Senate Dem: Cuomo Is Like Scott Walker, Out To Destroy Public Schools And Teachers

From State of Politics:

Queens Democratic Sen. Michael Gianaris in an interview on Monday compared Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education reform policies to anti-labor measures being enacted under Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

“Resources are being diverted out of the public school system to private schools, an attack on the teachers who sacrifice so much to work in our schools,” Gianaris said on NY1’s Inside City Hall. “If I wanted Scott Walker to be the governor, I’d move to Wisconsin. But we’re here in New York. I think we should be a progressive champion that stands up for working people who stand up for public schools first and foremost and then we should help the entire school system.”

The comment underscores the deepening level of antipathy from Senate Democrats in the mainline conference toward Cuomo.

Many of us in the education blogosphere and twitterverse have compared Cuomo to Walker before.

Now a member of the mainstream Democratic conference in the State Senate is doing it.

If I were NYSUT, I would take the clip of Gianaris comparing Cuomo to Walker, bundle it into an ad and run it all across the state.

Cuomo's at his lowest approval rating ever in the last Siena poll, but that number will be bounce back up after his minimum wage political ploy (and make no mistake, that's what it is - albeit, some good will come from it) and news his consort Sandra Lee has cancer.

But overall we want the trend to be downward.

It's imortant to keep Cuomo's numbers down - the unions should be running ads to do just that.

This Gianaris clip seems tailor made for that task.

Cuomo Wants State Review Of Long Island Teacher Evaluations Because He Says They're Rigged In Favor Of Teachers

Governor Cuomo's war against teachers continues:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Sunday called for a state review of all Long Island school districts because many use a union-provided evaluation he said is skewed to favor teachers.

A Newsday analysis of teacher evaluation systems in Long Island public schools found that in many the portion that local districts control is weighted toward ensuring teachers score an overall "effective" rating.

Principals' judgment of teacher performance in classroom observations and other subjective criteria accounted for 60 percent of a teacher's overall 100-point evaluation, according to the Newsday analysis. The other 40 points are determined by student test performance.

"Recent news reports found that most Long Island school districts have used their local discretion in teacher evaluation systems to skew the overall scoring to ensure that their teachers are rated only 'effective' and 'highly effective,' " said Jim Malatras, the state director of operations, in a statement on behalf of Cuomo. "Most districts adopted the scoring procedures specifically drafted by the teachers unions."

In short, the governor doesn't like the locally negotiated components and is going to try and circumvent them with a statewide system.

Never mind that many of these districts - and the parents whose children attend the schools in these districts - are fine with the way the evaluations are and aren't looking for a system that rates thousands of teachers "ineffective" every year.

Cuomo has decided he is Governor Education Reform and he is going to give his constituency - the education reform movement and their Wall Street and hedge fund supporters who donate so much money to him - everything they want this legislative session.

Gary Stern at LoHun reported that Mamaronek in Westchester has an evaluation system that it is very happy with, one that works for the district, but under Cuomo's plan, it will go out the window and be replaced by a state-imposed plan.

The state's evaluation system is a lot to grasp for outsiders, and I apologize for trying to explain it. A teacher's rating is based 60 percent on those classroom observations, 20 percent on how his or her students "progress," and 20 percent on a locally chosen measure (usually a test).

Cuomo wants to cut out the locally chosen 20 percent and pump up the student-progress component to 50 percent. Why? Because for about 1 in 5 teachers, student progress is determined by standardized test scores. Increasing reliance on test scores, you see, would show that the governor is a tough guy.

And indeed, a lot of this is about Cuomo getting to show how tough he is.

It's also about Cuomo - a "Democrat" - using teachers and teachers unions for a Sista Souljah moment to show how he's a "different" kind of Dem, although since so many Dems these days use teachers and public education as foils (Obama, Emanuel, Malloy, et al.), I'm not sure why he thinks this makes him stand out.

In any case, he's fighting this battle like it's 2010 and there's a huge momentum to re-do evaluations and fire thousands of teachers.

There isn't - especially not after the piss-poor Common Core rollout that the state educrats are responsible for.

Other than his education reform buddies and their well-heeled donors, I'm not sure who Cuomo thinks he's appealing to here with his agenda.

You can see the opposition to it from all over the state and now that he's screwing with wealthy districts from Long Island to Westchester, don't be surprised if he doesn't get burned.

When he was just screwing with the cities - NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse - he can get away with imposing all kinds of nonsense onto the education system.

But let's see what the folks in Garden City and Great Neck think about his agenda.

Bloomberg Declares War On Teachers

The UFT responds with a brilliant plan.

Call 311:

Since Mayor Bloomberg has decided to use smokescreens to hide his decade of disastrous leadership over our public schools, we are encouraging all members to call 311. Tell the mayor to stop bashing teachers, start taking responsibility for not properly supporting schools and help us give children the quality education they deserve.

Oh, yeah - that'll work.

Reminds me of another crack squad that went to war:



Mulgrew's going to award himself the "Firefly Medal" for that 311 plan.

Jon Stewart: Let's Fire Teachers Instead Of Missiles At Libya

Jon Stewart wonders how the supposedly cash-poor United States can afford a third war in the Middle East when so many states around the country are claiming teachers need to be fired and unions busted in order to balance budgets.

He notes "You can't simultaneously fire teachers and Tomahawk missiles."

He finds a novel solution to the problem - attack Libya with teachers.

John Cole: Fire Bad Teachers, That'll Pay For The Freedom Bombs In Libya

He's being sarcastic, of course.

Who wouldn't be sarcastic when all we hear is how teachers make too much money and they're wrecking the country with their Cadillac pensions and gold-plated health care plans and fancy-schmancy $44,000 a year salaries and then we read this?

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

The Pentagon has the money in its budget to cover unexpected contingencies and can also use fourth-quarter dollars to cover the costs of operations now. “They’re very used to doing this operation where they borrow from Peter to pay Paul,” said Gordon Adams, who served as the Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for national security during the Clinton administration.

However, there comes a point when there simply isn’t enough cash to pay for everything. The White House said on Monday it was not prepared to request emergency funding yet, but former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim estimated that the Defense Department would need to send a request for supplemental funding to Capitol Hill if the U.S. military’s share of Libya operations expenses tops $1 billion.

It's great that we can not only cut teacher salaries and educational programs to pay for the war, but how about we cut food stamps too!

Just like Obama did to keep his precious Race to the Top merit pay/charter school boondoggle funded last year.

Oh, and maybe we can raise taxes on families making less than $40,000 a year so that we can cut taxes on people making over $250,000 a year AND drop the $100 million dollar freedom bombs all over Tripoli?

Just like Obama did to extend the Bush tax cuts!

Oh, yes, this IS change we can all believe in.

If by we you mean neo-con and neoliberal corporate whores who love the profit potential war brings (can you say "oil speculation") and get hard-ons swaggering like tough guys from half a world away from the fighting.

The War On Teachers

Decided not to write a piece this morning because Accountable Talk said all that needed to be said in this post here.

Read it again and send it to your family and friends who are NOT teachers and might be susceptible to Oprah or Education Nation or any of the ed deform jive.

Particularly this part:

The war on teachers rages on. Frankly, I can't even believe it. Every day brings some new horror to teachers somewhere. If politicians had gone after Osama bin Laden with the same relentless vigor with which they pursue teachers, he'd have long ago been squatting in Guantanamo Bay.

When was it decided that teachers were the enemy? When did we become the bogey man and the scapegoats for every situation in the country? Obama wants to recruit 100,000 new teachers? Is he serious? Who in their right mind would want to become a teacher in this hostile environment?

Indeed.