniehaimson who was asking StudentFirstNY rep what her salary was?
— Christine Zirkelbach (@CMZR) February 3, 2015

.@CMZR Sen @LizKrueger one of the best!
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) February 3, 2015

Leonie raises a great point - the most vocal supporters of Cuomo's education reform proposals, particularly on teacher evaluations, are the charter people and their paid shills (like the StudentsFirst hacks.)

These reforms the charter supporters love don't impact charters, just public schools.

The charter shills loves this because it's another way they can drag public schools down, force more money to be spent on compliance instead of education and just generally make public schools worse through added, unnecessary mandates.

In the end, most of the charter people really do want to destroy public education.

It's a zero sum game, so every dollar taken from public schools, every school closed, every increase of the cap means more money, space and resources for them.

In any case, it's good to see someone call one of these StudentsFirst shills out publicly.

Democratic Minority Leader Stewart-Cousins Tells Cuomo To Stop "Demonizing Teachers" - Cuomo's Education Reform Donors Hit Right Back

I was off grading Regents exams this morning, so I missed this story:

In a rare public break with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins blasted the “demonizing of our teachers” in a statement released on Thursday morning.

Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, called for increasing resources — aka more money — in the state budget for school districts and not “scapegoating teachers.”

“There has been too much demonizing of our teachers lately. As a former teacher, I understand firsthand the obstacles that many New York educators are facing and the resources they so desperately need in order to help our children,” Stewart-Cousins said. “Schools’ resources must be based on the school district needs. While we all agree that there are more improvements to be made to our education system, scapegoating teachers will not provide those improvements.”

...


Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, is knocking Cuomo’s education reform push as Speaker Sheldon Silver is being pushed out of the Assembly’s leadership post on Monday.

Uncertainty over the future of the Assembly’s leadership push is leading to concerns among education advocates that the governor’s proposals won’t have a strong opponent in the budget negotiations.

Just a few hours later, Cuomo's education reform campaign donors fired back at Stewart-Cousins:

Students First NY, a group supportive of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education reform efforts, pushed back against Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins’s statement this morning that called for an end to the “demonizing” of teachers.

In a statement, the group pointed out that in Yonkers, where Stewart-Cousins represents and lives, city school children are falling behind in math and reading.

“There’s a reason why the teachers’ union has spent $60 million in Albany over the past five years: to get politicians like Andrea Stewart-Cousins to put their interests over the hundreds of thousands of kids victimized by a failing system,” said the group’s Director of Organizing, Tenicka Boyd, in a statement. “In Yonkers, 4 out of 5 students cannot read or do math on grade level — they need a Senator, too. Governor Cuomo’s plan will give our best teachers $20,000 bonuses, will cover tuition to get the best and brightest into our classrooms, and will increase funding for all children. Governor Cuomo is fighting for kids; Senator Stewart-Cousins should too.”

Stewart-Cousins responded:

“Personal attacks and political sniping will not solve the deep-rooted problems in New York’s public education system. As a person who went to New York City Public Schools, sent my children to New York Public Schools and taught in New York Public schools, I will continue to stand up for New York’s children and urge common sense reforms that will help all New York students receive the quality education they deserve.”

Boy, it doesn't take long for Cuomo's education reform donors - the very wealthy individuals and groups who have given him millions in campaign donations - to respond for Cuomo, almost as if they're coordinating that response with Cuomo's office.

Not that Cuomo would ever coordinate with education reformers or anything - except for that time he helped organize a pro-charter rally in Albany to beat down NYC Mayor de Blasio over the charter co-location issue.

The joke of all this is, Shelly Silver's been arrested for taking millions in cash and allegedly pushing the interests of those he received that cash from.

How exactly is that different from what Cuomo's doing with education reform and his education reform donors?

Silver didn't disclose the money, but Cuomo hasn't disclosed all the money either - we still don't know who donated to the shadowy PAC that pushed Cuomo's interests, the Committee To Save NY.

What Silver's done is considered illegal, but Cuomo's perfectly fine taking millions from his ed deform donors and pushing their destructive plans for public education.

I dunno, I'm a little murky on what's the difference between illegal bribery and campaign donations, but apparently Cuomo isn't.

John Flanagan Promises An "Aggressive" Legislative Session On Education Policies

Count me skeptical that Flanagan will be anything but Cuomo's reliable ally on "breaking" the public education system:

During a CapTon interview last night, Senate Education Committee Chairman John Flanagan said state lawmakers are willing to work with Gov. Andrew Cuomo on education reform, but warned the governor not to propose anything too “draconian” when it comes to overhauling the system.

The Long Island Republican declined to say what might constitute going too far in his mind, noting Cuomo has yet to really tip his hand – other than the everything-but-the-kitchen sink letter his administration sent to the outgoing education commissioner and regents chancellor late last year.

...

Flanagan said he wants to wait to see what Cuomo has to say in his State of the State address, which was delayed from yesterday to Jan. 21 due to the death of the governor’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Flanagan said he'd rather see legislative bills on ed policy rather than Cuomo sticking changes into the budget process, then said this:

The senator said there’s “no question” that it will be a “very aggressive” session where education policy is concerned. So, buckle up.

Great - just what we need for an education system that has already undergone dramatic changes over the last few years - an "aggressive" legislative session to push more dramatic changes.

Bet that most of those "aggressive" changes will get stuck into the budget - just the way Cuomo stuck the last APPR stuff there.

What Percentage Of Ineffective Teachers On The APPR Ratings Would Make Education Reformers Happy?

Via Chaz, we learn that the state released APPR teacher evaluation results for NYC teachers and there was some difference between how NYC teachers scored and how teachers in the rest of the state scored:

9.2% overall were found either "developing" or "ineffective," much higher numbers than statewide, and there were far fewer "highly effective" teachers in NYC than statewide, but as Chaz notes, these numbers aren't going to make ed deformers like Governor Cuomo or Regents Chancellor Tisch happy:

Look for the newspapers to complain, the education reformers to howl with disgust, and the displeased Governor to demand a more stringent teacher evaluation system, since few teachers can be fired on the first round of evaluations.  Teacher season is just beginning with the second term of the Governor and a new NYSED Commissioner who's mandate from the Governor will be to go after teachers and not to help the students who will suffer with "high stakes" Common Core tests that they are ill prepared for and "Junk Science" for teacher evaluations.

In fact, Tisch is already signaled these numbers show the APPR teacher system needs to be "strengthened":

"The ratings show there’s much more work to do to strengthen the evaluation system,” Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Governor, Legislature, NYSUT, and other education stakeholders to strengthen the evaluation law in the coming legislative session to make it a more effective a tool for professional development.”

In short, they want to fire more teachers, this round didn't give them a high enough number of "ineffectives."

But here's a question I have:

What percentage of "ineffectives" on the APPR ratings would make Tisch, Cuomo and the other merry reformsters happy?

10% ineffective?

20% ineffective?

30%?

70%?

We keep hearing stuff like this from the deformers that makes me think they'll only be happy when the system is churning out 70% "ineffectives (this comes from a CBS piece entitled "Most New York Teachers Rated Effective Despite Poor Test Scores," so that should give you an indication of the frame for the story):

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch points to the contrast between poor student performance on standardized tests and how their teachers and principals fared in evaluations.

Evaluations are based on student performance on state tests, locally approved measures and classroom observation.

Executive director of StudentsFirstNY, Jenny Sedlis, spoke with 1010 WINS and said when all teachers get good evaluations but the students are learning just at grade level, there is an issue.

“In New York State, roughly a third of our kids are reading and doing math on grade level, but every teacher is considered good or better on the evaluation system and that just doesn’t compute,” she said.

“Parents deserve a teacher evaluation system that’s honest and that sets the bar high,” Sedlis said.

Clearly they want the APPR ratings to track test scores - if 70% of students "failed" the new Common Core tests that Tisch and Company rigged for that number, than 70% of their teachers ought to be rated "ineffective."

Expect them to "strengthen" the evaluation system by rigging it so that the APPR ratings more closely track test scores.

They may not rig it to get 70% ineffective next year, but you can bet they'll rig it so that there's a much higher percentage of "ineffectives" and "developings" both statewide and in the city.

Education reform in a nutshell - they rig the Common Core test scores for 70% failing, complain when the teacher evaluation ratings don't mirror that number, then come back to rig the teacher ratings too.

Education Reformers Not Worried Reform Agenda Will Suffer With John King's Departure

Jessica Bakeman has a piece at Capital NY reporting that NYSED Commissioner John King's departure from the scene will have little impact on the education reform agenda being imposed on the state's students, teachers and schools:

In the upcoming session, Cuomo has already hinted at a robust education agenda that includes further strengthening teacher evaluations and boosting the charter school sector.

Jenny Sedlis, executive director of StudentsFirstNY, a education group that’s closely aligned with Cuomo on issues related to schools, said she’s not concerned that her priorities will suffer in King’s absence.

“There is incredible momentum behind raising standards for students and teachers and for increasing the number of high quality charter schools,” Sedlis said. “So I think John King has laid a strong foundation, and we’ll all be able to build off of that.”

As I posted last night, Regents Chancellor Tisch has also indicated that the reform agenda will continue apace.

That means more charters, "strengthened" teacher evaluations, the continued implementation of the Common Core, more Engage NY curriculum, and continued teacher and traditional public school bashing from Albany.

The political functionaries come and go, the education reform agenda to privatize schools, bust the teachers union and deprofessionalize teaching goes on forever.

StudentsFirstNY And The New Teacher Project Have A Teachers Contract Framework For You

From the Buffalo News:

StudentsFirstNY, a statewide education reform group, and TNTP, a national education reform group, has released a new report outlining their recommendations for changes to the Buffalo Teachers Federation contract. The report is endorsed by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, but many of the proposals are unlikely to be readily agreed to by the teachers union.

Their seven-page report recommends higher starting salaries for teachers -- an increase from $32,897 to at least $45,000 -- but it also recommends that many changes that would require givebacks from the BTF, including teacher contributions to health insurance, a devaluation of teacher seniority, merit-based pay, longer school days, a more rigorous tenure process, and fewer sick days.

The report overview states, "In many ways, the current agreement actually makes it harder for teachers to get the pay and respect they deserve, and harder for Buffalo’s schools to ensure that students are afforded effective teachers who can provide a high-quality education."

Do they even read the garbage they write?

They write: "In many ways, the current agreement actually makes it harder for teachers to get the pay and respect they deserve."

Their remedy?

"An increase from $32,897 to at least $45,000 -- but it also recommends that many changes that would require givebacks from the BTF, including teacher contributions to health insurance, a devaluation of teacher seniority, merit-based pay, longer school days, a more rigorous tenure process, and fewer sick days."

Yeah, that'll get quality people to sign on to teach in Buffalo (or anywhere else they push this garbage.)

This is the second "report" out this week from an ed reform hack group calling for higher teacher pay to be offset with other "reforms."

NCTE also touted one.

You can see the framework for teachers contract going forward here - massive givebacks in every area for a little chunk of change in the beginning.

This one goes for the moon - seniority devaluation, merit pay, longer school days, tenure "reform," fewer sick days and cuts to health benefits for a little over $12,000.

No thanks.

Good luck selling that to prospective and current teachers as a sign of "respect."