Tough Times

Bowie's dead, Cuomo's off the hook for Moreland tampering, the Supreme Court is set to destroy public sector unions and Rupert Murdoch is getting married to Jerry Hall.

Tough times indeed.

Friedrichs Teacher Thinks Teacher Salaries Are Too High

In today's Wall Street Journal, one of the 10 teachers in the Friedrichs suit explains why he is fighting against unions:

Over time I’ve learned that the union’s collective bargaining is every bit as political. The union is bargaining for things I’d never support. For example, in my community, the union spends resources pushing for ever-higher teacher salaries. I’m in favor of a decent salary for teachers, but I think we are already well paid compared with everyone else in the Central Valley.

That's right - this Friedrichs teacher is fighting to ensure that unions don't negotiate for salaries because he thinks teachers are paid too much relative to others in his community.

All I can say is, wait'll he's successful at killing the union and becomes an at-will employee and he'll see how well he's paid.

Lawsuit Over Elia/Cuomo Union Busting To Have National Implications

In the spring Andrew Cuomo pushed through a school receivership law that allows the state to take control of "struggling" and "persistently struggling" schools and supersede the union contracts for teachers at those schools.

This week NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia gave the Buffalo schools superintendent the power to "circumvent" union contracts at five Buffalo schools.

The Buffalo News reports the Buffalo Teachers Federation is planning to sue over the move and the lawsuit will have national implications:

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s ruling this week that Superintendent Kriner Cash can circumvent the union contract to make changes at receivership schools will likely end in a court battle with one of the most powerful teachers unions in the country. It’s a fight that will be watched across the nation.

...

Five schools have been deemed persistently struggling: Burgard and South Park high schools, West Hertel Elementary School, Marva J. Daniels Futures Preparatory School and Buffalo Elementary School of Technology. Those schools were given just one year to show demonstrable improvement under Cash before they can be turned over to an outside entity. The district has tried to negotiate changes at an additional 14 schools that were given two years to show improvement. Several other schools were included on earlier receivership lists, but some made last-minute improvements, while others are being phased out.

Elia issued her ruling in a dispute between Cash and the Buffalo Teachers Federation over changes that go against the teachers contract. The law requires the receiver to try and negotiate changes with bargaining units; but in situations where the two parties cannot come to an agreement, the commissioner can intervene.

The BTF, with the backing of New York State United Teachers, will likely challenge the law in court. The union will likely ask for an injunction to prevent the changes from happening. Meanwhile, Cash continues to move forward on plans for those schools and has previously indicated changes could be rolled out in January.

Anybody out there have any confidence the BTF, backed by NYSUT, can win a court battle over the law?

Cuomo Continues To Triangulate, Destroying Schools As He Simultaneously Tries To Assuage Liberals On Economic Issues

Andrew Cuomo has governed as a triangulator since the beginning of his first term.

He mostly triangulated on social issues that appealed to lefties early on (gay marriage, for example) even as he governed as a center-right pol on economic issues (property tax cap, for example.)

But ever since that challenge from the left he got from Zephyr Teachout in 2014, coupled with his languishing job approval numbers (44% job approval last February in a Siena poll, 40% last month in a Siena poll), he's seemed more interested in triangulating on some economic issues too - especially ones that his mortal enemy, Bill de Blasio, might take some political benefit from.

Thus Cuomo, who insisted a $13 dollar an hour minimum wage was a "non-starter" in NY State when de Blasio was pushing for it, has since aligned himself with some of de Blasio's union and progressive base and pushed for a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage.

Today he upped the ante on that:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to unilaterally create a $15 minimum wage for all state workers, making New York the first state to set such a high wage for a large group of public employees.

The increase, which Mr. Cuomo will announce on Tuesday, would place New York’s public employees far ahead of other states on minimum wage, and at the vanguard of a national movement to address stagnant wages for tens of millions of American workers.

Using executive authority, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, would gradually increase the hourly rate: State workers in New York City would earn $15 an hour by the end of 2018; state workers outside of New York City would also see wages rise, though more slowly, with rates climbing to $15 by the end of 2021. All told, some 10,000 workers would see a bump in pay, according to the governor’s office, with the vast majority of those living upstate or outside the city.

The governor’s action comes on a day when fast-food workers across the country are striking for a uniform $15 hourly wage, a movement that Mr. Cuomo has championed in New York and even as a growing number of cities have acted to raise wages. But Mr. Cuomo’s action is the first time a governor has raised wages to $15 for so many state employees

The NY Times points out some of the political motive behind today's move:

Mr. Cuomo’s action comes on the heels of several other executive actions seemingly meant to appease and please the liberal wing of his party, which has faulted the governor in the past for his working too closely with Republicans, who hold the majority in the State Senate. In addition to the increase in the minimum wage for fast-food workers in New York — which Mr. Cuomo accomplished in July via a state wage board — Mr. Cuomo has also empowered the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, to look into police-related killings. And last month, he expanded protections for transgender people, building on a 1945 state law that barred discrimination on the basis of sex.

The Times reports that this move also comes as an offshoot to negotiations with CSEA and PEF, two state worker unions who have had fraught negotiations with Cuomo in the past:

An administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the action had not formally been announced said that Mr. Cuomo’s decision was based in part on pending negotiations with two large public-sector unions — Civil Service Employees Association and the New York State Public Employees Federation.

PEF has new leadership that some see as more Cuomo-friendly than the ousted leadership, so some of this may just be political payoff for a Cuomo ally.

But don't underestimate two others reasons why Cuomo's pushing this now.

First, it allows him to steal whatever progressive thunder de Blasio once had and relegate the mired mayor to the sidelines on yet another liberal issue (and let's note that even though 90% of the workers affected by this are outside NYC, Cuomo had his announcement in NYC today.)

Second, it allows Cuomo to continue to triangulate on another issue near and dear to his heart - the destruction of the teachers unions and public school system.

On the same day that Cuomo said he would issue an executive order raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for state workers came this news on the education front:

In one of her most significant actions as state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia has granted Buffalo Superintendent Kriner Cash unprecedented power to make changes at the district’s most struggling schools, bypassing the teachers union contract.

Those changes could include a longer school day and year, required teacher training and more control over staffing – all things Cash says are essential to improve student performance.

 In a 107-page ruling released Monday, Elia largely imposes Cash’s proposals with some modifications that call for giving teachers more notice of contractual changes and preference for other jobs, should they be displaced from their position. She also recommends that a committee created to assist with staffing at the receivership schools be limited to three or five people, and consist of an odd number to prevent deadlock between union and district representatives.

Those powers Elia is giving Kriner Cash to bust the Buffalo teachers union and essentially privatize "Buffalo's most struggling" public schools come courtesy of Cuomo's receivership program that was shoved through in the last state budget by the governor.

Cuomo, who last year promised to "break" the public school monopoly, has given NYSED the tools to do just that with this receivership law that allows them to take over schools and circumvent union contracts and what is happening in Buffalo is expected to happen elsewhere around the state too.

It's not an accident that even as Cuomo provides NYSED with the power to bust the teachers union he's rallying with other unions over a $15 dollar an hour minimum wage.

Cuomo, ever the pragmatist, is bending on some of his economic policies (like that $13 dollar an hour minimum wage he said couldn't happen in NY) - but this bending is so that he can continue to triangulate on other issues like his privatization/teachers union-busting agenda.

Cynical?

Sure, but that's just how this governor operates - and he learned it from the master, Bill Clinton, who was his boss back in the 1990's.

NYSED Commissioner Elia Looks To Bust Buffalo Teachers Union

Herein lies the endgame for "receivership":

In one of her most significant actions as state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia has granted Buffalo Superintendent Kriner Cash unprecedented power to make changes at the district’s most struggling schools, bypassing the teachers union contract.

Those changes could include a longer school day and year, required teacher training and more control over staffing – all things Cash says are essential to improve student performance.

 In a 107-page ruling released Monday, Elia largely imposes Cash’s proposals with some modifications that call for giving teachers more notice of contractual changes and preference for other jobs, should they be displaced from their position. She also recommends that a committee created to assist with staffing at the receivership schools be limited to three or five people, and consist of an odd number to prevent deadlock between union and district representatives.

Ultimately deformers want the power to bypass union contracts in every school, but they're happy for now to start with the "struggling" ones and work their way onward later.

The Buffalo Federation of Teachers plans to sue.

Helluva day - Boston mayor throws a bomb by making a secret deal to close a bunch of Boston schools and Elia gives her handpicked Buffalo superintendent the power to bypass the union contract in the "persistently struggling" schools in Buffalo.

Scott Walker Proposes Making Entire Country Right-To-Work, Outlawing Unions For Federal Workers

Scott Walker's political fortunes are plummeting - he's fallen sharply in Iowa polls (a must win for him), in national polls and in the estimation of GOP political insiders (he's been called the "biggest loser of the summer.")

That may explain this gambit:

Highlights of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposed changes to federal labor law affecting unions, which the Republican presidential hopeful plans to lay out on Monday in a town hall meeting in Las Vegas:

-Make it illegal for federal workers to form unions. That would take an act of Congress, but Walker said he's for it because "big-government unions should have no place in the federal workplace." 

-Eliminate the National Labor Relations Board, transferring some of its powers to the National Mediation Board and leaving what Walker calls its "quasi-judicial functions" to the federal court system.

-Impose right-to-work laws, under which workers can't be forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment, nationwide. Twenty-five states, including Wisconsin, already have such laws. Walker's proposal, if passed by Congress, would require states to vote to opt out of the right-to-work requirement.

-Prohibit unions from automatically deducting dues from state public employees that are used to pay for political activity. Walker said if the Supreme Court does not address the issue in a pending case, he will send a bill to Congress to change the law.

-Require federal employee unions to disclose and certify the portion of dues used for political activity and prohibit withholding that amount.

-Prohibit union organizers from having access to employees' personal information and require union recertification votes "on a periodic basis."

-Repeal any regulations proposed by President Barack Obama's administration that require employers to pay overtime rates to salaried workers and provide paid sick leave. "These rules will only reduce wages and deprive workers of the flexibility to balance work and life commitments," Walker said. 

-Require online disclosure of union expenditures, including total pay of union officers, additional reporting for local affiliates of government employee unions and more conflict-of-interest reporting requirements.

-Change federal law to ensure unions can't fire, discriminate or otherwise retaliate against a whistleblower who reports wrongdoing.

-Repeal wage controls and project labor agreements for federal highway projects.

The chances of this agenda getting enacted by Scott Walker are zero.

Barring a miracle, he's not getting elected president, let alone enacting this agenda and getting it through Congress.

That said, it's instructive to see Walker fall back on union-busting and union-bashing as his poll numbers fall and his chances to president fade.

Just as Chris Christie tried to turn around his flagging fortunes and falling poll numbers by reliving his "glory days" (teacher-bashing!!!), Walker's gone back to his "glory days" taking on the unions in Wisconsin to try and gain some campaign momentum.

We shouldn't be surprised by this, of course - this is a guy who, when asked how he would deal with Al Qaeda and ISIS given that he has no foreign policy experience or expertise, said terrorists would be quaking in their boots at dealing with him because he took on Wisconsin's unions.

Today's Walker union-busting gambit is a sign that he knows he's done as a candidate unless he can quickly turn things around in a race where all the oxygen has been taken up by outsiders like Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina.

Scott Walker Fades In Polls

Politico:

Scott Walker's summer plunge was put in stark relief on Friday, with a new Quinnipiac University survey showing the Republican presidential candidate polling near the bottom of the heap in Iowa.

Walker, the governor of neighboring Wisconsin, dropped 15 points in the state in the last two months in Qunnipiac's poll. In July, Walker led the pack at 18 percent. This time, he's near the bottom of the field of 17, at 3 percent. He earned similar support in last weekend's NBC News/Marist poll, at 5 percent.

The latest numbers underscore the cruel turn of events for Walker, who caught fire earlier this year with his plainspoken style and his track record of taking on and triumphing over the unions in Wisconsin. He has since tanked due to series of fumbles and a lackluster performance both on the campaign trail and in last month's first GOP debate.

I guess that "I stood up to the unions so I can stand up to Al Qaeda message he's running on isn't resonating with voters so much.

To see Chris Christie and Scott Walker, two pols who live off union bashing, plummet in the polling - well, that is enjoyable.

Welcome Back To Another School Year Full Of Fear, Uncertainty And Constant Change

It's the Tuesday after Labor Day and you know what that means teachers:

Another day of meetings and professional development.

This year will be extra special since just last week, Governor Cuomo announced he was putting together yet another education commission/panel (the third since early 2014) to review the Common Core State (sic) Standards, the Common Core tests and the Common Core curriculum (EngageNY).

Hey, nothing like announcing a full review a couple of days before school starts, right?

Those tests you'll be talking about preparing your students for today so that you don't get declared an "ineffective" teacher and fired - well, Cuomo says he wants them "reviewed" (whatever that means.)

And that EngageNY curriculum that you're going to roll your eyes at today when it's handed to you at a teacher meeting because it has you spending 17 days on one short story - that's under review too.

Those Common Core State (sic) Standards you'll spend time talking about today, well, Cuomo's not so sure they're being implemented right and they just might need to be tweaked or changed or overhauled.

In short, you're starting the year with yet more uncertainty and change on the horizon, because the change in the standards, the high stakes testing, the curriculum and the evaluation system over the past few years wasn't enough change and now we'll need more of it.

Steve McLaughlin put all of this in perspective with a tweet (as McLaughlin is so good at doing):

Cuomo's act is the same every time; insist something be done fast, wreak havoc, deny responsibility, then claim he'll fix it. #CommonCore

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 7, 2015

And that's exactly what we have again this year.

The one thing on the education agenda Cuomo doesn't want reviewed is the APPR teacher evaluation system he shoved through in the budget, the one that makes test scores 50% of a teacher's rating and gives districts the discretion to fire teachers for two consecutive "ineffective" ratings and forces districts to fire teachers for three consecutive "ineffective" ratings.

That he doesn't want APPR reviewed even though the evaluation system is based in part upon teachers being able to teach the Common Core State (sic) Standards that are currently under review and the Common Core curriculum that is currently under review (EngageNY) as well as garner high test scores from their students on the Common Core tests that are also under review says a lot about how this year is going to go.

That evaluation system got shoved through last budget though almost nobody other than Cuomo's education reformer/hedge fundie donors wanted it and now Cuomo refuses to let it go.

Indeed, he is on record calling that system the "bedrock" of his education reform agenda, so you know it will be the kind of thing that has to be clawed out of his cold, handcuffed hands.

The new evaluation system is supposed to be in place by November or districts lose an increase in state aid, though there is a waiver system in place for districts that have a "hardship" in coming to an agreement under that timeline.

In any case, as the year starts, teachers do not know whether they will be evaluated under the old system or the new system and they don't know if the Common Core State (sic) Standards, Common Core curriculum and Common Core tests are going to get tweaked, changed or completely overhauled by Cuomo's vaunted third education commission/panel that will meet in the near future and hand Cuomo recommendations that he can announce in January.

Given all the uncertainty, this would seem to be an excellent time to step back and say "Time out!" from all the accountability measures for teachers and schools, but of course that isn't going to happen.

Indeed, Renewal Schools that the state has targeted for receivership have either one or two years to "improve" or get handed over to a charter operator or some other outside entity, all this uncertainty and change to the system be damned.

Same goes for teachers declared "ineffective" in the 2014-2015 year - get another "ineffective" rating and your district can fire you in an expedited process.

It doesn't matter that the whole system is under review, that all the reforms that got shoved through and implemented faster than you can say 3020a disciplinary process are falling apart and need to be "reviewed".

That's because the one real goal Cuomo has with public education - to "bust" the public school monopoly (here and here) - continues to be served by all the havoc Cuomo and his reformer buddies at the Regents and NYSED create with their half-baked schemes and reforms.

So welcome back, teachers, to another fear-filled year, another year of uncertainty and churn, another year where the powers that be look to destroy you, your school, your profession and public education.

As Sgt. Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues used to say:

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.

Chris Christie Says Schools Without Teachers Unions Would Be "Nirvana"

We must destroy the village in order to save it:

Governor Chris Christie said that the academic achievement gap can't be fixed until after a "fundamental fight" with the teachers unions.

"We know how to fix this, but we’re not doing it," he said Wednesday afternoon during an interview with Campbell Brown, of the Partnership for Educational Justice and the74million.org, at an education summit in New Hampshire. "We’re not doing it because the teachers unions and the educational establishment, not only in New Jersey but across the country, know that fixes to that take apart the monopoly they have on education."

"And until we have that fundamental fight in this country as to who’s going to run education in this country, parents or unions, until we fix that and come to a conclusion on that, we’re not going to be able to fix the achievement gap." (He later said that schools without teachers unions would be "nirvana.")

Schools without unions would be "nirvana"?

Well, at least he's honest about wanting to destroy teachers unions.

Nice thing is, his political future is destroyed, what with Bridgegate and a few other scandals related to Port Authority funds and his cronies hanging around his neck, New Jersey an economic and quality-of-life mess, and Donald Trump stealing the outrage vote from him in the GOP primary fight.

His latest poll numbers have him dropping out of the top ten in the Republican presidential primary battle, which means he may not get an invite to the next big table GOP debate.

As I posted after Christie said he'd like to punch the teachers unions in the face, his teacher bashing isn't helping him in either approval with New Jersey voters or GOP primary voters.

When he shows up at an unvetted event, people let him have it, Bronx cheer-style.

Quite frankly, Ralph Kramden and his big mouth are done, his political career is over (he's term limited in New Jersey and his chances of getting elected president are about as good as mine) and it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Enjoy political obscurity, Chris.

Maybe you can ask George Pataki how he deals with it when you see him on the campaign trail.

Cuomo Tries To Turn New York Into Wisconsin

Zack Fink at State of Politics on the yacht tax exemption Cuomo's pushing for the budget:

One insider suggested to me that Cuomo allowed this tax exemption to go through in order to draw attention away from his radical education agenda. Not sure I believe that, but let’s be honest…the changes the Governor is looking to make are huge. I say “looking to make,” because the bill has not hit the Assembly floor for a vote where it’s chances of quick passage remain murky at best. The Governor is in essence undermining the teacher’s union. Watering down their collective bargaining rights by putting into state law the mandatory dismissal of teacher’s who are rated ineffective. That’s a major departure from where things currently stand. Right now, it is very difficult to fire teachers. Especially those with tenure. Cue the numerous tab stories about “rubber rooms.” If Cuomo gets his way, the dynamic will be permanently altered. I don’t want to compare this to what Scott walker did in Wisconsin, but it’s the New York State Democratic-internecine-warfare-politics version of that.

Just something to think about the next time you hear Mike Mulgrew declare the budget a "victory."

Cuomo's Vengeance Against State Workers Union Hits A Snag

Amidst all the dark news emanating from Albany these days comes a little bit of good news:

The Cuomo administration's push to move an estimated 2,500 unionized state workers into nonunion "management/confidential" status has hit an early snag.

The state's Public Employment Relations Board, which would approve or deny the move, said the state needs to identify which individuals they want to reclassify as well as whether they would be put in management or confidential jobs.

Management people are generally supervisors or upper-level positions, while confidential jobs can be high-level, but they can also cover positions such as clerks or administrative assistants who have access to sensitive information or documents such as personnel files.

The 54,000-member Public Employees Federation, the union from which the administration is trying to reclassify workers, said it was encouraged that the application was sent back to the Governor's Office of Employee Relations for more details.

"This is encouraging news as it shows that PERB is firm in holding GOER to the requirements that an employer's application must contain more than a mere conclusory statement that positions, which have been in PEF for decades, should now be management-confidential," PEF President Susan Kent said in a prepared statement on Monday.

In short, PERB is not rolling over at the mere mention of Governor Cuomo's desire to move nearly 5% of PEF's membership to nonunion "management/confidential" status.

Let's remember that we can be successful fighting this governor as he plans to "break" teachers and the public school system this next term - IF we have union leadership looking to actually win it.

Some teachers understandably are dubious that the union leadership will stand up effectively.

I'll have more about that later.

The Daily News Can't Wait For The Security State To Replace Unionized Doormen

The Daily News has a propaganda piece cheerleading for technology that will replace doormen while still making sure the riff-raff don't get where they don't belong:

An Israeli general is at work on a “biometric security” system that he believes will have New Yorkers tossing out their keys and maybe ditching their doormen, too.

Using sophisticated scanners that can recognize a person’s face, voice, build and stride, the system can unlock your door in under two seconds. Any strangers not in the database will be denied access. 

“This is only the beginning,” says General Aharon Farkash, the founder and president of the firm FST21. “This is the way people will enter buildings in the 21st century.”

To help establish FST21 in the states, Farkash opened a North American office earlier this month at 7 World Trade Center. Should you drop by, you’ll be greeted by one of its security devices. But unless he’s beamed a code to your phone or you work there already, there’s no convincing the small 8-inch scanner to let you in.

...

“Cities are crowded, often dangerous places, with the gap between rich and poor growing,” Farkash says. “We need a way to live safely but also comfortably next door to one another.”

For those worried about privacy as well as security, Farkash stresses that the system is self-contained, so it is impossible to hack from outside. It also stores no data of users coming and going beyond two weeks.

“I was the Israeli NSA, so I can tell you I know privacy, and the best effort is being made to keep things private,” Farkash says.

Gee, sounds fabulous.

Except I don't buy that part about keeping things private and anybody who has even scanned an article in the last year about NSA spying shouldn't either - they'll be tracking everywhere you go via this "biometric security" apparatus, the cell phone you carry and the credit cards you use to purchase items.

Such is life in the 21st century.

But besides our privacy and humanity, what else do we lose in the tradeoff when every building starts using "biometric security"?

Why, unionized jobs of course!

For individual homeowners, it offers the convenience — and cool factor — of not having to fumble for the keys anymore, especially with the kids and groceries in hand. For condo and co-op boards, it could mean serious savings.

“It’s much cheaper than a doorman,” Farkash says. “To have 24-seven coverage, that’s four shifts a day, at least $250,000 a year. Our system is 70% less to install, and 90% less to maintain each year after that.”

Oh, goodie - another technological advance that will replace jobs humans do.

On the plus side, when the people who used to have jobs but can no longer find them in our increasingly globalized, technology-laden economy start to steal to eat, the "biometric security" will keep them out of your condo.

On the negative side, you (or I) may be the one the security is looking to keep out.

More plutocratic propaganda from the Daily News masking itself as "journalism".

When Editorial Boards Attack

The NY Post has an attack piece on teachers out today over the 3rd-8th grade Common Core tests.

They say that teachers are afraid to be held accountable for student outcomes (like college remedial rates in CUNY schools) and they say those student outcomes are pitifully poor in 2013.

They say the more students that fail the new Common Core tests the better, because this will show us how badly children are failing and how badly their schools and teachers have failed them and will spur us all on to improve schools and education.

That's the cover story they tell, but it's not the real story behind Common Core or the Common Core test drop.

To tell the real story behind the Common Core, I have two responses here:

First, before those purveyors of fine, quality journalism at the NY Post get their socks in an uproar over the dropping test scores, let us note that the vaunted new Common Core tests have been implemented before the curriculum for those tests was fully developed and given to teachers.

In other words, the Regents and the NYSED decided that they would put the tests in place first, the curriculum and lessons those tests are based on later.

What does it matter if scores drop 20%, 30%, or 40%, as the Post editorial writers drool they will, if those scores drop because the students were not prepared for those tests because the teachers could not prepare them because the NYSED, the Regents and the NYCDOE failed to prepare the teachers with a fully developed Common Core curriculum?

The Posties see the falling scores as indicative of a failing school system, failing schools and bad teachers.

The reality is, the falling scores simply mean the NYSED and the Regents decided to ratchet up the grade level on the test material by three or four grades, putting material on the tests that children had never seen before because the teachers had never taught it because it had never been part of the standards before.

That's all the falling test scores are indicative of, quite frankly.

My second response to the Post attack editorial I am going to take from NYC Educator's fine post in response to a Daily News piece on the Common Core last week.

He wrote:

Apparently, to the minds of the Daily News editorial board, test scores represent how smart kids are. It does not represent how many answers they have memorized, or how well they can guess. I'm just a lowly teacher, but I'd argue it is not our job to make kids smarter. I'd argue it's our job to inform and prepare them. I'd argue it's our job to awaken or inspire their passions. I'd argue it's our job to make them love this great gift that is our lives.

This is apparently true of the editorial board at the Post too.

Nothing matters more than test scores.  

Good teaching is about raising test scores.  

All learning can be measured by tests and test scores.

The reductive reasoning of both the Daily News and the Post, vanquishing the very complex matter of teaching and learning to test score percentages and value-added measurements based upon those test score percentages, has a purpose however.

The purpose - the political agenda, if you will - behind the Common Core movement, the Common Core tests and the APPR teacher evaluation system is to have test scores plummet 20%, 30% or 40%, tie those plummeting test scores to teachers, evaluate those teachers on the plummeting test scores, declare those teachers "ineffective" via the value-added measurements developed using those test scores, and fire those teachers after two years of "ineffective" ratings.

As Diane Ravtich posted here, the plan has been in place since 2009 when the Eli Broad Foundation put the blueprint for it together with the help of some very famous (or infamous) education "leaders" and edu-entrepeneurs.

These Common Core test scores do not indicate what the editorial boards or the education leaders like NYSED Commissioner John King or Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch or the governor say they do.

They simply indicate the latest move to privatize one of the last bastions of the public sphere and the commons - public schools and public education.

That is the goal here, that is why NY Post owner Rupert Murdoch has hired former NYCDOE chancellor Joel Klein to run his for-profit education division.

There is money to be made in them there education reformy/Common Core hills - hundreds of millions of dollars for News Corporation/Amply in fact, as Murdoch himself told us.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation are far from the only corporations looking to make money off Common Core and education reform. 

As David Sirota wrote at Salon:

Citing a fact sheet from the for-profit education industry itself, the Washington Post recently reported that “the education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product” while the “for-profit education is valued at $1.3 trillion, and is one of the largest U.S. investment markets.” Likewise, NPR reports that as he’s launched an education technology division, Rupert Murdoch “has described education as a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” This is why the tech site Geekwire predicts another full-scale tech industry bubble, thanks to “K-12 and other education segments now being chased by a mob of investment capitalists.”

...

Though it is rarely mentioned, the truth is that the largest funders of the “reform” movement are the opposite of disinterested altruists. They are cutthroat businesspeople making shrewd financial investments in a movement that is less about educating children than about helping “reform” funders hit paydirt. In that sense, they are the equivalent of any industry leaders funding a front group in hopes of achieving profitable political ends (think: defense contractors funding a front group that advocates for a bigger defense budget). The only difference is that when it comes to education “reform,” most of the political press doesn’t mention the potential financial motives of the funders in question.

The political press doesn't mention the potential financial motives of the education reformers and their funders because they are often working for outlets those very education reformers and/or interested parties own.

For example, here is a preliminary list of news outlets owned by either self-styled education reformers or those looking to profit from education:

1. Bloomberg (Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Views, Bloomberg Businessweek)

2. Murdoch (NY Post, Wall Street Journal, FOX News and FOX affiliates)

3. Kaplan Test Prep (Washington Post)

4. Pearson (Financial Times, Economist)

No wonder the education reform mythology gets passed on to the public via the news media so often - in many cases, the news media IS the education reform movement as well.

I want to make one last point here - the irony of education reformers calling the corporate attack upon one of the last remnants of the commons the "Common Core" should not be lost on us.

This is the 21st Century equivalent of the enclosure movement, with the oligarchs stealing the hearts and souls of children via an education reform movement that quite literally privileges nothing over data, numbers and test scores.

But the numbers this education reform movement privileges and values the most is money.

The move to implement the Common Core tests before the Common Core Federal Standards were fully implemented and then to use those test scores as a bludgeon against teachers and schools is the latest indication of just that.

Of course the Postie editorial board can't tell us this truth because they work for one of the men who stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars or more from education reform and Common Core.

NYCDOE Introduces "Virtual" Instructors Into Summer School

As in virtually non-existent:

Students are getting ripped off at public summer schools that cut corners to save money — including one program that ended Friday after just 10 days of classes, The Post has learned.

And a second high school stuck English students in front of computers and essentially assigned a baby sitter — who didn’t have a teaching license — rather than a certified instructor to keep an eye on them.

...

At Women’s Academy of Excellence in The Bronx, students said the English class has no instructor and no one to answer their questions when they need help with an educational computer program that is teaching them.

Instead, the school assigned a $30,000-a-year “community associate” — a noneducator who is paid to be a liaison between the school and the surrounding area — to monitor the classroom.

“Honestly, I don’t learn much from [the computer]. It tells me stuff, but it doesn’t show me what I’m learning,” said 17-year-old junior Monica Morgan.

“I was so confused . . . I’d get more out of a textbook.”

Despite confirmation from a dozen students and staffers about the lack of a certified teacher, Principal Arnette Crocker denied the charge through the DOE.

She did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

A DOE spokeswoman said the certified instructor was a “virtual” teacher whom the students could ask questions of by e-mail — but the kids said that was news to them.

“I never got offered that,” said soon-to-be sophomore Emani Brown, 15.

DOE officials insisted that the “virtual” teacher was allowable under state regulations.

Those regulations require that online courses be taught or supervised by a certified teacher in the same school district.

Ah yes - students being taught by "an educational computer program."

The future of education is here.

No need for a licensed, certified teacher.

Just a low-paid "community associate," an "educational computer program," some computers and the students.

And of course the use of an "educational computer program" and a "virtual teacher" is "allowable" under state law.

Hell, not only is it "allowable," it soon will be the norm in many urban districts.

This is just one of the reasons the powers that be want to break the unions - so that they can fire the "bad" teachers and replace them with computer programs and "virtual" teachers who are virtually non-existent.

Poof goes to the money - right to Pearson, Wireless Generation and all the other education vulture companies.

Poof goes the future - for the kids stuck in this system.

Overview Of The Assault On Teachers

Just in case you've forgotten, the politicians who are assaulting the rights and dignity of teachers belong to both parties and the assaults are broad and coordinated.

Labor Notes has an overview.

Dems Join Public Worker/Union Bashing

Democrats in Mass. have voted to strip public workers of the right to collectively bargain their health care.

In the bluest of blue states.

How soon before Cuomo pals up with his corporate allies in the legislature and tries a similar thing here?

This is why unions must stop supporting Dems reflexively and ONLY support pols who support workers and union members.

Fred Klonsky's Right

Really, really right.

End the co-dependency.

Only support politicians who support working people.

Fifth Wisconsin Republican Faces Recall

It is starting to look like there WILL be a price paid by the politicians who voted for the union-busting bill in Wisconsin:

Dems will file a massive amount of signatures tomorrow to trigger a recall election against a fifth Wisconsin GOP state senator, I’m told.

Graeme Zielinski, the spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, confirms to me that Democrats will submit approximately 30,000 signatures for the recall of Alberta Darling — nearly 150 percent of the 20,343 required.

This is the fifth time Dems have collected far more signatures than necessary for a recall — all but ensuring that all five recall elections will actually happen.

This comes as there are signs that Republicans may be able to trigger two recall elections against Dems, though in one case Republicans have apparently only collected a couple of thousand more signatures than required, which isn’t much of a cushion. Republicans have less than a week until their deadline, and they still haven’t filed anything, though that appears ready to change tomorrow.

Darling is in a district that gave Scott Walker 54% of the vote, but also gave Obama 51% in 2008, so while she is less vulnerable than the other Republicans facing recall, there might be a chance to oust her.

Given that Republicans plan to recall two Dems, I think it is important that EVERY Republican who voted for the Walker bill who CAN be recalled BE recalled.

Yes, ultimately this kind of politics of destruction is probably harmful to the union as a whole, but given that Republicans (and their corporate brothers in the Democratic Party Like Little Andy Cuomo, Michael Bennet, et al.) will continue to push this union-busting class warfare until they are MADE TO PAY A POLITICAL PRICE, I think it is important that we have this fight.

Fascism Comes To Indiana

Bad news:

Today, the Indiana Senate concurred with the House version of Senate Bill 575.

It goes to Senator Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels for his signature either this week or next. He will almost certainly sign it.

This is a huge loss for teachers here in Indiana. As I've been saying for some time the victory parties regarding union labor and public education in the Hoosier state were quite premature. In concurring with the House Version of this bill, the Indiana Senate approved measures that would:

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies

* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool

* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits

* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

* eliminate current contractual reduction-in-force processes

* eliminate contractual grievance procedures except in cases related to wages and wage related benefits.

I added the bold for the two worst elements of this bill. Do the parts in bold sound familiar?

They should, if you've been following the labor struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio.

I'm lucky in that my own local union was able to negotiate a two-year extension on my contract, and in that our union has a pretty good working relationship with the administration and the school board. Other locals were not so lucky, and will now see huge chunks of their contract left entirely to the mercy of the local administration and school boards.

Should such entities decide that teachers ought to work an additional forty-five minutes to an hour a day, at no additional pay, they will be able to insert that kind of language into the contract. And if the locals don't like that? They can get bent, as far as the state GOP is concerned.

This is a sad day for teachers in Indiana.

Indeed, it is.

But remember that it is NOT just Republicans doing this to unions.

Rahm "Corporate Whore" Emanuel in Chicago plans to unilaterally impose longer work hours and days now that the Illinois legislature has given him that power.

Gotta love a country where corporate contracts are sacrosanct, but employee contracts are worthless.

They call that kind of country a fascist country.

And the politicians who engage in this kind of politics are fascists - whether it is Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rah Emanuel in Chicago, Chris Christie in New Jersey, or Bloomberg/Cuomo in New York.