Cuomo Looking To Create A Special Charter School District

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's safe territory:

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barring criminal charges against him, of course.

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

Chris Gibson: If NY Sticks With Common Core And Heavy-Handed Education Policy, It's All On Cuomo

Congressman Chris Gibson on the "Every Child Succeeds Act," the education bill that passed the House this week and is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama before Christmas:

New York educators and legislators are hopeful the passage of a bipartisan education bill in the House of Representatives this week will convince the state to abandon the more controversial aspects of its own education reform.

The bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, dismantles George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act and shifts authority over the nation's public schools from the federal government back to states and local school districts. Not only does it let states to decide whether student test scores are an appropriate way to evaluate teachers or assess schools, but it also prohibits the federal government from mandating or even incentivizing states to adopt learning standards like the Common Core.

 ...

U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, called the bill a major step forward in reducing federal overreach in classrooms and in empowering states and localities. The bill gives New York the flexibility to decide how it wants to test its children and evaluate teachers, he said.

"The ball is now clearly in the governor's court," he said. "We have so many parents and teachers and students that have been upset with Common Core. Well, this bill allows states to withdraw from Common Core without penalty. In addition, the state has taken a heavy-handed approach to schools that are failing, and that has been in part driven by the federal government. That federal overreach is now gone, so anything the governor continues to do in education will be from his own volition. He can no longer lean on the federal government."

I remain skeptical that Cuomo, who's completely on the take from the education reform industrial complex/Heavy Fund Managers For Education Reform, will want to derail the heavy-handed education policy he's helped impose onto the state, including Common Core, the Endless Testing regime, punitive teacher evaluations and a state receivership program that allows the state to take over "failing" public schools and hand them to private entities.

But he certainly wants to make it look like changes are coming.

Thus the Common Core Task Force, thus the trial balloons in the Times about de-linking test scores from APPR, thus the soothing words from him about education policy changes coming.

With his approval numbers in the toilet and his approval numbers on education even worse than that, Cuomo's got to walk a tightrope here, making it look like he's bringing about real change to education policy while assuring his owners, er, campaign donors in the hedge fundie/education reform world that he's still pursuing their agenda.

As Gibson notes, with NCLB III in place, Cuomo's going to have one less scapegoat to blame for the toxic, punitive education reform agenda he wants imposed on the children, teachers and schools of this state.

Fred LeBrun: Cuomo May Cave On Common Core/Testing Because His Poll Numbers Suck

Governor Cuomo's poll numbers are not only underwater, they're deep underwater.

In the last Siena poll, Cuomo stands with 40% job approval, 58% disapproval.

 On individual issues, the numbers are even worse.

On public education, 68% disapprove of the job he is doing, 27% approve.

On corruption, 69% disapprove of the job he is doing, 23% approve.

On the economy, 63% disapprove of the job he is doing, 35% approve.

On improving the state's infrastructure, 65% disapprove of the job he is doing, 29% approve.

These are not good poll numbers.

And the numbers have been this way for a while - last December, Cuomo was at 42% job approval in the Siena poll and the numbers have languished all year.

So what's a governor to do but try and juice those numbers, starting with education

Cue Fred LeBrun: 

Things are at long last looking up for beleaguered public education in this state, probably.

I'd like to say the likelihood of significant corrections coming to Common Core, excessive and inappropriate standardized testing, and a hard-wired connection between those tests and teachers' jobs, is because the politician most responsible for the total mess we're in, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has finally seen the light.

His infatuation with data driven education ''reform,'' fueled by millionaire political donors, has been a disaster, for him and for our children. It's his law that's codified the problem. It's his law that needs amending.

But I have a hunch closer to the truth would be the sobering recognition by the governor that what desperately needs fixing and quick are persistently in-the-toilet poll numbers over his intrusive handling of education issues.

Voters get it.

Especially with Judgment Day a mere five months away, when the next round of standardized tests are mandated in English and math for grades 4 to 8. That's also about the time we are apt to see a parental opt-out uprising across the state of a scary magnitude if big changes aren't already made or in the works.

So Cuomo needs to distance himself from his own mess pronto and be part of the solution rather than the problem for a change.

LeBrun sees cause for optimism that Cuomo's Common Core task force - completely controlled by the governor (as all things are in this state) - has allowed dissenting voices this time around while previous Cuomo-controlled education commissions did not (see here.)

LeBrun is also encouraged by the appointment of a critic of the state's education policies, Jere Hochman, to work as Cuomo's top education adviser and by the news that more than 3/4s of school districts in the state are going to get waivers from Cuomo's latest iteration of APPR.

And LeBrun sees Testing Doyenne Merryl Tisch's departure as cause for smiling, since so much of the damage done to the system was wrought by Tisch herself.

But like all savvy Cuomo-watchers, LeBrun remains skeptical:

Now, the devil remains in the details, and forgive the state's teachers, educators — and parents — for being skeptical. The last five years has been a horror show. At the very least sole reliance on the flawed ''growth score'' from standardized tests in evaluating teacher performance has to change. It's written in the law. Student performance, and an appropriate level of teacher accountability, can be measured in a number of different ways, and alternatives need to be part of the dialogue. Common Core standards need new flexibilities, and a total rethink down in the lower grades where serious issues of developmentally inappropriate testing, questions, and frequency are recurring criticisms.

It won't be all that hard to torque the law back to reasonable. Now let's see it happen before we break out the confetti.

To be frank, I'm not ready to buy the confetti, let alone get it out and begin celebrating just yet.

NYSED Commissioner Elia told us she wants to repaint the Common Core standards so that people will like them better.

I'm not so sure all of what we're seeing out of Cuomo and NYSED is anything other than a repainting job meant to fool parents and educators into thinking state pols and educrats are listening to their concerns while really not listening to their concerns.

Tisch herself said one of her biggest regrets as Regents Chancellor was not communicating with parents the wonders of Common Core and testing well enough so that there wouldn't have been the rebellion the state has seen over both.

Call me cynical, call me jaded, but I haven't yet seen any tangible policy change that says to me the Endless Testing regime and the damaging Common Core State (sic) Standards are going anywhere.

What I see so far is a change in messaging, not a change in policy or agenda.

Calls for limiting testing from either President Obama or Governor Cuomo are jive when teachers and schools are rated (and fired or closed) based upon test scores.

So long as the tests carry so much weight, the system will be rife with test prep and test anxiety.

As for the Common Core, until these standards are revisited and the insane focus on "rigor" all the time is changed, schools will continue to be misery factories for both children and teachers.

In many schools, students do the same thing in every class, day after day - close reading informational texts that are several grade levels above in difficulty, responding to text-based questions and writing evidence-based argumentative essays on these texts.

This is happening not just in English class but in social studies, science, health - even art, music and vocational classes.

Teachers who deviate from what is considered "rigorous" are punished -  administrators enforce total compliance through the APPR teacher evaluation system and the Danielson rubric.

Until some teacher autonomy is returned, some creativity and allowance to deviate from the "One Way To Teach Them All" approach that we have now, many children are going to continue to hate school and learning.

And if you doubt this, ask some who go to schools where it's "All Rigor All The Time" - ask them how they like close reading day after day, writing argumentative essays day after day, spending three weeks on one short story and close reading it over and over until they don't care anything about it.

Cuomo said change is coming to the system - but given this is the same guy who said he wants to "break" the public school monopoly, I'm not ready to declare whatever "change" he plans to bring good change.

So far, all I see is a change to the messaging.

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

From the "No kidding" file:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unionization Key To Closing Racial Wage Gap

Turns out busting public schools is NOT the secret recipe to closing the racial wage gap:

A study released on Friday, noting the gains made by black union workers in New York City, said that raising the rate of unionization among black workers across the country would help narrow the racial pay gap.

The study, conducted by two professors affiliated with the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, which issued the report, described high unionization rates for black workers who live in the city compared with national rates.

Nearly 40 percent of black workers who are city residents are union members, compared with roughly 13 percent of black workers nationally.

The difference between the rates of black and nonblack unionization is also especially pronounced in New York City. The black unionization rate is nearly double that of nonblacks in the city, a difference that is much smaller nationally.

The authors, Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce, found that black union members enjoyed higher wages than black nonunion workers, and were also likely to have better access to employer-sponsored health care benefits and pensions.

“Unionism offers black workers a substantial economic advantage in regard to earnings — to a greater degree than is the case for nonblacks, reflecting the fact that larger numbers of blacks than nonblacks are employed in low-wage jobs,” the study said.

Gee, who'd a thunk it?

Workers with union protections and wages have economic advantages that workers without union protections and wages have.

Maybe reformers should try to stop trying to bust the public school "monopoly" and push for union jobs if they actually care about closing the racial wage gap.

But they don't actually care about any such thing.

The rhetoric around closing the racial achievement gap or racial wealth gap is just the cover story for their real aim - the privatization of the school system and the busting of the teachers unions.

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.

The NY Post Gins Up The Great Teacher Scandal Of 2015

The following is a guest post by Harris Lirtzman, former Director of Risk Management for the New York City Retirement Systems in the NYC Comptroller's Office from 1996-2002 and former Deputy State Comptroller for Administration from 2003-2007.

The NY Post is having a case of the vapors bad by even Postian standards (here, here and here). Chalkbeat is in a tizzy. The only reason that the Daily News isn’t apoplectic is that the Post “owns” the story about the young woman who claims to have earned a high school degree without having done anything to “deserve” it. Carmen Farina must be summarily thrown to the wolves or, better yet, into the nearest volcano, for presiding over the scandalous practices in her very own schools that led teachers and administrators to begin “cheating” and “failing” their students. Thanks to the Post we even know the very minute when all this nefarious stuff began: 12:00:01 a.m., January 1, 2014—the millisecond after a Mr. William de Blasio became mayor of New York City and took control of the City’s school system.

We all have been told that education reformistas don’t do anything unless it is “data driven” and informed by “evidence-based practice.” Sadly, the media outlets that reformistas use to make their case to the public about the failures of public education, the “monopoly power” of teachers unions and the awfulness of bad, vampire teachers (“bad” because they belong to unions and “vampires” because they get health care and pensions) prefer to panic the public by telling stories using the old propaganda technique of the “Big Lie.” The “Big Lie” is something so astoundingly audacious that people believe it when they would dismiss a smaller lie as foolishness. We teachers, trained to value “facts” and “critical thinking,” try to refute reformista propaganda with evidence and reason and are surprised when the “Big Lie” sweeps away everything that stands before it. Our best bloggers are doing what they can but reformista propaganda is well-funded and tenacious. Public school teachers need to find an effective way to tell a counter-narrative that resonates with the public but which is true to our professional and personal values.

We all have “stories” to tell and it is only by weaving them together persuasively into a counter-narrative that we have any hope of countering the flood of “Big Lie” propaganda that washes over us each day. Here is my “story,” simply one of thousands that we can frame fully and quickly if we are going to defend public education and protect our profession.

I was a special education teacher in a high school in the Bronx from 2009-2012. During my tenure "conversation" with my principal in December 2011, which was an irregular one to say he least, I expected to be denied tenure because I had been raising serious questions within my school about widespread violations of student IEPs. I’m certain that my advocacy on behalf of my students was what precipitated the “tenure conversation” five months before anyone else in my school had the “conversation” that year but here’s what I was actually told:

Principal Grismaldy Laboy: "Mr. Lirtzman, your passing rates are low and are not consistent with the memo that I sent around to teachers last year that our school would have a 70% pass rate for each class."

Untenured Teacher Harris Lirtzman: "I have only failed two students for academic reasons in the last year. I have failed students who never attended my class. If a student came to class, made any reasonable effort to do the work and turned in anything that indicated some grasp of the basic elements of algebra, the student got at least a 65. Any student I failed was for attendance reasons."

Principal Laboy: "I don't, and the DOE doesn't, distinguish between absentee and academic failures."

Untenured Teacher Harris Lirtzman: "You are aware that I have a first period integrated algebra class. Several students never attended my class after the first week or appeared erratically during the term. They were "Long Term Absent." I worked closely with the attendance teacher here to get the kids to school on time. What else should I have done? Stand in front of their homes at 6:00 every morning and kidnap them?”

Principal Laboy: "Mr. Lirtzman, if you'd been able to make your classes more engaging they would have come."

Of course, conversations like this have been going on all around the City for the last ten years. My chapter leader sent the “grade quota” memo the principal distributed to central UFT and the district
superintendent as evidence for teacher coercion by administration to pass LTA students and, well, just about any student. Nothing. Not a surprise.

Now I can think of many reasons why Carmen Farina should resign—primarily her abject failure to sweep Tweed clean of the nest of reformistas filling up every corner of the place. But because of her willingness to allow some teachers in some cases to use multiple measures to evaluate their students? Because administrators began to press teachers to pass students without regard to attendance or academic performance only eighteen months ago? I think not.

In a conversation I had this morning with Geoff Decker, the reporter at Chalkbeat writing the stories about Farina and the “cheating scandal,” he asked me whether I thought Farina was “lowering the stakes” in the schools. I tried to explain to him that Farina hasn’t lowered the stakes in City schools because she can't lower the stakes in City schools even if she wanted to: the State sets teacher and principal evaluation standards tied to student test scores and the Renewal and other schools on the State "struggling" school list all use graduation rates, credit accumulation and other accountability measures to assess performance.

The high stakes connected with reformista accountability—receivership, teacher reapplication to struggling schools and the specter of being dumped into the ATR, administrators with feudal power over professional staff—have resulted in jumped up graduation rates and student test scores for the last decade and forced credit-recovery miracles and minimum passing rates stipulated in contractually illegal quotas onto reluctant teachers since Mayor Bloomberg obtained control over the Department of Education.

When reformistas put teachers’ careers on the line but don't hold administrators accountable for the incentive structures they impose inside their own schools the result is what the Post thinks it “discovered” this week. Tweed spent ten years trying to convince the State that "everything's OK here" because Mayor Bloomberg needed to validate mayoral control. Tweed spent the last eighteen months trying to convince Governor Cuomo and the State Senate that “everything’s OK here” because Mayor de Blasio needed to keep them from taking away mayor control entirely.

At least Chancellor Farina has set up a “task force” to investigate the nonsense that passes for accountability in our schools—though Farina might have written one more “Chancellor’s Regulation” giving Richard Condon and his crew of investigators at OSI even more authority for all the good a task force will do. No one demanded a "task force" at any time during the twelve years that Michael Bloomberg controlled the schools because it served no reformista purpose to do so. My friend, James Eterno, has been calling for a "truth commission" which would expose the institutional corruption and fraud that has infested reformista accountability measures in the City since 2002. Don’t expect to have the “facts” about the Bloomberg administration’s management of the schools revealed any more honestly than the “facts” are being told now about the de Blasio administration’s management of the schools.

Reformista media will continue to tell the “Big Lie” in all its forms to the public. We teachers will try to refute the “Big Lie” with facts and counter-arguments. The audacity and power of the “Big Lie” is a ferocious thing to behold. We must tell ourselves and the public the truth and we must tell the public our stories.

But we always need to understand that our reformista adversaries do and say the things they want to do and say because they can—evidence, facts, truth, fairness and data be damned. Mayoral control of the schools was blissfully wonderful for the NY Post for twelve years. Mayoral control of the schools became a satanic plot that allowed New York City teachers to stop educating their students on January 1, 2014. It is useful for our adversaries to make it so.

The “Big Lie” is powerful and reformistas will continue to use the “Big Lie” against us until we teachers can create a story—a deep and coherent counter-narrative—that the public is willing and able to hear. I don’t yet know how we do that but I do know that if we don’t do it quickly we will become spectators spouting “facts” that no one wants to hear while our schools and our profession are swept away by the “Big Lie” before our very eyes.

Hillary Clinton Touts Her Education Reformer Credentials In Ads In Iowa, New Hampshire

Tell me again why the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton 16 months before the 2016 presidential election?

Hillary Clinton’s first set of campaign ads will begin airing Tuesday in Iowa and New Hampshire as her campaign tries to get ahead of an anticipated onslaught of Republican attacks come the fall.

...

The ads will air in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa's two largest markets, and in the Boston/Manchester and Burlington, Vt., markets, which together reach all of New Hampshire.

Some content of the ads:

In HRC's 1st ads, narrator says she "fought 4 school reform" in AR & she describes teacher who brought food 4 her mom http://t.co/Gjxt406s2i

— Josh Eidelson (@josheidelson) August 3, 2015

This is Classic Clinton triangulation - "there was this great teacher who brought food for my mom when she was hungry...but I also fought for school reforms that, in large part, blame teachers for the problems in public education."

There's a sketchy PAC out there that appears to be linked to Clinton that is calling itself "Americas Teachers" that bills itself as "pro-union, pro-reform."

Clinton's first campaign ads appear to be following the same script - pro-teacher/union and pro-reform.

To which I say:

@mma718 @KingsParkAE @americateachers @rweingarten @TeacherArthurG @leoniehaimson Pro-union, pro-reform? Pro-jive.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) August 3, 2015

Where Do Education Progressives Go Politically?

The following is a guest post by Harris Lirtzman, former Director of Risk Management for the New York City Retirement Systems in the NYC Comptroller's Office from 1996-2002 and former Deputy State Comptroller for Administration from 2003-2007.

The fight against the federal testing and accountability regime aligns education progressives on the "local control" v. "federal control” axis in confounding ways. We oppose federal control because reformistas learned twenty years ago that if they were to move their program forward they had to end the long period of "exceptionalism" in American education, which left education in the hands of local school boards minimally overseen by state education departments but watched closely by teacher unions. Education has now been brought within the full scope of state and national politics--the "federalization" of education serves to make the education reform program possible by moving it to a venue where the full force of money and a new set of political alliances can sidestep parents and teachers.

The mainstream civil rights groups have always distrusted "localism" because in most parts of the country the only way that children of color could reliably be educated was by federal intervention, primarily Title 1. We now have a federalized education reform program supported by its natural ally, the mainstream civil rights groups.

The unfortunate result of all this is that the reform focus on de-professionalizing teaching and breaking teachers' unions requires teachers to make a Faustian bargain: we work together now with Republicans across the country to return control of education to states and localities where we stand a chance of preserving our profession and protecting our unions.

This strategy--and the short-term gains that result from it--is a very high-risk proposition for education progressives. We have seen what happens when Republicans gain unified control in the states—the same place where education progressives assume we will find some relief from pernicious “federal control.” Education progressives who have been so willing to work hand-in-hand with Republicans at the federal level will come deeply to regret the short term gains that the coalition activity has produced.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that “local control” of education policy will make anything better for teachers beyond momentary relief from the harshest aspects of the test and accountability regime. Anyone who has watched what has been going on in Democratic New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts ought not to believe that “local control” of education by Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana will provide any long-term gain for teachers of any kind, progressive or otherwise.

A federal government under the unified control of the Republican Party—and that will happen one day soon--will result in the direct funding of charter schools and vouchers, the decimation of Title 1 and Title 9 programs, the appointment of judges who will eviscerate any remaining union protections and the dismantling of the regulatory process that protects children with disabilities.
So where do education progressives go, at least politically?

Nowhere.

Many education progressives have defined "education progressivism" as a single-issue battle and have not done a very good job finding allies anywhere outside our own small world--because, frankly, most people are not sufficiently concerned about the education reform program to have been turned into "single-issue" partisans (see, here). We progressives want education policy purity from our political parties and representatives but we are the only part of the American progressive movement that has made this convenient bargain with the Republican Party.

The radicalization of the Republican Party since 2004 has forced the advocates for every other political cause that education progressives also support--choice, environmentalism, health care, labor law, a sane foreign policy, civil rights, LGBT rights--to align with the Democratic Party.

Education progressives can support a candidate in the Democratic primaries who is closer to our position than other candidates may be but in the end we will either support the Democratic nominee, who will most surely not be an education progressive, or will join a third party knowing that the history of third parties in the United States is an abysmal one for progressives except for the brief period between 1895 and 1915.

The Democratic Party knows that most teachers will ultimately support the Democratic nominee regardless what his or her education policy is because most teachers are not "single-issue" voters, though they have a keen sense of their own interests. They vote for candidates who are acceptable to them for the same reason that most progressive Democrats do: because they know that the Democratic Party, corporatized and feckless though it may be, stands as the only thing between the full range of "progressive" things that teachers care about and disaster. With time there may come a point when a majority of Americans support economic progressivism sufficiently to rebuild the Democratic Party in a way that education progressives can support with open hearts.

"Single-issue" teachers who will go Green or Libertarian will preserve their educationally progressive principles and will lose. It is possible, though not likely, that with the time, energy and money now used to support the battles that education progressives fight to preserve public schools and to democratize their unions they may be able to infuse a third party with sufficient resources to win a national, or even state, election.

Education progressives who have an understanding of practical politics in this country will recognize what most progressives learned in 2000. Any education progressive who says now that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties has not been watching what's been happening in this country since 2000 very closely.

The Republican Party, with whom teachers have aligned themselves on education policy issues, caught rabies in 2004. The Republican Party, wherever it has been able to, pursues an agenda that means death for every other thing that educational progressives support. Any educational progressive who is not a “single issue” radical will support the Democratic Party whoever its nominee is and abandon the insanity of the Republican alliance that will have returned education policy to the states, where progressive education policy goes to die its own death, in return for momentary relief from federal testing and accountability mandates.

Unfortunately, the story does not end will for educational progressives. Except in small parts of the country where individual Democrats care enough about educational progressivism to make it an issue, educational reformers will be able to pursue the same goals they have for the last two decades.
If the cost of political engagement for educational progressives is that we are forced in the end to make a “Sophie’s Choice” between our own progressivism and the fuller range of progressivisms that we support then I say let us leave politics behind.

Let us reform our unions, if we can. Let us fight to protect teachers who are able to survive the education reform movement in their workplaces. Let us preserve collective bargaining and dues check-off. Let us develop a robust range of mutual support capabilities to preserve teaching as a proud profession. Let us think about new strategies that the weakness of our political position demands—particularly building strong and vital alliances with other parts of the progressive movement, especially with people of color—and let us focus on the long, hard, unglamorous work that might turn the vast majority of apolitical teachers into education progressives.

Let us think about almost anything except how "educational progressives" can find a home in or be saved by the American political process.

Because we can’t and because we won’t.

Notice To NY State School Boards: Feds Aren't Only Ones Pushing The Endless Testing Regime

Here are the findings of a survey of New York State School Boards Association members on the role of the feds in education policy:

The federal government should play a less active role in how schools evaluate teachers, test students or adopt learning standards, according to a poll of school board members.

“As Congress debates reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, most school board members across the state would like to see the federal government take a less aggressive role in public education at the state and local levels,” said NYSSBA Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer.

Kremer noted that the state’s annual testing mandate for students in grades 3-8 comes from the federal government. He also pointed out that a federal grant program, Race to the Top, provided states such as New York with significant funds in exchange for adopting college and career readiness standards and implementing teacher evaluation systems that incorporate student achievement on standardized tests.

Specifically, 80 percent of members responding to the poll oppose federal government intervention in how states evaluate schools and teachers, while only 13 percent support it, and 8 percent were not sure.

About two-thirds of board members (65 percent) oppose the U.S. Department of Education offering incentives to states to adopt any particular set of learning standards. Nearly one-quarter of respondents (24 percent) favored federal incentives, while 11 percent were not sure.

In addition, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents oppose the federal requirement that states test all students in grades 3-8 in English and math each year. About 29 percent support the requirement, while about 8 percent were not sure.

Yeah - feds out of ed policy!

Stop mandating testing of all students!

Enough with the Endless Testing regime!

Enough with test-based teacher evaluation mandates!

Except that even if the feds bowed out tomorrow, we have a governor, a legislature, a Board of Regents and a New York State Education Department that is totally on board with the Endless Testing regime and test and punish schooling.

It's swell to say "Gee, we wish the feds would mandate less stuff," but let's be frank here, it's not just the feds doing it.

Sure, there's a lot of pressure put on the states and local districts by the feds, but as we saw in the NY Times story from a few days ago (and earlier in the Times Union and Capital New York), there's a lot of money rolling into this state to push Endless Testing and education reform as well.

The feds could drop the mandates tomorrow, but Andrew Cuomo, the heavy hearts in the legislature, Merryl Tisch's Board of Regents and the MaryEllen EVILia NYSED aren't going to follow suit any time soon so long as they continue to skirt political consequences for promoting the Endless Testing regime and test and punish schooling.

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.

Merryl Tisch Still Claiming Opposition To Her Policies Is Because Parents, Teachers Just Don't Understand

Anybody else sick of the excuse that opponents to the Endless Testing regime, the Common Core Federal Standards and/or any other education reforminess just don't understand how swell all this stuff is?

I know I am, but Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is still arguing that.

Here she is in a Jessica Bakeman article about how much people hate the Race to the Top reforms saying that it was a failure to adequately communicate that brought about all the problems in the state's education reform rollout:

Education officials who have been and are still fierce advocates of the changes argue the current public tumult is the result not of broad failure but a specific strategic mistake they made: inadequate communication.

Because they didn’t impress upon teachers and parents how drastic the changes were and how acutely they’d be felt, political opponents like the unions had an opening to begin a war against the reforms that continues even as the final dollars from New York’s sizeable grant award are spent.

“This was one that I take responsibility for," said Board of Regents chancellor Merryl Tisch, who led the powerful education policymaking panel throughout the application process and full implementation of Race To The Top. "We did not use any of the money to engage parents and let them know why we were moving to such a radical change. We did not use enough of the money to engage teachers early on to explain the rationale, and so this came at them fast and furious. … Therefore, other people were able to misinterpret the significance of what was going on, and it all came down to test scores.”

The Tisch statement is thick with jive, of course - the reason the state didn't engage parents to let them know why they were moving to such a radical change is because they didn't want anybody to know that was what was coming.

Same goes for why they didn't engage teachers to explain the rationale for the radical changes or give them a heads-up on the changes that were coming "fast and furious."

Tisch and the state's education establishment, like the education reformers who shoved the Common Core Federal Standards and attendant testing consortia onto much of the country, didn't want any opposition to the radical change they bringing onto the education system, so they tried to make these changes with as little fanfare as possible until it was too late for people to do anything about them.

The goal behind the state reforms was to destroy the public school system, to ratchet up the "standards" a few grades levels in every grade, impose some new tests based upon those ratcheted up standards and fail two-thirds of the students who took the new tests in order to declare the teachers and schools around the state in need of radical reform.

This was supposed to cause panic among parents, who would think their kids, who just the year before were doing fine in school, suddenly were being "left behind" by their failing schools and failing teachers, and bring about widespread calls for radical change to the education system from them.

Only it didn't work out that way.

It turned out most parents trusted their local schools and children's teachers over the state educrats and politicians, so that when they saw the ratcheted up standards, the radical new curriculum that stripped full books out of English class and made math into something incomprehensible, the new tests that were needlessly complex and devised for ailure, they sided with teachers, not with the educrats.

Changing the teacher evaluation system concurrent to the shoving through the standards and new testing battery only exacerbated matters, because teachers were suddenly being rated upon scores from these new tests and subject to losing their jobs if the scores weren't so hot.

This is when the opt-out movement came of age, with parents holding their kids out from the state tests to protest a whole host of different issues - from the Endless Testing regime to the Common Core to the teacher evaluation system based upon the tests - a movement given even more power when Andrew Cuomo imposed even more draconian changes to the evaluation system this year and made test scores 50% of teachers' ratings.

And still Tisch tries to explain, parents just don't understand.

Tisch isn't the only educrat arguing this jive that it was a failure to communicate that brought about all the problems, btw:

Ken Slentz, former deputy education commissioner, said the department realized too late its failure to communicate.

“When we came around to that, the proverbial well had already become so poisoned, we were already in a defensive position,” said Slentz, who left the department last year to lead a small Finger Lakes school district.

What Ken fails to realize is, they were in a defense position not because they failed to adequately communicate the changes that were coming but because their position was indefensible.

They planned for radical change to the education system, knew that there would be pushback if they announced these changes beforehand, so they tried to shove this stuff through on the sly in that hopes that once everything was in place, there was little people could do to fight it.

How wrong they were - New York State parents have led the way in the fight against radical corporate education reform, the Endless Testing regime and the Common Core Federal Standards.

Tisch, the educrats at NYSED, the union heads who supported Race to the Top and the attendant changes, the politicians who voted for the funding - they're all trying to rewrite the history of the radical education reforms that were imposed on the students, parents, teachers and schools of this state, but the truth is, the opposition to these reforms comes not from a failure to communicate the rationale for them (which reformers didn't want to do, lest they tip off hand that they were about to blow up the system) or the implementation of the reforms (which union heads and pols say was problematic and therefore the root of the opposition from parents and teachers.)

No, the truth is, there was no buy in to the radical RttT reforms in much of the state because there wasn't a need for them - the schools in much of the state are just fine, the kids are doing all right, the teachers are excellent and respected by the parents and communities they serve.

The politicians and educrats knew there wouldn't be buy-in beforehand, but they wanted to impose their radical agenda no matter what, so they shoved it threw as surreptitiously as they could, then tried to push back against the mounting opposition by claiming the state's education system was a disaster that needed radical change.

Fortunately parents around the state were more likely to trust their local teachers than they were Merryl Tisch or John King or Andrew Cuomo, and so opposition to the reforms was mounted and has spread like wildfire since.

The Regents and NYSED are in the midst of a "rebrand" of the reforms now - they brought in a new face for NYSED (who said she plans to "repaint" the standards so that parents like them better), they're changing their rhetoric a bit, but they're not fooling anybody.

Parents and teachers know the radical education reform agenda continues apace here in New York State, no matter the words that come out of SED or the Board of Regents these days, and the opposition to the reforms continues apace too.

Over/Under On MaryEllen Elia's Resignation

Today is MaryEllen Elia's first day as NYSED Commissioner.

Hers should be an eventful tenure at NYSED:

Elia will be overseeing implementation of a controversial new teacher evaluation program and she will have to continue to straighten out the years-long and troubled rollout of a Common Core learning standards.

But just as important, she'll have to mediate relations between the Board of Regents, which hired her and oversees the state Education Department, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been battling the Regents and Education Department with no signs of a letup.

Top officials downplay the potential conflict.

"Let's welcome her and see what she can add (to the process)," Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said. Her advice: "Be yourself, do the right thing, listen carefully and communicate actively.''

But outside observers see the storm clouds only growing given the rift between Cuomo, as well as reformers such as charter school proponents and much of the education establishment.

"Elia is walking into a minefield. Her political skills will be tested," education analyst and researcher Diane Ravitch said in an email.

"She was chosen unanimously, but the board is deeply divided," Ravitch added, referring to the 17-member Board of Regents.

Cuomo has been happy to blame any problems in the education system on NYSED, Tisch threw former NYSED Commissioner King under the bus during the "Dr. Ted J. Morris Jr." mess, parents and teachers will be quick to show opposition to Elia if and when she chooses to follow a reformy course, the opt out movement is set to expand even more next year and the Board of Regents is engaged in internecine fighting over the future of the state's education policy.

On top of these external issues, Elia brings her own "issues" to NYSED:

Creating a fear-based workplace where subordinates felt "browbeaten" and bullied.

Accused of trying to cover up district complicity in the death of a 7 year old special needs child.

Was the target of parent protest for lack of district response after a second special needs child died at a Hillsborough school.

Oversaw a school district that has been accused of racial discrimination in its discipline policies and is target of federal complaint.

Oversaw a school busing and choice program that created a "reign of chaos" at McLane Middle School for ten years.

Was dubbed "MaryEllen EVILia" by some parents for pursuing district policies that harmed children with special needs.

Couldn't play nice with the school board and was ultimately whacked in a 4-3 vote in January.

She has reputation for vindictiveness, an inability to get along with others (like school board members) and an unwillingless to take responsibility for mistakes.

Given the room of vipers she's stepping into as new NYSED commissioner, with Cuomo ready to scapegoat NYSED for real and perceived mistakes, the Legislature piling on lots in the way of new mandates with little in the way of new money to carry out those mandates, a Regents board fighting amongst itself about the future of ed policy and many parents and teachers openly hostile to NYSED, it's difficult to see someone with Elia's personal and leadership flaws staying around too long.

Calling The "Visionaries" In And Out Of The Education World What Many Of Them Truly Are - Sociopaths

Tony Schwartz in the NY Times on Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk:

The three leaders are arguably the most extraordinary business visionaries of our times. Each of them has introduced unique products that changed – or in Mr. Musk’s case, have huge potential to change – the way we live.

...

What disheartens me is how little care and appreciation any of them give (or in Mr. Jobs’s case, gave) to hard-working and loyal employees, and how unnecessarily cruel and demeaning they could be to the people who helped make their dreams come true.

...

Given the extraordinary success of these men, the obvious question is whether being relentlessly hard on people, and even cruel, may get them to perform better.

Like their biographers, I think the answer is no. Our research at the Energy Project has shown that the more employees feel their needs are being met at work – above all, for respect and appreciation – the better they perform.

Here's how these three "visionary" leaders treated their employees and/or others:

As Mr. Isaacson writes of Mr. Jobs: “Nasty was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him.”

...

Mr. Jobs drove around without a license on his car, and he regularly parked in spaces reserved for the handicapped. As Mr. Ive said of his attitude, “I think he feels he has a liberty and a license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don’t apply to him.”

Amazon employees collected examples of Mr. Bezos’s most eviscerating put-downs, including, “Are you lazy or just incompetent?” “Why are you wasting my life?” and “I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”

When Mr. Musk’s loyal executive assistant of 12 years asked for a significant raise, he told her to take a two-week vacation while he thought about it. When she returned, he told her the relationship wasn’t going to work anymore. According to Mr. Vance, they haven’t spoken since.

And of course all of this nastiness, this "I am the most special person on the planet and you will treat me as such!" stems from the egocentric belief these men had or have of their own so-called genius.

But Schwartz thinks there's another reason Jobs, Bezos and Musk act or acted so badly - out of fear:

People like these three visionaries deeply crave control. Each of them was far more likely to act out suddenly and behave poorly when he wasn’t getting exactly what he wanted — when he felt that others were failing to live up to his standards.

All three invested endless hours and energy in building and running their businesses — and far less in anything else, including taking care of the people who worked for them or even understanding what doing so might look like. To a large extent, people were simply a means to an end.

I understand what it is like to have one’s self entirely tied up with external success. No amount is ever quite enough. To a large extent, for these men, employees are simply a means to an end.

If you're a teacher these days, you know some of the drill that the people who work or worked for Jobs, Bezos and Musk know because some of the same personality types have been given the power to run school systems and schools themselves.

In the "visions" of the corporate education reformers, students are seen as "products," teachers are seen as a means to an end, control is the most sought-after goal and the only thing that truly matters is imposing an agenda and rigging the data to make it look successful.

Many education leaders these days are little versions of Bezos, Jobs and Musk - always without the "genius" or "vision," of course, though some education leaders think they have it - see Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Cami Anderson, et al. for the same delusional arrogance and egocentric patterns that Bezos, Jobs and Musk displayed.

But it doesn't really matter whether the Kleins and Rhees of the world have the "genius" or "vision" of Bezos or Jobs or not because a truly successful leader shouldn't be treating people like "products" or a "means to an end," a truly successful leader shouldn't be so obsessed with control and fear that they run roughshod over everybody and everything.

Schwartz concludes:

The question their management style raises is not whether being tough, harsh and relentlessly demanding gets people to work better. Of course it doesn’t, and certainly not sustainably. Can anyone truly doubt that people are more productive in workplaces that help them to be healthier and happier?

The more apt question is how much more these men could have enhanced thousands of people’s lives – and perhaps made them even more successful — if they had invested as much in taking care of them as they did in conceiving great products.

“Try not to become a man of success,” Albert Einstein once said, “but rather a man of value.”

It is time we stop fetishizing so-called corporate geniuses like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and other so-called "visionaries" (you can add many others to the list - Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates come immediately to mind) and call them exactly what they are - sociopaths who in the end do a lot more harm than good.

The same goes for the little versions in education - the Kleins, the Rhees, et al. - who for years have lived on the press of their "visions" and "genius" (think the TIME cover with Rhee on it holding the broom.)

But remember, you can't decry the sociopathology of the Kleins and Rhees of the education world while praising the "genius" and "vision" of sociopaths like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.

Gates is an easy one for people in the ed world to despise - his foundation's work to destroy public schools makes that an easy thing.

But Steve Jobs still gets fetishized by some for his "genius" and "vision".

Truly his "vision" was "@#$% you, I get my way or I destroy you!"

And that's the kind of vision we can do without these days - in or out of education.

For another example, see one Andrew Cuomo in Albany.

Two Education Reform Groups Spent $13 Million Dollars In Last Year And A Half To Push Reform In New York

Ben Chapman in the Daily News:

Two groups have spent more than $13 million to push education reforms while laws are being debated in Albany, a new report says.

The study from Hedge Clippers, a union-backed activist group, says New York City-based Families for Excellent Schools has spent more than $10 million on ads and lobbying since January 2014 to lift the charter school cap and allow for the creation of more of the publicly funded, privately run schools.

The Coalition for Opportunity in Education has spent nearly $3 million in the same time period to boost support for an education tax credit for donations to scholarship funds and public schools, the report says.

...
It shows Families for Excellent Schools has spent more than $9.6 million on lobbying since January 2014 and another $367,000 on pro-charter school advertising.

...

According to the report, the Coalition for Opportunity spent $2.7 million on ad buys and $381,000 on lobbying since 2014.

Nearly $10 million in lobbying money spent by the two groups since January 2014.

That's an awful lot of "lobbying" money to spend in the last year and a half or so.

No wonder Sheriff Andy Cuomo is so sold on imposing education reform onto the state, public opinion be damned.

No wonder so many other heavy hearts in Albany are either happy, willing or both to go along with him.

Merryl Tisch Condescends To Parents

This is a great sentence: "I hope over the next year to convince parents to help us help them understand why we test," Merryl Tisch.

— Lindsey Christ (@LindseyChrist) May 21, 2015

Ah, yes - the doyenne of testing thinks she knows what's best for other people's children.

She cannot change her stripes - she is an authoritarian and an elitist who simply cannot imagine that anybody knows better than she.

Endless Testing forever!

Whether you like it or not.

Opt-Out Tsunami In New York Will Cause Big Problems For Andrew Cuomo And His Teacher Evaluation System

Rick Hess in the Daily News:

The Daily News reports that some estimates put the number of students opting out as high as 300,000 students — which is approaching a third of all tested students. The Buffalo News reports that 70% of 2,976 eligible students in the West Seneca School District have refused to participate in the New York state tests that started on Tuesday. In some school districts, the figure was more than half.

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School accountability systems and new teacher evaluation systems rely heavily on these test results. These systems don’t necessarily require that every student be tested, but a “sampling” approach needs to deliberately select which students are. Having large numbers of students simply opt out raises troubling questions about the validity of the results. The biggest problem is the potential bias as to which students are and are not being counted in this school or that system, and how that may skew scores.

There are statistical fixes for some of this, but they rely on trying to adjust for how missing students would have scored . . . and, if educators knew that, they wouldn’t need to administer the tests.

Even if the impact is believed to be manageable by state officials, it may still raise deep-seated concerns about the legitimacy and practical impact of the results. Teachers will have a reasonable claim that due process is being violated if, under the new evaluation system championed by Gov. Cuomo, they’re judged “ineffective” based on results that may be skewed. And parents may revolt if their school is targeted for restructuring based on outcomes that they deem suspect.

Hess says education reformers and policymakers should learn some lessons from the testing backlash that is raging:

In many ways, the anti-testing backlash is just more collateral damage brought by the headlong rush to adopt the Common Core standards across the nation. Frustrated parents have fought back in the ways they can, and one of the most powerful is to delegitimize the tests that make those standards matter. The backlash is not just about the Common Core, of course, it’s due also to a sense among many parents that these tests and the accountability systems linked to them are not good for their kids or responsive to their concerns.

Proponents of measured, restrained test-based accountability should not dismiss these concerns. School reform advocates have sometimes belittled this kind of pushback as misguided or malicious. That’s a huge mistake. Hundreds of thousands of New York families are sending a signal flare: that they’re skeptical of the value of these tests, don’t necessarily trust the results, and think test-based reform has distorted the nature of schooling. This is a useful and healthy warning, and one that policymakers would do well to heed.

Will policymakers heed the "useful and healthy warning" they're getting from parents in New York State that is enough is enough with the imposed education reforms?

Will Andrew Cuomo, who just pushed through a teacher evaluation system heavily weighted in favor of these Common Core tests, heed the warning?