Cuomo's Job Performance Numbers Fall Again In Siena Poll

Sheriff Andy is under water, mainly due to the economy:

New York voters do not see improvement on key issues ranging from the state’s economy to curtailing government corruption during Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tenure, a Siena College poll released Monday found.

The poll, which surveyed New York voters on a range of issues including the economic well-being of their family, tax policy, the quality of public education and the state’s business climate determined most believed there had not been any improvement or in some cases have gotten worse.

...

When it comes to the “economic well-being of you and your family,” 52 percent of New Yorkers polled said things have stayed the same, while 19 percent said it has improved and 28 percent responded it has gotten worse.

For state’s economy, an issue that Cuomo has sought to turn around through a variety of means including a revamped economic development program, 37 percent believe it hasn’t changed, while 31 percent responded it has gotten worse. Just over a quarter of voters polled believed the state’s economy has improved since the governor took office.

As for the perception of their fellow New Yorkers, Siena found that a plurality — 45 percent — believe things have gotten worse for them economically, while 38 percent believe it has stayed the same.

Cuomo still enjoys a high favorability among most New Yorkers, though it has steadily declined from 65 percent in August 2013 to 58 percent this month. As his job performance has slipped again from 48 percent last month to 46 percent this month.

The reason why New Yorkers don't think the economy has gotten better for them is because it hasn't gotten better for them.

And with a governor in office who is looking to ensure that it only gets better for his Wall Street, bankster and hedge fund manager backers, the chances of it getting better for them in the next four years is slim to none.

It is time to convince a third party candidate to run for governor and take some of the wind out of Sheriff Andy's motorcycle ride.

A poll commissioned by Bill Samuels says a third party candidate from the left could hurt Cuomo overall, driving his re-election numbers down to just over 50%.

Dunno if that actually would happen, but boy would it be fun to see someone try to make Cuomo pay for his corporate whoredom.

Poll Shows Cuomo Would Be Vulnerable To Third Party Candidate

Not enough to knock him off, but maybe enough to ruin Sheriff Andy's plans for a big 2014 re-election victory to set him up for a 2016 presidential run:

A wealthy Democratic activist commissioned a poll that shows a third-party leftist candidate could eat into what Gov. Cuomo is hoping will be a commanding victory this year.

The fact the poll was even commissioned is another sign that Cuomo's biggest troubles in his re-election year could come from the progressive base of his own Democratic party.

"The unrest is just huge against Andrew," said the man who ordered the poll, Bill Samuels, founder of the progressive activist group EffectiveNY.

The poll done by California-based David Binder Research of 700 likely voters shows Cuomo is still popular, with 58% viewing him favorably and 30% unfavorably.

It also found that Cuomo in a three-way race against Republican Rob Astorino and a Working Families Party candidate would still win easily. But the governor's overall vote tally would be closer to 50% rather than the 60% or higher total those close to him say he wants.

"This poll shows there's a danger of Cuomo's national reputation being badly damaged if there is a third-party candidate," said Samuels, who supported Cuomo in 2010 but has since become a critic. He has not ruled out a run for governor on a minor line if another candidate doesn't step forward.

Last time around, the Working Families Party needed Cuomo's help to generate the 50,000 votes they needed to maintain a ballot line. 

The Daily New Ken Lovett article says this time around, they can do it with a third party candidate:

The union-backed Working Families Party has discussed the possibility of recruiting its own candidate. The poll indicates that the party would be in a position to grab the necessary 50,000 to keep its automatic ballot access without Cuomo.

“(Team Cuomo) made the political calculation that downstate and urban voters have nowhere to go,” said one disgruntled activist. "But it's politics 101: when you're running for reelection, you rev the base up. You have to throw them some red meat."

I'm a little skeptical that when all is said and done, a third party candidate from the left can take 10% of the vote.

But it sure would be fun to see someone try.

More Cuomo poll news later from Siena.

Message To New York Legislators: You Leave APPR In Place At Your Peril

If you make no changes to the teacher evaluation system in NY State, then all the changes you make to Common Core aren't going to mean a damn.

You see, the APPR teacher evaluation system is causing as much damage to children in this state as Common Core is.

Want to know why there is so much testing and rote learning in New York classrooms these days?

Because APPR forces it.

Students are taking so-called performance assessments in every grade in every subject every fall and every spring so that their teachers can be evaluated for the 20% local measurement of student performance component.

Another 20% of the APPR teacher evaluation system has teachers being rated using children's test scores, so there's an awful lot of test prep going on in NY State schools these days too, as those Common Core test scores which Governor Cuomo assures us won't count for students will count for teachers.

If a teacher's local and state test components come up "ineffective," that teacher has to be rated an "ineffective teacher" overall per Governor Cuomo's wishes - you can bet these scores matter to those teachers who want to keep their jobs.

On top of this, the 60% "subjective" component (as if the cut scores SED Commissioner King pulls out of his ass for state tests are "objective") means teachers are being observed somewhere between four and six times a year by administrators who are carrying into the classroom a rubric with 22 competencies on it that requires teachers to teach one way or risk a bad rating.

Many teachers in NYC have been told an effective lesson for every class must be built around a complex text that students wrestle with, any writing must be text-based, and every class must end with an assessment - no exceptions.

This is happening in art classes, gym classes, and vocational classes too, not just in academic subjects like ELA, history and science.

Every lesson in every class starts to take on a Groundhog Day veneer, with children reading complex  texts that they often have no interest in reading and writing argumentative essays about topics that they care nothing about.

If any teachers changes lessons up and adds something a little less "rigorous" for the day - say a text-to-self writing assignment, a creative writing piece, or something else less "Common Corey," they risk an "ineffective" or "developing" rating if an administrator comes into their classroom for a Danielson drive-by observation.

Children are coming to a joyless school environment every day to do the same kinds of lessons over and over, to go over the same test prep over and over, to take the same kinds of assessments over and over in part because of Common Core reforms, yes, but also in part because of the APPR teacher evaluation system.

So my message to you, members of the New York State legislature, is that you leave APPR in place at your own peril.

The rebellion against education reform that is firing up all over the state is not going to end if you delay high stakes for CCSS tests for students for a few years because there is so much damage being caused by Governor Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system too.

You leave APPR in place at your peril - there will be consequences for this political and educational malfeasance.

De Blasio's Vision For Public Schools - Fairness And Opportunity For All

Leonie Haimson has posted about the Riverside Church speech Mayor de Blasio gave today, articulating his vision for the public school system.

Here is an excerpt in which he addresses the charter co-location controversy:

“The answer is not to save a few of our children only.  The answer is not to find an escape route that some can follow and others can’t. The answer is to fix the entire system.  (sustained applause)… so we have to approach systemic change. …Poverty, hunger, the lack of affordable housing…  But even within the education system itself we aren’t approaching root causes and the systemic changes we need to.  We have to work from the assumption that we will save every child, that we will reach every child, that no system is working unless every child has opportunity. And we need to be able to say that despite the good efforts of many the school system is still broken in many ways…We need to work on solutions for the whole and the original notion of the charter movement was to innovate, to create laboratories …to bring to the entire school system. …The idea is not to create separation, the kind of competition that works for some and leaves some out…For 6% of our children in the charters, they are our children; we need them to succeed.  For 94% of the children in the traditional public schools they are our children, we need them to succeed. 

 

The notion that some children may be “lucky” enough to escape from the traditional public schools in their neighborhood speaks volumes, because so many parents feel that right now…I want that parent to know that we will not accept the neighborhood  school that fails them …Our mission is to create a city in which regardless of zip code, your neighborhood public school is a great option for your child.  (sustained applause.)

 

There has been failure, we should not sweep it under the rug….It’s all of us in public life that haven’t measured up… well I say to you today that in my mayoralty… It is my responsible to fix the problem, and I won’t choose between the children of this city any more that any parent would choose between the children in their family.  I will reach out to all the children in the city, in traditional public schools, in charters schools, in religious schools… they all deserve a solution.   

We made some decisions in the last weeks striving for fairness, but …I didn’t measure up in explaining this to the people of this city.  We want want children to have good options, but not displacing or harming other children in the schools to which they may go.  We will make sure that 194 children [in Success Academy] have a good home this year, but we will not do this at the expense of our special education children.  That is a false choice has been set up as part of a broken system and a broken dialogue; and it's time to ending that kind of dysfunction … So we’ll protect the children who need our help while not pitting one against another."

Extraordinary words in defense of a system that seeks to work for all.

I wish he and Chancellor Farina had been ready to go with this when they announced the charter co-location changes.

Alas, they weren't and the public relations damage to de Blasio, Farina and traditional public schools has been heavy. 

$4 million in pro-charter, anti-de Blasio ads does that sort of thing.

Still, better late than never to articulate this vision of a system that works for all.

It won't assuage the clowns on the Morning Joe Clown Show or the charter lobbyist in the governor's mansion, but it may touch some in this city who are unsettled by those ads on the TV and wonder just how it is a charter network that can't afford rent can somehow afford to spend over a $1 million a week on propaganda on every network plus cable.

And in the end, these are words that matter:

"We’ll protect the children who need our help while not pitting one against another...I won’t choose between the children of this city any more than any parent would choose between the children in their family."

That's a much different vision than the one articulated by the charter school lobbyist in Albany who says only charter school children matter.

How Education Reform Is Harming The Health Of Children

There is a horrific story in the NY Post this morning about a rash of suicides involving NYC school children over the last seven weeks:

The city’s public schools are in the grip of a suicide epidemic.

Ten students have taken their own lives in the past seven weeks, according to remarks made Saturday by Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

“As chancellor, I’ve been on the job seven weeks, and there have already been 10 reported suicides. We cannot allow those,” she told 250 new principals at Stuyvesant HS during a private meeting.

“I get those e-mails all the time. And it makes me heartsick.”

The tragic statistic — which amounts to more than one suicide per week — has not been released publicly. The Post obtained a recording of Fariña’s address.

None of the suicides occurred on school property, Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said later Saturday. She could not immediately provide the ages or schools of the children.

Chancellor Farina is responding to this epidemic of suicides:

In her remarks, Fariña implored principals to identify lonely and troubled kids. She related how, as a principal, she’d single out such students for Principal for a Day activities, taking them on her Friday rounds and giving them individual encouragement.

“The DOE is taking this very seriously and has provided information recently to principals and networks to help prepare and support school communities for these traumatic times, in addition to training provided each school year,” Feinberg said.

A spokeswoman for the city’s principals union said the outbreak was a shock to her.

“I’m surprised,” said Chiara Coletti, of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators. “If I heard of one or two in the last couple of years, that would be a lot. [Ten] sounds like a lot to me.”

City Health Department stats show youth suicides are rising, with suicide the third leading cause of death for New Yorkers ages 15 to 24. In 2010, 58 people in that age group took their lives. In 2011, the toll was up to 64, and in 2012 it reached 66.

The stresses on children these days have hit pressure cooker levels.

Many NYC school children come from families still struggling mightily with the effects of the recession and the economy and all the problems that come with that struggle.

It's a dog eat dog economy out there, with many people being tossed by the wayside and left there for good.

When children come to school, there is no change from the dog eat dog world - it's all Common Core rigor and assessments and argumentative writing and the like all the day long, with children being told over and over that in order to be "college and career ready" they must get their test scores as high as they can go.

The message at school in the Era Of Education Reform is "You Are Your Data Points" - in some cases, this is the subtle message, but when kids have their test scores placed on data walls in the classrooms or school hallways, it's as overt a message as can be.

In the best of times, children can be mean to each other, but you add the pressure cooker stresses of a bad economy with high stakes schooling and you can bet half a dozen foreclosed mortgages that children are going to act out in response.

This means more instances of bullying, cyber bullying, and fighting when they're acting out against each other.

It means more problems with alcohol or drug use, eating disorders, cutting (physical harm) when they're acting out on themselves.

Many children are starving from a lack of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment and one of  the very places where they should be getting that nourishment - school - has turned into a toxic environment of rote Common Core learning and high stakes assessment for students, teachers and the school itself.

And don't kid yourself about how much damage education reform is doing to children - when they no longer do art in art class or no longer do physical activity in gym because school administrations are enforcing "Common Core rigor" in those classes and kids are spending the time reading informational texts and writing argumentative essays even in art and gym class, there is damage being done.

In English class, there is no more text-to-self writing or discussion.  The NYSED ELA modules do not allow for any of that sort of learning - everything is rote text-to-text learning, rote close reading exercises, rote assessments after every lesson.

Children are expressing despair over the direction schools have gone in the past few years (with Internet memes of children crying over their Common Core homework making the rounds all the time), but there is little that school staff can do to mitigate the problems.

Many counselors no longer have time to counsel students on anything except academics and grades.  Many teachers no longer have time to spend talking with children outside of class because of the extra compliance work associated with Governor Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system. With all the extra meetings, obsessive lesson planning, curriculum mapping, focus groups, professional learning community meetings, Common Core professional development and artifact collecting, there is no time to just talk to kids and find out what's going on with them.

APPR has done damage beyond the taking of time from teachers that could be spent working with students - it has added more testing and more high stakes to the school year, with added performance assessments coming in fall and spring and the stresses of those assessments falling onto students as they know if they don't do well, their teachers might get fired by the "student lobbyist" in Albany.

So given all of this insanity going on these days, it is not a surprise to me that more and more children are suffering from depression and a lack of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment.

It would be nice to say that Chancellor Farina's directive that administrators scrutinize students in their schools in order to catch those who are falling prey to depression and despair, but the truth is, there are so many that I have seen over the past few years that I'm not sure how principals, teachers and counselors address the epidemic given how poisoned the school system is with high stakes so-called rigor and reform.

Until the insanity of the high stakes around testing is ended, until the rote learning of the Common Core is replaced with individual-centered learning that allows for personal growth, until the obsession with argumentative writing and close reading of complex texts is replaced with a broad arts, humanities and science curriculum that allows for children to express themselves in many different ways, the despair and depression that is now rife in the school system is not going to end.

There isn't much educators can do about the economy at large that causes stress on children.

But there is something we can do about the education reforms that are harming millions of children around this state and a million+ in this city.

Let us take back our education system from the emotionally-stunted misanthropic education reformers who tell us that no one gives a shit what children think and feel and return it to people who know that children are whole beings who must be nourished physically, emotionally and spiritually with a rich, broad, diverse curriculum in a school environment that is welcoming and nurturing.

Don't Kill The Bees!

Mass murder at the Yankees game down in Florida - for bees:

TAMPA — Steinbrenner Field was buzzing Tuesday, but it had nothing to do with the Yankees and Red Sox.

The rivals were delayed for seven minutes in the bottom of the third inning when a swarm of bees wreaked havoc in left field.

Boston left fielder Mike Carp pointed the bees out to umpires, who stopped the game while stadium employees treated the area with insect spray.

“I heard them before I saw them,” Carp said. “I turned around and knew I had to get out of there.”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Boston pitcher Felix Doubront, “but I knew I didn’t want to be out there.”

Both teams stood at the top of their dugouts watching the scene, though Mark Teixeira decided to have some fun and fetched two bottles of honey from the clubhouse and brought them onto the field.

“I’m a big peanut butter-and-honey guy, so I always know where the honey is,” Teixeira said. “What I thought was if you could just do a line of honey out to the parking lot the bees would maybe follow it and leave us alone.”

Fans gave the stadium employees a big ovation after the situation was resolved.

“That was a first for me,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “Never saw a game delayed by bees.”

I'm going to be blunt here because this story PISSES me off:

The players on both teams are fucking morons.

The fans in the stands who gave the stadium employees a standing ovation for killing the bees are fucking morons.

And the Yankee employees who killed the bees are fucking morons.

Do any of these people know that we NEED bees for life and currently bees are dropping dead at rates that put the future of life as we know it on the planet in jeopardy?

Commenters at the DN story do:

Do these idiots realize that destroying our honeybees is damaging our food chain? I just can't believe they were allowed to do this. All they had to do was wait for the queen to settle and they would have swarmed around her. As a beekeeper I am appalled at them  destroying the bees. Anyone involved in this should be ashamed of themselves.

...

Don't spray insecticides haphazardly!  Geez.  What are they?  A bunch of New Yorkers in Florida?  ;)

There are many beekeepers who are willing to rescue swarming honeybees!

http://www.callabe­ekeeper.com/CallaBee­keeper.asp?State=FL&­Submit=Search

http://www.beeremo­valsource.com/bee-re­moval-list/florida/

...

Shame on them for using insecticides. I hope they inhaled enough themselves to
feel sick. Swarming bees have their bellies full of honey and are almost
incapable of stinging. You can scoop them up with unprotected hands
once they land somewhere and cluster. They are just trying to find a new
home. The Yankees should have done the right thing and called for a
beekeeper, and reap in good publicity for it. Using poison is just bad.
Shame on them for even having this stuff on hand. I hope they will lose
every game for the next decade for killing innocent insects. Yeah I'm
putting a beekeeper curse on them.

...

I agree with Elizabeth, it should be illegal to spray bees at this point. It's a major issue. Here's a way to be part of the solution instead of the problem: http://bidg­rouponeconsulting.wo­rdpress.com/2014/03/­18/using-the-power-o­f-the-internet-to-he­lp-protect-endangere­d-bees/

One more time - everybody involved at the game who contributed to the deaths of the bees are fucking morons.

There are smart ways to handle a swarm and then there's the way the Yankees handled it.

The older I get, the more I can't figure out how human beings have managed to last this long on the planet given the stupid things we do to the ecosystem. 

Given how much damage we've done to the ecosystem lately, we'll see how much longer human hegemony goes on. 

Might not be much longer. 

Here's hoping if collapse comes, it starts at Steinbrenner Field. 

Why Isn't Eva Moskowitz Under Attack For The Harm Her "No Tolerance!" Policies Do To Children Of Color?

From the Daily News:

WASHINGTON — Black students — even tiny preschoolers — are more likely than white students to be suspended from public school, a study disclosed Friday.

It has been well-documented that black children in elementary, middle and high school are more likely than white kids to be disciplined.

But for the first time, the U.S. Education Department examined suspensions in preschool. It found that out of 1 million kids in public preschool in the 2011-2012 school year, 5,000 were suspended.

While black children represented 18% of the enrollment, they make up almost half of the preschoolers suspended at least once.

Advocates have complained that get-tough suspension and arrest policies by school administrators contribute to a "school-to-prison'' pipeline that snags minority students.

The report suggest that the pattern begins with kids as young as four years old.

The data doesn't explain why the racial disparities exist or why the students were suspended, but officials called the findings troubling.

There are a variety of stories out there on the Internets looking at suspension rates in charter schools around the country and pointing out how they harm children of color in cities like Washington D.C., New Haven and  New York City.

And of course Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies is one of the leading suspenders of children in the country, championing a "no excuses!" code that sees children getting suspended for, well, pretty much anything as this Juan Gonzalez piece from August 2013 shows:

Success Academy, the charter school chain that boasts sky-high student scores on annual state tests, has for years used a “zero tolerance” disciplinary policy to suspend, push out, discharge or demote the very pupils who might lower those scores — children with special needs or behavior problems.

State records and interviews with two dozen parents of Success elementary school pupils indicate the fast-growing network has failed at times to adhere to federal and state laws in disciplining special-education students.

At Harlem Success 1, the oldest school in the network, 22% of pupils got suspended at least once during the 2010-11 school year, state records show. That’s far above the 3% average for regular elementary schools in its school district.

Four other Success schools — the only others in the network to report figures for 2010-11 — had an average 14% suspension rate.

Success Academy chief Eva Moskowitz recently defended her network’s “higher than average” suspension rates compared with public schools as a way to promote “order and civility in the classroom.” And this week, the Eli Broad Foundation announced a $5 million grant to Moskowitz to help expand her network from 20 to more than 100 schools.

Those schools outperform city schools on state tests: This year, 82% of the network’s students met standards in math and 58% met standards in English, compared with just less than 30% who were proficient in math and 26% in English citywide.

But The News found a disturbing number of suspension cases where the network’s administrators removed special-education pupils from normal classrooms for weeks and even months, while at the same time pressuring their parents to transfer them to regular public schools.

Take, for example, Idiatou Diallo of Tremont, the Bronx, and her three children.

Her boy, Alhassana, and two girls, Houssainatou and Hassanatou, triplets who are now 8, were born premature, suffer from chronic illness and need speech and physical therapy. All three were admitted to Bronx Success 1 last August for first grade — having commuted to Bedford-Stuyvesant Success 1 for all of kindergarten after Success officials told their mother there were no available seats in their home borough.

“Right away, the school started calling me, telling me my children were having a tough time and misbehaving,” Diallo said. “They threatened they’d kick them out of school if I didn’t transfer them.”

Alhassana and Houssainatou were repeatedly slapped with suspensions for violating school rules, despite having detailed individual education plans that instructed teachers on managing their anger outbursts.

On Nov. 27, Alhassana got a two-day suspension for “purposely walking with his eyes closed and hurting another scholar.”

In March, he got a 15-day suspension for “stomping on a teacher’s hand” and “throwing the teacher’s cell phone to the ground.”

His sister Houssainatou was only permitted to attend school for half a day for more than two months because of her behavior problems, her mother said.

“That was an illegal act of exclusion without any due process,” said Nelson Mar, an attorney from Bronx Legal Services, who filed formal complaints to the school on behalf of the children.

Federal law requires schools that suspend a special-education pupil for more than 10 days to seek an impartial hearing on whether the child’s behavior is related to his disability.

Success officials deny improper treatment of any pupils.

“We have no such policies and have no practice of ‘counseling out,’ ” network spokeswoman Jenny Sedlis said last month.

After Mar secured an impartial hearing this spring with the Department of Education, individual paraprofessionals were assigned to both Alhassana and Houssainatou during the school day. Their suspensions dropped dramatically and their academic performance has improved.

But Patrice Joseph, another parent of a special-education child, was not so successful. She withdrew her son Keith and daughter Naomi last week from Harlem Success 4.

“I’m tired of all the fighting,” Joseph said this week.

Keith, 10, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, started first grade at Success 4 in August 2008.

“They were constantly calling me because he wasn’t sitting up straight or because he was throwing a tantrum, and they wanted me to transfer him out,” Joseph said.

In mid-2010, Joseph challenged the school’s failure to provide her son needed services. She won a settlement that required that a paraprofessional be regularly assigned to him. That November, both Keith and Naomi, a kindergartner, were suddenly discharged from the school.

“They never even gave me written notice they were no longer enrolled,” Joseph said.

She got lawyer Mar involved, and the school quickly reinstated the children. That spring, Joseph was told Keith would have to repeat the second grade. Then, this past May, as he was finishing fourth grade, she was told he would have to repeat that grade, too.

“My son doesn’t want to go there anymore,” Joseph said.

Similar harrowing accounts have come from parents at a half dozen different Success schools, including claims that suspended children are not provided state-required alternative instruction.

“We abide by all federal and state law requirements that pertain to alternative instruction,” Sedlis said.

But in a review issued this spring on the progress of Harlem Success 2, 3 and 4, prior to granting those schools a five-year renewal of their charters, the State University of New York’s Charter Institute noted failings in student suspension policies.

“It was unclear that live instruction was consistently provided in accordance with New York’s compulsory education law,” the review said.

Juan Gonzalez reported in another column from August 2013 how parents had secretly taped officials at Success Academies trying to push students out of the school:

Call them the charter school tapes.

The parent of a special education kindergarten pupil at the Upper West Side Success Academy charter school secretly tape recorded meetings in which school administrators pressed her to transfer her son back into the public school system.

The tapes, a copy of which the mother supplied the Daily News, poke a hole in claims by the fast-growing Success Academy chain founded by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz that it doesn’t try to push out students with special needs or behavior problems.

Nancy Zapata said she resorted to the secret tapes last December and again in March after school officials used their “zero tolerance” discipline policy to repeatedly suspend her son, Yael, kept telephoning her at work to pick him up from school in the middle of the day and urged her to transfer him.

The News reported earlier this week that the Success network, which boasts some of the highest test scores in the city, also has far higher suspension rates than other elementary schools and that more than two dozen parents were claiming efforts to push their children out.

“There was a point when I was getting a call every day for every minor thing,” Zapata said. “They would say he was crying excessively, or not looking straight forward, or throwing a tantrum, or not walking up the stairs fast enough, or had pushed another kid.”

What school officials did not do, Zapata said, was provide the kind of special education services that her son’s individual educational plan, or IEP, requires.

That plan calls for daily speech therapy and occupational therapy for Yael. It also requires him to be placed in a smaller class, one staffed by both a regular teacher and a special education teacher.
At one point in the tapes, a Success official can be heard telling Zapata:

“We’re technically out of compliance because we aren’t able to meet what his IEP recommends for him.”

Asked about those remarks, a Success official would only say both the School District’s Special Education Committee and Success Academy now believe Yael should be transferred to a District 75 special education school.

In the tapes, however, another Success administrator is heard acknowledging that Yael’s tantrums are related to his speech disability.

“He is getting really frustrated when people can’t understand what he’s communicating, and you can’t blame him for that,” the administrator tells Zapata.

In a second meeting, the mother asks why Success admitted her son through a lottery but is not providing him all the services he needs.

“If they have those special education needs, you’re absolutely right that they need to be fulfilled,” an official replies, but then quickly adds that the network doesn’t offer smaller special ed classes in kindergarten.

“We will help them find the [appropriate] DOE placement,” the official says.

In other words, lottery or not, kindergarten kids like Yael who need smaller classes should find a public school that has one.

But Zapata has resisted the pressure to transfer her son.

When she accompanied him to the first day of school at Upper West Side Success last week, she was informed Yael will have to repeat kindergarten — the same grade that doesn’t have the special education class he needs.

“They’re trying to frustrate me enough to take him out,” Zapata said, “but I’m going to fight it.”

The Obama administration is attacking public schools for higher rates of suspensions for students of color, particularly black children, even as they champion charter schools like Success Academies that have much higher rates of suspensions and pushouts than district schools.

That's called hypocrisy, something we see from education reform advocates often, and something we see always when it comes to Eva Moskowitz.

Let me know when the clowns on the Morning Joe Clown Show hit Moskowitz over her insane suspension and pushout rates, will you?

And let me know when the concern trolls at the Obama DOE do the same, okay?

Because higher suspension rates for children of color, particularly for black children, are a big problem and something should be done about that problem.

We can start by doing an independent audit into charter schools around the country over their suspension and pushout rates - with a special focus on Eva Moskowitz and her Suspension, er, Success Academies here in New York City - and then putting a stop to what these charters are doing.

Tell Me Again Why The U.S. Should Mimic The Chinese Education System?

A lot of these suicide stories are coming from South Korea, another country with a high stakes education system that leads to an awful lot of stress and pressure on children and teens, but this one's from China:

Surveillance cameras have caught the shocking moment an under-pressure Chinese student jumped to his death during class.

Heart-stopping footage claims to show the at first motionless boy suddenly leaving his desk, running over to a ledge and leaping out.

His actual jump occurs out of shot, and was not filmed due to the camera's angle.

But the devastated reaction of his fellow classmates, who sprint over to see what's happened before pacing up and down with their heads in their hands, appears to suggest he had tried to commit suicide.

A commenter at the Daily News writes:

How much longer are we going to pretend that children are something to ignore, mistreat, and mis-educate..... This child was coerced into believing this test was so important that combined with the rest of the stress he was feeling he ended his life. Here in the US the children are equally mistreated but they are ignored and mistreated along with being misled.

The older you get the more you realize it's not that big of a deal, and that you should be focusing on aspects of education that actually aren't in the curriculum. This common core crap and the overstressing of test results are completely destroying our children's futures.

And that's absolutely what the plutocrats in power want.

What's Going On In Budget Negotiations

State of Politics on the current state of the negotiations:

Asked if he was reviving de Blasio’s push for a tax increase on those earning $500,000 and more a year to pay for a city-wide version of the plan, Silver didn’t deny it.

“I’m looking for a reliable, sustainable funding source throughout the state,” he said.

It is an interesting turnaround for the budget talks, which come a day after 59 people were arrested outside of the governor’s office protesting tax and spending cuts in the proposal.

Silver last week indicated he was on board with the Senate’s one-house budget resolution that proposed spending $540 million on universal pre-Kindergarten without a tax increase, as long as no strings were attached.

But now Silver suggested on Friday the resolution was a “fiction.”

“I’m not sure what the Senate proposed,” Silver said. “It’s hard to read that resolution and read that fiction. I read biographies. I read histories. But I never read fiction.”

It’s a knife-twisting comment and is in many ways vintage Silver, who has confounded Republicans, especially Gov. George Pataki, during budget talks in previous years.

Silver has the most votes in Albany thanks to a large Democratic majority in the Assembly and has been known to effectively hold out for his conference’s agenda in the closed-door talks.

I have a difficult time seeing Silver come out of negotiations with the tax increase de Blasio wants - not with Cuomo strongly opposed to the plan.

Also have a difficult time seeing Silver hold the line on all the charter school issues Cuomo wants in the budget.

But we'll see soon enough.

Skelos Storms Out Of Budget Negotiation Meeting

Time to read the budget negotiation tea leaves:

State Budget talks appeared to hit a major snag Friday morning over the issue of universal prekindergarten. 

Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos stormed out of a four-way leaders meeting in Gov. Cuomo’s office just after 10 a.m. complaining to reporters that “certain members in the room that represent another branch” were too focused on New York City and appeasing Mayor de Blasio. 

Skelos mentioned education aid and tax cuts as issues being discussed but when asked about funding for pre-k, he stressed it’s “always been a problem.” 

“As far as I am concerned, we have a problem right now,” Skelos said. “Hopefully, we can work it out, but we’ll see.” 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) emerged from Cuomo’s office about a half hour after Skelos and indicated pre-k funding was still an issue in the budget talks but offered few specifics as to what led Skelos to bolt from the meeting. 

“For 20 years, I’ve been pushing pre-K statewide,” Skelos said. “I think it’s the best way to prepare our children for the future, to make New York businesses strong in the 21st century, in a global economy. And the fact that I want to nail down a statewide pre-K program, (Skelos) has problems with.” 

Silver rejected the accusation he is too focused on New York City and argued he represents a statewide conference and is pushing for a statewide pre-K program.
“There is no issue with the level of funding I want to allocate,” Silver said. “I think the senator, for some reason, was rather agitated today and left their quickly.” 

Silver also slammed the Senate’s budget resolutions as “fiction” that make it hard to discern what, exactly, the Senate is looking to achieve. 

“That’s the problem,” Silver said. “I am not sure what the Senate proposed. It’s hard to read that resolution, read the fiction. I don’t read fiction. I read biographies, I read history. I never read fiction.”

IDC head Jeff Klein left the meeting after Skelos but well before Silver and, according to the Glenn Bain piece at Daily Politics, downplayed the Skelos incident.

What to make of this?

Silver and Cuomo in budget talks long after Skelos left and for quite a while after Klein left.

Judging from this story, Silver seems to have the upper hand on the pre-K funding, at least for now.

I wonder if he has given anything up to gain the upper hand on that?

Silver and Cuomo remained in negotiations on their own for awhile after the other two left.

That could be a very dangerous time if you're looking for Silver to hold the line on charter co-locations, charter funding and other issues to related to Eva and Company.

Here's hoping he holds the line.

But the "Four Men In A Room Bashing Out The Budget" scenario can certainly result in something along the lines of "De Blasio gets his pre-K funding but it's tied to losing control over charter co-location policies and the state giving extra funding to charter school operators so they can spend millions more on ads."

As always, hope I'm wrong by taking the cynical view of this.

But in politics, you rarely going broke doubling down on the cynical view.

Cuomo Threatens De Blasio Over Charter School Issues

The governor who claims he has nothing to do with education policy keeps getting involved in education policy:

ALBANY - Gov. Cuomo is pressing Mayor de Blasio to resolve controversies over charter schools — including three lawsuits — before the state has to get involved, a source said.

"The governor is urging the mayor to settle charter school issues, meaning co-location and funding issues and the lawsuits so the state doesn't have to step in," the source said.

The comments came as Cuomo and the Legislature are deep into budget talks before an April 1 state budget deadline.

The source didn’t say if Cuomo delivered the message directly to the mayor. The two haven’t spoken in about a week, a second source said.

Rumor has it Cuomo's message came wrapped in a newspaper.

The DN goes on to point this out:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has said he doesn’t see a need to enact charter changes.

The question for de Blasio?

How much does Shelly Silver mean it when he says he sees no need to enact charter changes.

If Shelly's busy negotiating those changes behind closed doors with Cuomo, Skelos and Klein during budget talks, de Blasio got no leg to stand on in this fight.

And I suspect that is exactly what is happening.

Here's One Critic De Blasio Should Appreciate Having

They say you can know the mark of a man by the enemies he has - here's one enemy that Mayor de Blasio should be happy to have:

It’s a tale of the 1% city for Bernie Madoff.

The convicted swindler, cooling his heels in a North Carolina federal prison camp, is no fan of the progressive financial policies and vision touted by Mayor de Blasio.

“I’m not a great fan of redistribution of wealth,” the 75-year-old Wall Street villain said during a long, ranging interview with Politico.

...

The former Democrat, who now identifies as an independent, says he voted for President Obama in 2008, but would not have in 2012 because the president policies have become “too socialist.”

Dunno what Madoff is talking about - banksters are doing as well or better under the "Socialist" Obama as they did under Bush the Capitalist.

As for Madoff not being a fan of redistribution, that's not true.

He surely liked to redistribute other people's money to himself through fraud and criminal activity.

In that way, I suspect he isn't all that different from many of the "capitalists" on Wall Street these days.

Will Media Call Eva Moskowitz, Charter Allies On Their $3.6 Million Ad Buy In Last Three Weeks?

@perdidostschool can someone spent $3.6 million on restorative programs within public schools, infrastructure and classrooms
— Mutale Nkonde (@yppe06) March 20, 2014

Eva claims she has no money to pay rent but she and her allies drop $3.6 million on a three week pro-charter/anti-de Blasio ad blitz.

The ads are still running, so that tally on the ad campaign will go higher.

Can you imagine if de Blasio and his allies spent $3.6 million attacking Eva and her Success Academies?

What would the media say about that?

But here we have Moskowitz and her hedge fund friends spending more than $1 million a week attacking de Blasio and crying poverty over the rent and so far, we get mostly silence from the media about this outrage.

What would it take for the clowns on the Morning Joe Clown Show to mention this hypocrisy the next time the charter school issue comes up?

Eva Moskowitz And Her Allies Spent $3.6 Million On Pro-Charter Ads In Last Three Weeks

How come they can't pay rent but they can spend $3.6 million dollars on pro-charter ads?

A pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million over the past three weeks on TV ads attacking Mayor de Blasio, an insider revealed Wednesday.

Families for Excellent Schools — founded by a deep-pocketed group of financiers — has run a series of ads, including a spot blaming de Blasio for taking away the “hopes and dreams” of 194 students by blocking Success Academy Harlem Central.

De Blasio stopped three Success schools from co-locating in public school buildings while allowing five others to go ahead. His allies call the ad campaign hypocritical.

“They have parents believing there’s no way they’re going to find space for these 194 students,” said Zakiyah Ansari of the labor-backed lobbying group Alliance for Quality Education. “Do they tell them they’re spending $3.6 million on these ads in less than a month? Put that into the building that you say you can’t find.”

Seriously.

Don't Buy The Poll Showing NYer's Roundly Despise De Blasio's Education Policies

Quinnipiac released a poll yesterday that claimed to find widespread disapproval of de Blasio's education policies:

Voters are giving Mayor de Blasio a bad report card for his education policies.

A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found that just 38% support de Blasio’s handling of the public schools and 49% disapprove.


40% want de Blasio to increase the number of charter schools while 39% want the number to stay the same and 14% want a reduction in the schools.

Do you know why that poll is suspect?

Because it came at the same time this was going on:

A pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million over the past three weeks on TV ads attacking Mayor de Blasio, an insider revealed Wednesday.

Families for Excellent Schools — founded by a deep-pocketed group of financiers — has run a series of ads, including a spot blaming de Blasio for taking away the “hopes and dreams” of 194 students by blocking Success Academy Harlem Central.

De Blasio stopped three Success schools from co-locating in public school buildings while allowing five others to go ahead. His allies call the ad campaign hypocritical.

“They have parents believing there’s no way they’re going to find space for these 194 students,” said Zakiyah Ansari of the labor-backed lobbying group Alliance for Quality Education. “Do they tell them they’re spending $3.6 million on these ads in less than a month? Put that into the building that you say you can’t find.”

Don't kid yourself, the $3.6 million pro-charter ad blitz hammering de Blasio over the charter co-location issue has a lot to do with why the poll numbers on education are so dismal for de Blasio and Farina.

If de Blasio and Farina had been more adept, they would have been ready to go back at Eva Moskowitz and her charter school allies by pointing out that Eva wants to take away space from public school kids, including classrooms reserved for autistic and special needs kids.

Alas, even if they had been ready to go with that pushback campaign, they weren't going to be able to spend $3.6 million dollars on it.

Which is another way of saying, when you have very wealthy enemies ready to drop millions against you in a couple of weeks, it's hard to win the political battles.

Just as a comparison, the Times reports de Blasio spent $236,000 in private contributions in January and February on his pre-K push.

They're different issues, but the numbers are stark - $3.6 million to $236,000.

I've been highly critical of de Blasio and Farina for not mounting a coordinated and coherent defense of traditional public schools.

But seriously, when you're outgunned like this in the ad wars, it's going to be awfully hard to win these battles.

Cuomo Underfunds NYC Public Schools

Cuomo bragged during a phone "town hall" that he is keeping state spending lower than the last 10 governors.

Dunno where he got that stat - might have found it in the mashed potatoes Sandra Lee made for St. Patrick's Day - but given this story from Daily Politics, I can believe it:

City funding of the Education Department in 2015 will outstrip the state's contribution for the fourth year in a row, according to a new Independent Budget Office analysis -- something that wouldn't have happened if the state had made good on its promises in a major school-funding lawsuit.

The IBO reports Mayor de Blasio's preliminary budget projects city funding to increase by $548 million, bringing Gotham's share to 48% of DOE spending. State funding is only expected to rise by $234 million, making the state's contribution 43% of total costs.
The state would have continued contributing more than the city, as it usually did before 2012, if it had held up its end of the deal in the famous Campaign For Fiscal Equity suit. But state revenues tanked after the 2008 fiscal crisis and Albany didn't fulfill the promises it made regarding the case first filed in 1993, after a judge's 2006 ruling that the state needed to chip in nearly $2 billion more over four years to provide NYC kids a "sound, basic education."

Cuomo cuts state funding even as he ratchets up the state mandates, putting more and more pressure on localities.

Then he blames the unionized employees of those localities for bankrupting them.

Meanwhile he continues to find ways to cut state funding and force towns and cities to increase theirs.

If and when Cuomo gets extra funding for charter schools, that money will come out of the NYC public school funding.

That means even less funding for schools as Cuomo continues to throw on the mandates (CCSS, APPR.)

All part of the plan - claim he's fiscally prudent while putting much of the funding responsibilities back onto the localities, forcing them to cut back on public employees salaries, benefits and hiring.

Neoliberal to the core, that's our Sheriff Andy.

Feds Threaten NY Over Race To The Top Funding

From Newsday:

A top U.S. Department of Education official warned yesterday that New York and other states risk losing millions of dollars in Race to the Top incentives if they back away from efforts to strengthen teacher job evaluations or other initiatives financed by the federal money.

The admonition came from Ann Whalen, director of the department's implementation support unit, who at a Washington news conference reported on the progress of New York, 10 other states and the District of Columbia in boosting educational achievement through Race to the Top funds.

Whalen acknowledged that New York State had scored significant successes, including the establishment of a training website, engageNY.org. The website is widely used by teachers and principals, both in New York and elsewhere, to get tips on teaching lessons based on the national Common Core academic standards.

But Whalen, in response to a reporter's question, cautioned that recent moves by New York State lawmakers to slow or derail Common Core initiatives, if pursued further, could jeopardize a portion of the state's Race to the Top award.

"In terms of New York or any state making significant change from the scope of the work or the commitments it made to win Race to the Top funds, there could be implications to its grant funds," Whalen said.

So much for not federally mandating Common Core.

So much for not dictating education policy from Washington.

So much for federalism.

Of course the funniest thing about this is how the feds think EngageNY is a "significant success."

Don't know any teachers who think that.

Or students who have been taught the EngageNY modules who think that either.

Who the hell wants to spend 17 lessons on one short story?

Nothing good about that - unless you're John King, Merryl Tisch, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Gates, and the USDOE.

More Bad Scandal News For Chris Christie

A few days ago there was a report that the US attorney in New York had issued subpoenas to Christie ally and chairman of the Port Authority David Samson over potential conflicts of interest at the Port Authority involving Samson's law firm.

Those subpoenas were retracted, perhaps because the US attorney in New Jersey had the jurisdiction in the case or because they had already drawn up the subpoenas and were working it.

At any rate, the US attorney in NJ is now acting:

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey issued a subpoena last week to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey seeking records relating to its chairman, David Samson, and contracts on two bridge projects worth $2.8 billion that he voted to award to construction companies with some ties to his law firm, according to people briefed on the matter.

The subpoena focused on Mr. Samson’s potential conflicts of interest. It was issued by the United States attorney’s office in New Jersey, which along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal inquiry into the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge and other suspected wrongdoing by current and former aides, appointees and associates of Gov. Chris Christie, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

The interest in Mr. Samson, a close political ally of Mr. Christie, represents a significant widening of the scandal that has grown out of the closing of two bridge access lanes in Fort Lee, N.J., in September.

Grab some popcorn, watch the show - Christie's now got three scandals dogging him: Bridgegate, Sandy Aid and the Samson/Port Authority conflict of interest case.

Christie taunted public employees and union workers at a town hall last night:

Embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) once again faced a crowd of angry hecklers at a town hall on Tuesday, but blamed “public sector unions” for the outburst.

“Governor Christie, we are here to demand, you stop your corrupt uses, of Hurricane Sandy money!” the group shouted during an event in South River. “There are still families without homes who have received no aid.”

As police forced the demonstrators to leave the room, Christie called himself a “soothsayer” for having predicted that he would be heckled, according to NJ.com.

“Congratulations, everybody,” the governor quipped. “You are now seeing the latest gift given to you by the public sector unions in the state of New Jersey. This is what they do.”

As the scandals dogging Christie continue to broaden, we may just get a chance to mock Chris Christie as police cart him off in handcuffs.

Cuomo Uses State Tax Money For His Own Political Purposes

Not only are taxpayers funding commercials that tout Governor Cuomo's New York State and a weekly video round-up of "good news" in the state that ends up working as a "Vote For Cuomo" ad on the Internet, taxpayers are also paying for Cuomo to "stock the audience" at his speeches:

Gov. Cuomo was so determined to stock the audience of his State of the State Address earlier this year that he flew in a key attendee.

The governor’s January schedules – which were made public Monday – show that Cuomo dispatched a state police airplane to pick up U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan at LaGuardia Airport at 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, and transport him to Albany for the speech. 

The same aircraft brought Donovan back to LaGuardia after the speech, departing Albany at 3:50 p.m. the same day.

Donovan, according to the schedules, did not reimburse the state for the trip. He was accompanies on the King Air plane by his Senior Advisor Josh Sawislak and members of his security detail. 

Donovan, who oversaw the distribution of Hurricane Sandy recover funds for the federal government, was announced by Cuomo during his speech, which included new storm recovery and prevention initiatives.

Cuomo administration officials did not immediately comment on why the governor dispatched a plane for Donovan or how much it cost taxpayers.

“It is a legitimate question as to what was so important that the secretary be at the State of the Address,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Group. “Was it worth that the taxpayer expense? The public deserves an explanation for how their tax dollars are spent.”

This is the sort of thing that Cuomo would scream about if anybody else was doing it.

But since it's Sheriff Andy doing it himself, it's all good.

Just another example of why we need an independent investigation to look into Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.

Cuomo Will Try To Steal Money For His Charter School Donors From Traditional Public Schools

From Jessica Bakeman's Capital NY article about the complex budget negotiations around education issues:

Cuomo came out strong for charters, in response to pleas from Success Academy head Eva Moskowitz, pledging to “save” them, and the Senate was the first to quantify what that will take: increased tuition rates that would be paid from traditional public schools to charters, a moratorium on charging rent for space, access to facilities funding and the ability to offer pre-K. The proposal would establish the principle that mayoral control of schools in New York City is contingent on the state agreeing with what the mayor does. Which is to say the mayor wouldn't have full control anymore.

...

Unions and advocates describe the push as an attack on traditional public school education. Silver has said that the capital funding that the Senate has proposed to help charters secure facilities would be better used to finance classroom space for New York City students who take classes in trailers because schools are at capacity.

Whatever extra money Cuomo gives to his charter school donors will not come from the budget as a whole - it will come from the funds allotted to public schools.

In other words, he is stealing money from public schools to give to charter schools.

Apparently the "student lobbyist" doesn't care much about the students sitting in dilapidated, mold-ridden trailers or falling apart school buildings.