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

Bill Mahoney at Politico NY:

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

...

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

So is Jeff Bezos.

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

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

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

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

Despite A Poor Performance As Comptroller, Scott Stringer Attempts Power Grab

The NY Post reports the following:

The budget for the office of the city’s financial watchdog grew at twice the rate of the rest of the government over the last two years, according to data examined by The Post.

Comptroller Scott String­er’s budget increased from $71 million in fiscal 2013, when John Liu was in charge, to $86 million in fiscal 2015, a 21 percent jump.

The city’s overall budget grew by 10 percent over the same time period, according to the Independent Budget Office — an increase city officials said was due largely to new labor contracts negotiated under Mayor de Blasio.

Stringer aides noted that $5.8 million in added charges came from having to find a new custodial bank for the pension system.

With Stringer's budget growing at twice the rate of the rest of the city government, New York City residents ought to be getting some bang for their buck out of Stringer.

Alas, they are not:

The New York City retirement fund posted a dismal 3.4% return for the fiscal year ended June 30. Comptroller Scott Stringer delayed release of the figure for months. The poor returns mean the city will have to spend billions of dollars more in pension contributions.

And with markets down so much this year, the city’s pension funds may soon be an increasingly severe budget problem.

The fiscal 2014 investment gain of 3.4% is less than half of the city’s target of 7%, which is the rate of return the city assumes in determining how much to put aside to pay benefits. The city is expected to contribute an average of $6 billion annually over the next few years to the five pension plans that comprise the city's retirement system.

Stringer attempted to hide the poor pension fund performance with a "bare-bones announcement" on the comptroller's website:

Stringer, who released news of a strong gain in fiscal 2014 in August of that year, waited until last week to deliver the bad news about 2015 and did so with a short, bare-bones announcement on his website. The strategy almost worked: Until now, only the trade publication the Bond Buyer has reported the news. The comptroller’s office says it waited for audited results rather than release an estimate as it did last year.

Perhaps Scott was hoping the big, strong arms of Governor Andy would save him from having to make the pension fund performance disclosure.

Speaking of disclosure, let's read (per Yves Smith) about pension fund fees and how Stringer continues to hide the management fees NYC funds pay while claiming he's all about disclosure:

Pensions & Investments reported yesterday that the New York City Retirement System reported that it paid $709 million in fees to investment managers in its last fiscal year, and was trying to give the impression that as a result of a big push for more disclosure, it was now reporting all the fees it is paying.

Yet if you read the article with a modicum of attentiveness, you can see that that is false. In reality, Stringer is trying to have it both ways: to appear to be on the right side of a controversy, while not doing anything to ruffle the pension systems’ fund managers, many of whom are very influential political donors.

Here are the key parts of the article:

The figure represented a 33.7% increase over the $530.2 million in fees reported for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014. However, the most recent fiscal year’s accounting includes many incentive fees that hadn’t been identified in previous annual reports…

City officials said they believe the latest information covers most of the investment management fees, adding that the new rules for fee transparency will provide an even more accurate picture.

The big tell here is the use of the “believe” language. When CalPERS requested carry fee data from all the funds in the entire history of its program, it was able to tell the Financial Times a mere ten days into the exercise exactly how many funds had not yet coughed up the data: a mere six our of over 850 funds over the life of the program. The fact that New York City is so fuzzy on what it does and does not have 22 months into the effort is a strong tell that they are not going about the effort in a serious, rigorous manner. The end of the article confirms this impression:

In its October letter to private equity and hedge fund managers, city officials asked for fees based on asset class and type, such as commingled fund or separate account. The fee information will be posted on the comptroller’s website.

The letter also asked that each manager prepare a one-time analysis to each pension fund of base fees, performance fees and other fees charged by each investment option. The letter asked that this information be provided by year-end, adding that future information about fees must be provided quarterly.

By contrast, South Carolina, which has set the standard for fee information gathering, has a detailed template that it has managers fill out, and then staff follows up with funds that have not completed it or claim they have difficulty completing it, to get the missing items.

Stringer appears to be reacting to a set of articles in the New York Post last month that criticized his transparency head-fakery. The first Post article, dated October 8, pointed out an embarrassing omission: Stringer had tried showing how much the city’s pensions were paying to money managers. He reported a total of $399 million in fees for a total pension system of $169.2 billion in assets.

The wee problem was that Stringer completely left out the heftiest fees paid, those to private equity funds and hedge funds. The Post had previously reported that the total fees paid were actually $530.2 million. So Stringer made a flagrant misrepresentation a month ago. And in his report to Pensions & Investing yesterday, he confirmed that the Post’s figures of the costs the year before were correct.

The second Post article, on October 11, pointed out that the accounting that Stringer had just issued contained some howlers, and also, despite the braying about greater transparency, took a step back on disclosure in key areas:

For instance, the firefighters fund said it paid just 0.59 percent in fees as a percentage of hedge-fund assets — less than what it paid managers to invest in small-cap stocks. Hedge funds typically charge investors a management fee of 1 to 2 percent of assets and about 20 percent of any gains each year…
Problem is, the city’s percentage rate is just a guesstimate. By his own admission, Stinger doesn’t know all the fees the city is forking over to hedge funds, private-equity firms and other outside managers. Nowhere in his report, however, is there a footnote explaining this.

What’s more, Stringer has taken a step back in other areas. He didn’t provide names of outside money managers in his latest report — something the pensions had divulged in previous reports.

If you look at New York City’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the pension fund performance disclosure is remarkably thin (see pages xxi to xxiv). As North Carolina’ former chief investment officer Andrew Silton said by e-mail, “If this is what transparency looks like when someone is trying to be transparent, NYC isn’t revealing much.”

So let's sum it all up - a skyrocketing budget for the comptroller's office, plummeting returns for the city's pension funds, a lack of transparency about the fees the city's pension funds are paying for management of those funds and Stringer bending over backward to not ruffle the feathers of the Wall Street guys because he's going to want to hit them up in the future when he runs for mayor.

Not exactly an effective performance as comptroller.

But wait - it gets worse.

Despite his poor stewardship of the city's pension funds, Stringer wanted to "reform" the system so he could consolidate power inside his office and have "carte blanche" over how the funds invest:

New York City Controller Scott Stringer will propose next week a sweeping change in how the city’s $160 billion pension system — the fourth largest in the nation — chooses the private companies that invest its money.

Stringer’s plan, according to several people briefed on it, will call for consolidating separate investment committees of the police, fire, teachers and other municipal union pension funds into a single combined umbrella group. That group would meet only four times a year, thus doing away with the current system, where the five major pension funds each hold their own separate monthly meetings to select investment managers.
The trustees of each fund, however, would still vote separately on whether to park their money with a particular firm.

He has told trustees of the funds that it will streamline an archaic and bureaucratic process that requires his staff to attend five separate investment meetings every month — 55 meetings a year — even though 95% of the investment decisions are the same for each fund. The change will give the controller’s staff more time to spend on monitoring funds and reducing fees, Stringer has claimed.

Gee, sounds great - except that this seems to be nothing but a power grab by Stringer:

Public Advocate Letitia James, also a NYCERS trustee, is a vocal holdout.

"I am deeply concerned about these proposed changes as they relate to transparency, accountability and public access,” James said. “Any proposal that does not take these issues into account is difficult to support."

James declined further comment, but a source in her office labeled the proposal a “power grab” by Stringer.

Switching from 55 to just four meetings annually, the source said, will result in less time for trustees of the individual funds to grill the private firms about their performance and their management fees, and will force the trustees to depend more on Stringer’s investment recommendations. An earlier version that called for Stringer to make all major investment decisions was rebuffed, two union presidents said.

“It would have given Scott carte blanche,” one of those presidents said. “But we knocked that down, so he came up with a compromise we can support.”

Say this for Stringer - he may not know what the hell he's doing as comptroller or exactly how much his Wall Street buddies are charging the city's pension funds, but he sure does know how to increase his office's budget, power and public relations reach along with his own aggrandizing relationship with potential Wall Street donors.

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

If.

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

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

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

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

So what's Cuomo doing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As LeBrun writes:

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

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

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

Indeed, Opt Out will not be fooled.

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

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

Anybody else think this idea came straight from Cuomo?

Ken Lovett of the Daily News reports the following:

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

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

...

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Moskowitz Refuses To Give Back The Blood Money

From the Daily News:

Lawmakers slammed Success Academy charter boss Eva Moskowitz Wednesday for accepting an $8.5 million donation from controversial hedge fund manager John Paulson.

Paulson recently bought $120 million of Puerto Rico's debt and has developed a luxury retreat for wealthy Americans fleeing rising taxes in the U.S.

His critics say he is exploiting the island's recent economic troubles.

"You should not be living and making a profit off the bones of Puerto Rico," said New York State Sen. Gustavo Rivera. "This is blood money."

"It's important Eva Moskowitz stand up and say we don't take dirty money," said City Councilmember Antonio Reynoso.

More from Reynoso:

“Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are,” Mr. Reynoso said, quoting a popular Spanish proverb. “Right now, the message Eva Moskowitz is sending to us and the diaspora of Puerto Rico is that her friends are false, and they take advantage of the terrible financial policies in Puerto Rico that have crippled the residents and the citizens of Puerto Rico.”

Moskowitz's reply?

But Moskowitz dismissed the criticism, saying: "Success Academy is proud to accept money from John Paulson."

Hey, what's a little blood money when it will buy some extra "Test Prep Pampers" for the kids to wear during the school day?

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

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

Mission accomplished:

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

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

...

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

...

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

...

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

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

Breaks? Time to refuel?

No!!!!!!

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

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

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

Which means they're perpetually sleep-deprived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

High-achieving at what?

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

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

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

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

Gee, isn't that convenient?

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

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

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

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

And isn't that convenient too?

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

They make money off that stuff too.

Isn't that convenient?

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

What a screwed up culture America is.

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

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

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

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

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

Cuomo Poisons Everything He Touches - Including Public Education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does all this test obsession do for schools? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Fred LeBrun says, he poisons everything he touches.

Everything.

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

Nick Reisman at State of Politics blog:

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

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

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

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

Democracy in New York?

Nahh.

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

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

Sounds like this is going to be a helluva party:

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

Hillary Clinton "Absoluely Embraces" Common Core In Iowa Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, glad to have her on the record.

Now I have one more reason not to support her.

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

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

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

From the NY Post:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News:

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who's your daddy, Andy?

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

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

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

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

Here's the video:

Cuomo Is Honorary Chair Of Pro-Charter Education Reform Retreat Run By His Donors

Here's Cuomo's brand of realpolitik in action:

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo will headline an education retreat next month in Lake Placid hosted by hedge-fund managers who support the Common Core standards, charter schools, mayoral control of schools, testing and student-data collection.

Cuomo is the “honorary chairman” of Camp Philos, “a philosopher's camp on education reform” presented by Education Reform Now, a group that has donated $65,000 to Cuomo since 2010 through its political action committee. The group, led by hedge funders who are active in the charter-school movement, is hosting the conference at Whiteface Lodge on May 4 to 6.

The group's board members, as well as the founders of its PAC, Democrats for Education Reform, have also given to Cuomo individually.

John Petry, founder and manager at Sessa Capital, gave $20,000 in the last two years. He is a co-founder of DFER and a board member for ERN, and he's also co-chair of New York City's Success Academy Charter Schools, headed by Eva Moskowitz.

Joel Greenblatt, founder of Gotham Capital and co-chair of the Success Academy network, has served on DFER's advisory board. With his wife, Julia, Greenblatt gave Cuomo $60,000 since 2010.
Whitney Tilson, founder and managing partner of Kase Capital Management and co-founder of DFER, gave $12,000 since 2012.

Cuomo has led a recent push to boost charter schools, including negotiating changes in the state budget that particularly benefit Success Academy charters. Teachers' unions and public-school advocates have railed against Cuomo, arguing that he's prioritizing privately run charters over traditional public schools.

Have ready cash and Cuomo will do your bidding for you.

But given the problems Como has had over the Moreland mess this past week, the Camp Philos retreat may end up being a bigger embarrassment to Cuomo then do anything beneficial for him.

Quite literally, he is dangling on the string for these wealthy Wall Street donors whose bidding on education reform he just did in the budget deal.

Cuomo's corruption out front and obvious for everyone to see.

Why No Chancellor Announcement Yet?

So now it's December 20th, the last school day of Dennis Walcott's tenure as chancellor.

In just 12 calendar days, Walcott's replacement is supposed to come into power.

There have been lots of stories in the press and on the Internet about the names that are supposed to be on de Blasio's short list for chancellor, but no actual announcement about the pick itself from de Blasio.

Here is de Blasio's schedule for today:

NYC Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio is in the city with no public schedule.

Doesn't look like there's going to be any announcement today either.

What exactly could be holding up the announcement?

The news stories in the past few weeks seem to say that former DOE official Carmen Farina is de Blasio's choice for the job and Farina, after saying for a long, long time that she didn't want it, is now ready to take it.

If de Blasio wants Farina and Farina now wants the job, at least for a little while, what exactly is holding up Bill de Blasio from having a press conference to announce this pick?

Are there machinations going on behind the scenes, some pressure being exerted by the Obama administration for de Blasio to pick someone pro-testing (as has been reported) or from the education reform/hedge fund manager contingent for de Blasio to pick someone pro-charter?

Is Farina actually unsure whether she wants the job or is de Blasio unsure he wants her?

Is de Blasio looking to pick someone more corporate education reform-friendly for the gig, someone like Barbara Byrd Bennett, Rahm Emanuel's CPS CEO, and looking to bury that announcement during Christmas week?

De Blasio has a well-deserved reputation for being late as hell to events, but the delay in this chancellor announcement, given that many tea leaf readers think de Blasio wants Farina and Farina now wants the job, is very, very strange.

Any idea why the hold-up on the announcement?

Should we be concerned by the delay or is this just business as usual with BdB?

Reshma Saujani, Wall Street's Favorite Democrat, Caught Lying About Family Finances

How do you know when DFER-approved public advocate candidate Reshma Saujani is lying?

She's talking, that's how.

She has claimed in debates that she is sending money home to her parents because they are struggling to make ends meet. 

You can see here how badly her parents are "struggling."

Note the moat behind the mansion in the wealthy Chicago suburb where the Saujanis live.

Note the amount of money the Saujanis donated to Reshma's campaign.

I have to admit, I took a dislike to this woman back when she ran as one of those DFER-sponsored ed deform candidates a few years ago.

But the more I see, hear and read about her this election year, the more I dislike her.

The scrubbing of her Wikipedia page of any of reference to her Wall Street or hedge fund past, her refusal to own up to the scrub job she had her campaign do at Wikipedia, her work defending corporate malfeasance as a Wall Street lawyer, now her misleading voters over her family's financial status - she  is a congenitally dishonest person who does not belong in public office, certainly not as public advocate.

And let's not forget her attack of one of her opponents in the public advocates race, Dan Squadron, as "Trust Fund Dan" for having grown up in a family of means.

Only one problem with Reshma's attack - Squadron's family lost most of their money to Bernie Madoff.

Yeah, really.

Did that stop Saujani's attacks?

Not a bit - she said Squadron was "whining" and playing the victim for mentioning that his family lost their money to Madoff.

On top of that, she compared Squadron to Madoff because, well, here's what her campaign spokesperson said:

"Trust Fund Dan is not a victim of Bernie Madoff, but a beneficiary," a said Saujani spokesman. "Irving Picard, the trustee for the real victims, has rejected Squadron's poverty routine as totally bogus. The money he claims to have lost is chump change compared to the millions in fictitious profits he made before the scam was exposed."

"Now Trust Fund Dan is whining and fighting in court to avoid paying the true victims of the Ponzi scheme. Only someone from incredible privilege whose Dad was close personal friends with Bernie Madoff would have the audacity to plead poverty after making millions off so many ruined lives," he continued.

Reshma Saujani truly is a despicable, despicable person.

To be frank, it worries me a little that Bill de Blasio hired her to work as a deputy public advocate in his office.

Something to keep an eye on with de Blasio - a willingness to hire and work with congenitally dishonest former Wall Street lawyers who spent their careers defending corporate malfeasance.

De Blasio hired this piece of work long after the Maloney race she ran when she exposed herself to the world as a) a Wall Street shill b) a clueless politician and c) a moron

If de Blasio is elected and Saujani is not, will Mayor de Blasio hire DFER-approved Reshma Saujani for his administration?

He has once before, you can see him doing so again.

And if he does, what does that tell you about the "progressive" de Blasio?

Democrat For Education Reformer Whitney Tilson Actually A Republican

No surprise here:

Hedge fund operator Whitney Tilson, described his support for Lhota in a recent edition of his email newsletter. After citing a portion of Lhota’s June education address that expressed strong support for charter schools, Tilson wrote, “I spent an hour with Joe a couple of months ago and was very impressed.” He donated $175.

To be frank, the "Democrat" part of "Democrats For Education Reform" has always been jive.

The real name of the group ought to be "Corporate Criminals For Privatization Of Public Education."

I know, I know - not as CCPPE not as catchy as DFER.

But it's certainly more accurate.

The reality is, Tilson gives to both Democrats and Republicans, but there is common ground always between all the candidates he gives money and support to, no matter what letter is after their names - they're all happy to continue the privatization game Tilson and his hedge fund criminal friends want continued.

Using Cory Booker's Hedge Fundie/Charter School Connections Against Him

Buzzfeed has a piece out that says opponents of Newark Mayor Cory Booker have a four-pronged strategy to take him out before the special election to replace Frank Lautenberg's Senate seat from NJ - and one part of that strategy is to hit him on charters and his adversarial relationship with teachers:

But one a strategist connected to an opposing campaign said one weak spot in Booker’s campaign would be “the fact that his record in Newark is even debatable,” the source said. “You look at Pallone and Holt and you see a proven record in Washington, not to mention a voting record.”

As mayor of a city, Booker has managerial experience that very well may appeal to voters, but Pallone and Holt have both voted on a range of economic, social, and foreign issues on the floor of the House, providing voters a clear sense of where both candidates stand on national policy.

Rival candidates could also seize on Booker’s strained relationship with state teachers unions, as well as his support for charter schools, which are championed by the same hedge fund and Wall Street communities that have financed Booker for years.

“That’s what makes us least comfortable,” said Steve Phillips, a progressive fundraiser whose political action committee has vowed to raise $1 to $2 million for Booker. “I understand the complexities of trying to do something for lower-income kids in a political bureaucracy, but if I could wave my magic wand, I wouldn’t want him as close to the hedge fund folks as he is.”

Booker is way ahead of Frank Pallone and Rush Holt in polls, but as one commenter in the piece notes: “Nothing is inevitable.”

We'll see.

If nothing else, exposing Booker for the opportunistic corporate whore he is would be a good thing.

Christine Quinn Skips Mayoral Debate On Education For UES Fundraiser

Just in case you think Christine Quinn won't treat public school parents and staff with the same contempt Bloomberg and his Tweedies treat them with, take a look at this story.

Quinn's skipping a mayoral debate on education tonight that is to be moderated by Diane Ravitch so she can raise campaign funds on the Upper East Side.

This is the kind of scornful treatment the Bloomberg administration and the Bloomberg NYCDOE have given to parents and public school teachers for 12 years now.

We don't care what you think, we don't have time to listen to what you want to say, we have to meet with some hedge fundies who are our real constituency.

Again and again, we can see the kind of mayor Christine Quinn would make by the way she is running this campaign.

Can You Imagine If The Wall Street Criminals And Hedge Fund Crooks Were Treated The Way Beverly Hall And The Atlanta Teachers Are Being Treated?

I thought $7.5 million dollar bail amount for former Atlanta School Superintendent Beverly Hall seemed a little high.

Turned out I was right:

Dr. Hall negotiated her $7.5 million bond — considered a largely punitive figure set by the grand jurors, some of whom argued for it to be $10 million — down to $200,000. She was allowed to use her signature to cover $150,000 of it, with the rest to be paid in cash, said David Bailey, one of her lawyers. She will pay only 10 percent of that, and most of it will be refunded, he said. Dr. Hall arrived at the jail to be processed around 7:30 p.m., surrounded by her lawyers. It was unclear how long she would be there.

Lawyers for the defendants, saying they were baffled by what appeared to be a lack of coordination between District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr., the jail and the courts, were working to try to reduce the amount of bond set for teachers who had no criminal records and to keep them from spending time in jail. 

One of the first to arrive was Theresia Copeland, 56, who had been testing coordinator at a southeast Atlanta elementary school. She walked into the jail about 7 a.m. and was booked on a $1 million bond on charges of racketeering, theft and making false statements. 

“We’ve never had anything in education like this,” said Warren Fortson, a lawyer for Ms. Copeland and two other teachers. 

“Al Capone, I understand, didn’t have to post a $1 million bond,” he said. “I don’t think a Cobb County grandmother needs $1 million to secure her.” 

Later, Ms. Copeland’s bail was reduced to $50,000. Others also secured reduced bonds. Only one educator was still under a $1 million bond by Tuesday evening, said a spokeswoman for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Tracy Flanagan. 

 And I figured the powers that be felt safe to go after these teachers and administrators because they are all black.

Turns out I was right about that too:

While defense lawyers worked to have their clients freed, a group of black clergy members and former educators spoke out, calling the charges and the bail extreme and an indication of a deeper, long-simmering racial divide in the city and the state. 

The Rev. Timothy McDonald, a spokesman for the group Concerned Black Clergy, noted that the investigators were white and the accused were largely black. 

“Look at the pictures of those 35,” he said. “Show me a white face. Let’s just be for real. You can call it racist, you can call it whatever you want, but this is overkill. We have seen people with much deeper crimes with much less bond set.” 

35 black educators, accused of a cheating scandal, receive ridiculous bail postings while the men at Goldman Sachs who knowingly sold toxic, worthless CDO's to their customers, then shorted those same CDO's and made money coming and going, remain free and clear.

Oh, and most of those men were white.

Rich and white.

Funny how that is - the rich, white bankers and traders who nearly brought the economy down in '08, the men who stole billions, remain free and clear while the black educators who allegedly cheated with their students' state tests in order to keep their jobs are given ridiculous bail amounts until the state is finally shamed into lowering them.

Jim Crow lives.