Carl Heastie: Senate Republicans Love Charters - Just Not In Their Own Districts

State of Politics:

Heastie on Friday reiterated the Assembly’s reticence to support lifting the cap on charter schools, which Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has linked to an extension of mayoral control in New York City.

“For the most part, the Assembly conference are not big supporters of charter schools,” Heastie said. “Charters are something Senate Republicans like to support. They never want them in their district.”

Indeed, John Flanagan loves charters - and charter school money.


How many charter schools are there on Long Island, where Flanagan is from?

Just five.

Flanagan and his fellow Senate Republicans from Long Island sure do love their charters - just not in their own districts.

Bloomberg Employees Despise Mike Bloomberg

I love it:

Mike Bloomberg is facing a near revolt from frustrated employees at his financial news and data giant — his biggest challenge yet since returning as the boss of the company he founded almost 34 years ago.

...

Tensions spilled into full view on Thursday when a scathing 3,222-word e-mail from a senior reporter in Bloomberg’s Washington bureau laid bare the crisis in the newsroom.

Dawn Kopecki described a “climate of fear” at the company’s news operations, where tone-deaf editors pit reporters against one another, stifle reporting on major issues and cause staffers to trip over unnecessary hurdles placed in their way by a bloated management.

“I’ve personally been at Bloomberg News for seven years now, three of which have been in DC, and I’ve never seen morale lower,” Kopecki wrote in the e-mail to the two senior editors of the news operation.

Genius at work, sowing discord, doing everything his way because he knows best.

That's the Mike Bloomberg I know and love.

So great to have him doing his destructive act to his own company.

More here.

Cuomo Donations From Western NY Politico Under Criminal Investigation Subject Of Probe

From the Buffalo News:

All of G. Steven Pigeon’s recent political contributions – including those to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo – are “fair game” in the probe of his fundraising activities, according to a source familiar with the state investigation.

Investigators are focused on the origin of about $150,000 in contributions by the Buffalo political operative, mostly in 2012 and 2013, said the source, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

...

Pigeon, 54, who served for seven years as Erie County Democratic chairman, remains the central figure in an investigation into possible corruption that prompted agents of the FBI, State Police and state Attorney General’s Office to search his waterfront condominium May 28. The same agencies also executed simultaneous search warrants at the homes of Steven M. Casey, former first deputy mayor of Buffalo, and Christopher M. Grant, chief of staff to Rep. Chris Collins, R-Clarence.

...

While Pigeon has always insisted that any money donated to political causes and candidates stemmed from his own funds, new questions surround his ability to make large contributions following revelations that he owes the federal government more than $244,000 in back taxes.

...

New interest is focused on at least two significant contributions or loans that Pigeon made in late 2013 – including donations of almost $100,000 to the caucus and $54,000 to Cuomo, especially a $50,000 contribution in connection with the governor’s 2012 birthday bash at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

...

In February, Pigeon revealed his tax returns to The Buffalo News to indicate a more than healthy income in the mid-six figures. But the contention that he was financially capable of such hefty contributions occurred 11 months after he negotiated a tax repayment plan with the Internal Revenue Service as he was incurring even more tax problems with the federal government.

Investigators are now curious about his ability to finance such significant contributions to Cuomo and the caucus, according to several sources.

The source familiar with the investigation said Pigeon’s connection to the Cuomo campaign also interests investigators.

...

Several sources confirm that Pigeon was involved in Cuomo’s Western New York campaign, including participating in periodic conference calls coordinated by Joseph Percoco, a longtime top aide to the governor.

You can see more here about the Pigeon/Cuomo connection.

Looks like Cuomo's now got to fight a two front war against criminal probes - the feds in the US attorney's office looking into Moreland tampering and Albany corruption and now state investigators out of the AG's office running a probe into Cuomo's Western New York political crony.

Assembly Dems Believe Cuomo Is Behind Anti-Assembly PR Campaign On Education Tax Credit

There has been an aggressive ad campaign run against Assembly Dems opposed to Governor Cuomo's education tax credit giveaway to his wealthy donors - and the Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Assembly Dems believe Cuomo helped strategize that PR campaign:

Democratic Assembly members, irritated by what they see as a campaign that misrepresents their positions, said they don’t want to pass the tax credit.

“There were many areas where we could have had a compromise, but it is much more difficult when you have this outside campaign that is so negative,” said Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, the chairwoman of the chamber’s education committee, on Wednesday.

Members believe Mr. Cuomo helped the campaign strategize, she added. “Why the governor would want to encourage these mailings to Democratic Assembly members’ districts is beyond me.”

Bob Bellafiore, a spokesman for the coalition, said: “Sometimes you have to speak sharply to get people to pay attention.” The coalition’s efforts operated independently of the governor, he said.

A Cuomo administration official declined to say if the administration played a role in the ad campaign, but said: “This is the nature of advocacy, groups work to further their own agendas.”

The coalition was founded by the late Peter Flanigan, an investment banker and former Nixon aide. Mr. Bellafiore said it didn’t yet know how much its campaign cost.

There's little reason to doubt Cuomo helped strategize the PR campaign because

A) his spokesperson refused to say whether the administration was involved in it and
B) Cuomo helped secretly strategize the Eva Moskowitz/Success Academies rally in Albany a year ago when she was fighting Mayor de Blasio over co-locations - as the NY Times reported.

Perhaps Cuomo thought the hardball tactics would work, but so far, they seemed to have just pissed Assembly Dems off:

Members made their concerns known to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. Mr. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, is negotiating an end-of-session agreement with Mr. Cuomo and Sen. John Flanagan, the Long Island Republican who leads the Senate.

“Clearly our members think the campaign was inappropriate, offensive and misleading,” Mr. Heastie’s spokesman said on Wednesday. “Putting the merits of the issue aside, if the goal was to enrich consultants and harden support against it, then bravo.”

...

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat who was targeted by the campaign against legislators who oppose the tax credit, said the critical ads backfired.

“The vast majority of my constituents said, ‘Hold tight, I’m with you,’ ” she said.

We'll see if that backbone in the Assembly continues.

But for now it is important to note that Assembly Dems believe Cuomo is behind the hardball PR campaign, given his past record with the Moskowitz rally and his spokesperson's refusal to say whether the administration was involved or not it's a good bet they're right, and this further poisons the relationship between the governor and his fellow Democrats.

Andrew Cuomo As Roose Bolton

From the NY Times:

Daniel J. O’Donnell, a Manhattan Democrat and the chairman of the Assembly’s Correction Committee, hopped over the teachers’ union petition before discussing the prison break in Dannemora, N.Y., and the continuing search for two escaped inmates.

Mr. O’Donnell, who had visited the Clinton Correctional Facility, where the inmates had been held, was not pleased with the governor’s approach to the breakout, which involved news conferences at the prison and multiple television interviews.

“We need a governor who behaves like a governor,” Mr. O’Donnell said, before attending a hallway rally for new action on rent regulations. “Not like the Warden of the North.”

Cuomo as "Warden of the North"?

Like this one?

Oy.

John Flanagan Introduces Bill To Raise Charter Cap

From State of Politics:

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has introduced a stand-alone bill designed to raise the charter cap by 100 and remove geographic distinctions between the statewide and citywide limit for those schools.

The bill would allow potential charter schools to choose which entity authorizes them: Either the Board of Regents or the State University of New York.

Flanagan’s measure would allow charters to re-enter the “pool” of available charters should a school close.

Based on the number of schools that have closed or are closing, one analysis shows 184 new charter schools could be authorized by the bill.

No match for the bill in the Assembly, but given the great linkage of bills that is expected soon, with rent regulation, the education tax credit, the 421-a, et al. all possibly thrown into one mish-mosh and passed, it's pretty conceivable the charter cap will see an increase as part of the mish-mosh too.

We're told Assembly Dems are still resisting the tax credit, but I don't put too much hope in the heavy hearts to hold the line any more.

As for the charter cap, I have even less hope they'll hold the line on that.

But we'll see.

Tenant Advocates Blame Cuomo For Tying Education Tax Credit To Rent Regulation

Crains reports that tenant advocates are holding Governor Cuomo accountable for the expiration of rent regulation laws in NYC and plan to primary him in three years:

"Cuomo has alienated a massive number of rent-regulated Democratic voters by not delivering stronger rent laws this session," said one operative working with tenant groups. "His base blames him, not anyone else, for the dysfunction and corruption in Albany."

By linking rent regulation with a $150 million education tax credit proposal opposed by Assembly Democrats, Mr. Cuomo has poisoned the debate, said Jonathan Westin, director of New York City Communities for Change.

"Tenants across New York City, especially in communities of color, folks that supported the governor in his re-election, are furious at what's happening," Mr. Westin said. "Albany, and the governor specifically, are playing games with their homes."

"The only thing holding up his poll numbers are New York City liberals and communities of color," he continued. "And if he loses those, I don't know what will be left. He's completely vulnerable."

I've said before, I'll say again, it's a shame these activists didn't realize Cuomo would betray them before this, so that more damage could have been done to him in the 2014 primary.

Nonetheless Westin is right that the only thing holding Cuomo up from complete political collapse in polls is the liberal base and communities of color in NYC.

If he loses that support (and God knows, he should), he will fall below Spitzer territory in approval.

Hell, he's almost in Spitzer territory now - won't take much to put him there.

A commenter at Crains points out the real danger here for Cuomo politically:

The point is not so much that "tenant activists" would pull this off but that at the rate our esteemed governor is going that by 2018 there could be a rather formidable coalition of tenant activists, anti-frackers, parents and teachers fed up with Cuomo's education policies, people finally exhausted by the Roman level of decadence now playing out in Albany and an assortment of other moderate and liberal Democrats that a real candidate willing to show some courage, like Eric Schneiderman or Tom DiNapoli, or, yes, even Zephyr Teachout would have a real chance in a primary with a lot of energized anti-Andy voters in it.

All of this assumes he's not carted out in handcuffs as the third arrest in the "Three Amigos In A Jail" show US Attorney Preet Bharara is putting on for the state.

This also assumes that the anger activists are expressing remains undiminished by whatever deal eventually gets worked out on rent regulation.

Still, the blueprint is there to continue to weaken and finally destroy Andrew Cuomo politically - and Cuomo keeps adding to it with every betrayal and fight he wages these days.

Regents Approve New Evaluation System 11-6

From LoHud:

The Board of Regents voted 11-6 to formally approve a set of rules for the state's teacher evaluation system, which will create a "matrix" that will rate teachers based on observations of their classrooms and growth in student scores on standardized tests.

Gotham Schools reports one regent asked for a separate vote on the evaluation system so that some members could publicly express their disapproval of the plan:

In an unusual move, Regent Judith Johnson asked for a separate vote on the evaluation regulations on Tuesday, allowing the six members who voted against the regulations at Monday’s meeting to do so again. The separate vote reflected some Regents’ hardened opposition to the state’s new evaluation law, which was passed during state budget negotiations earlier this year. Regents typically end their monthly meetings by voting on packages of policies and regulations all at once.

Jessica Bakeman reported that things got tense at yesterday's meeting, with conflict breaking out between the different factions:

“The meeting was tense and disorganized at different points. … Regent James Cottrell, an at-large member from Brooklyn, at one point jokingly referred to the dissenting regents as the ‘gang of seven,’ to which [Bronx Regent Betty] Rosa took offense. She stressed she wanted the record to show she didn’t appreciate name-calling. He apologized, noting that he meant the moniker with only respect.  [PRO] http://capi.tl/1IgfSBi

Michael Fiorillo points out the significance of the split on the Board of Regents:

As someone who thinks that gridlock is preferable to a malign consensus (which is what we've had with testing and so-called reform for far too long), I think this is a very good sign, as it appears that conflict is breaking out into the open between different factions, and that the consensus about so-called reform is breaking down. Conflict among so-called reformers will provide opportunities to change the terms of debate in a healthier direction.

That the conflict is out in the open and starting to get hostile does bode well if you're looking to see New York's reform agenda fall to pieces.

More from Michael:

I think I previously gave the over-under on Elia at two years, but I'm inclined to reduce that. She, more than anyone, will be ground to bits if there's open conflict among the Regents. Hopefully Tisch and her Regents Fellows mercenaries precede her.

I would add that Elia has a rep for not suffering fools gladly or working well with others.

Can't wait to see how that goes when she's dealing with a divided Board of Regents and a governor looking to throw her under the bus for any problems that arise.

If this is how they're starting with the vaunted new Cuomo reforms, just wait until the inevitable implementation problems start.

Regents Turning On Each Other

Jessica Bakeman's report on the Board of Regents meeting yesterday:

“The meeting was tense and disorganized at different points. … Regent James Cottrell, an at-large member from Brooklyn, at one point jokingly referred to the dissenting regents as the ‘gang of seven,’ to which [Bronx Regent Betty] Rosa took offense. She stressed she wanted the record to show she didn’t appreciate name-calling. He apologized, noting that he meant the moniker with only respect.  [PRO] http://capi.tl/1IgfSBi

The "Gang of Seven"?

Sure the nickname was meant in respect.

How about "Cuomo's Gang of Ten" for the rest of the members of the Board of Regents?

That'll Get Their Attention

NY Post report claims Assembly Dems are retaliating against the Catholic Church over the education tax credit the diocese has been pushing for:

Assembly Democrats, under pressure from the Catholic Church to pass a tax break to help parochial schools, on Monday revived a bill that would allow lawsuits involving decades-old claims of sexual abuse by priests.

“This is a retaliatory strike against the church,” Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, told The Post.

“We haven’t heard a whisper about this bill in six years .

“If this bill becomes law, it will have catastrophic consequences for the church — and they know it,” Poust added.

The legislation, sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Queens), would wipe out a law giving accusers up to five years to file suit once they reach 18. But after that period, lawsuits are barred.

The new law would allow anyone to sue going back decades for one year after the measure is enacted.

There's no way the state Senate or Cuomo will go for the bill, so it's really just a measure to try and embarrass the Church for hiding behind the statute of limitations on some sexual abuse charges.

The Church and other pro-tax credit groups have been playing hardball with the education tax credit PR, claiming Assembly Dems who oppose it are hurting children, so you can see why some Assembly Dems might want to hit back with "Hurting children? How about all those sexual abuse charges you hid for years?" attack.

It's brutal, but so are some of those pro-education tax credit ads getting run against Assembly Dems.

The Cuomo Matrix Mess

The new teacher evaluation plan in New York is so complicated, it seems nobody can get their head around the details:

Part of the issue was the complicated grid or "matrix" in which test results play a role in an educator's final evaluation. Tisch at one point told Regents members to draw a box and rectangle as an aid to help visualize the various options.

"My head is spinning,'' Regent Kathleen Cashin later said.

Great - when the "matrix" makes the head of one of the members of the Board of Regents spin, you know it will go swimmingly for the rest of us.

The Times-Union has an editorial today that points out what a mess this rushed implementation is going to be:

Brace yourselves, New Yorkers. The state seems to be on its way to another botched rollout of a so-called education reform.

It's happening in the rush to implement a teacher evaluation system under a law passed just over two months ago. It gave the Board of Regents only until June 30 to come up with a whole new system for evaluating teachers. This was Gov. Andrew Cuomo's answer to the last evaluation system, which called for what many parents said was too much testing and which resulted, in Mr. Cuomo's view, in too many teachers being rated effective.

Under the timetable set by Mr. Cuomo and reluctantly embraced by lawmakers, school districts will have until Nov. 15 to negotiate local evaluation systems under the Regents' model and have them approved by the State Education Department. Districts that miss the deadline risk losing this year's state aid increases.

We've seen this kind of rush before. The results weren't pretty.

We saw it with Common Core, which is inextricably linked to the phrase "botched rollout" for how New York imposed the new standards before curriculum materials were ready and tested students on material that many hadn't been taught.

We saw it with the last teacher evaluation system, introduced around the same time as Common Core. With it came more tests, sparking outrage from parents and teachers about wasting class time on questionable measurements of teacher effectiveness. Upward of 200,000 students boycotted the latest standardized tests, with their parents' blessing.

Now we are seeing what threatens to be a repeat of this upheaval.

Even supporters of teacher evaluations say the idea of judging teachers based on a single high-stakes test, as the law now requires, is flawed. They argue that to gauge student progress, multiple tests are needed over time. But parents and teachers say there's too much testing. Tests are useful, many educators say, only if teachers get data in time to address weaknesses. But that isn't the plan here.

There ought to be time to weigh these concerns. Instead, schools seem poised to plunge headlong into an initiative that sounds like it's simply not thoroughly vetted. And how can we expect children to thrive and learn in such an atmosphere of adult discord?

The TU editorial board calls for a slowdown, that the latest iteration of New York's teacher evaluation system needs to be better thought-out before it gets rolled out or it'll be just another "botched" implementation - like the Common Core, like the last evaluation rollout.

Quite frankly, I hope Cuomo keeps the pressure on the regents and SED to get this evaluation system in place in as many districts as possible this coming November.

Because Cuomo owns this matrix mess, this is his arbitrary deadline, his imposed timeline.

When this thing falls in on itself - and make no mistake, the regents' inability to get their heads around the matrix means it will fall in on itself sooner rather than later - Cuomo will own the mess.

The members of the Board of Regents made that clear yesterday, the heavy hearts in the Assembly who voted for Cuomo's education reform budget that mandated this garbage have made that clear and parents and teachers who have been fighting Cuomo on his "reforms" have made that clear.

This is Cuomo's matrix mess, his deadline, his timeline, his mandates.


There will be nobody to blame for the fallout but himself.

Regents Approve Four Month Waiver To Delay APPR Teacher Evaluation System

From Politics on the Hudson:

School districts could get a four-month waiver to delay the Nov. 15 deadline to implement new teacher evaluations after Board of Regents subcommittee approved the change today.

The vote came as the Board of Regents signs off on a new set of criteria to evaluate teachers and principals in the state’s nearly 700 school districts. The full Board of Regents is set to approve the changes tomorrow.

...

The four-month waiver would take a district into the spring, so the new system wouldn’t be in place during the 2015-16 school year, which starts July 1.

That’s if a district applies to the state Education Department for the waiver and is approved.

How many districts apply for the waiver?

How many are granted waivers?

And how does Governor Cuomo, assuming he's not in prison, react since he said he would only be happy if waivers were the exception, not the rule?

Indication That Assembly Heavy Hearts Are Ready To Cave On Cuomo's Education Tax Credit

For weeks now, Assembly Dems have held the line on the education tax credit Cuomo has been pushing so heavily, but we're getting an indication today that the heavy hearts in the Assembly are set to surrender:

Assemblyman John McDonald, a Democrat who represents parts of Albany and the surrounding area, was forthcoming in a Sunday night statement on where he sees the rest of the session headed.

...

As for the education tax credit, McDonald sees the real linkage with potential changes to the implementation of the teacher evaluation system. McDonald backs moving those deadlines for evaluation adoption back.

“The ETC does enjoy more support in the Democratic Assembly than many believe but this also needs to be reviewed to ensure that the large donors do not consume the benefits,” he said.

Changes to the evaluation system in exchange for an education tax credit that pulls millions from the public education system, pays back Cuomo's wealthy donors with an insanely generous tax credit and sets the stage for even more "voucher" programs in the future to put the finishing touches on public education.

How's that for a surrender?

It's a big one, especially when you consider that the evaluation system is a mess and will collapse in on itself in two years or less.

We'll see if this is how the education tax credit standoff ends - you keep hearing how the aggressive pro-tax credit campaign has backfired and given some backbone to the heavy hearts in the Assembly.

But these are the same Assembly Dems who voted "aye" on the Cuomo education reform budget, albeit with heavy hearts, so it remains to be seen just how strong those backbones are.

Can you have a strong backbone and a heavy heart at the same time?

Cuomo's Dannemora Press Conference Disrupted Efforts To Capture Escaped Criminals

Fred Dicker in the Post:

Cuomo’s surprise arrival at a still-unfolding escape scene a week ago Saturday generated considerable national publicity for the governor, but distracted investigators at a time when the full facts of the escape were not yet known, the sources said.

“Cuomo actually disrupted the early search efforts when he arrived at the ‘command center’ on Saturday and refused to enter the room until everyone was removed except state employees,’’ said a longtime law-enforcement figure who has regular contact with many involved in the search effort.

“Cuomo’s aides came in and threw out the US marshal, the sheriff [David Favro, like Cuomo a Democrat] and others who were there to help coordinate the search effort.

“And they did it without even saying ‘Thanks for your help,’ or such, just, ‘Get out so his highness can enter.’

Ken Lovett at the Daily News reports some are saying Cuomo's budget cuts are partly to blame for the prison escape:

Cuomo has been front-and-center publicly since the two dangerous inmates dug their way to freedom.

But critics have already begun questioning whether prison staffing and overtime issues played a role in the first escape from a New York maximum security prison since 2003.

The Plattsburgh Press Republican reported that two guard towers at Clinton Correctional were left unmanned because the Cuomo administration was pressing for cuts in overtime.

That paper and the Albany Times Union also reported that a request to lock down and search every cell at the prison after a melee days before the escape was turned down because of overtime concerns.

“There’s enough dots connected to raise eyebrows and people are beginning to question if this is a problem of the governor’s creation,” said one insider. “The prison break could end up being an even bigger headache for him once the prisoners are safely captured. It ties into what he’s doing with the agencies and their budgets.”

Cuomo did the full morning Monty after the escape, going on as many "news" shows as he could to play "Tough Guy" and show Americans how "in charge he is.

But the longer this story goes, the more damaging it becomes to Cuomo.

It exposes him as an incompetent gloryhound whose policies helped bring about this mess.

Cuomo better hope they catch these dudes soon - the longer they're free, the more scrutiny he and his administration are going to get.

Cuomo Unveils $100 Million Dollars For Upstate "Failing" Schools He Insists Isn't Tied To His Education Tax Credit

Cuomo proposes $100M for distressed upstate schools—including Yonkers—that he insists isn't linked to ed tax credit http://t.co/KlYBdfJF0x

— Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) June 14, 2015

More:

Asked directly if the school aid and tax credit would be linked, Cuomo said: “No, those are two separate bills.”

Anybody believe him?

Well don't:

“Everything is held up now,” Cuomo said during the news conference. “The way it works in the legislative session, nothing moves until everything moves. It’s a hard concept to communicate. There are 10 or 12 key items, among both houses. They’re working through to get agreement, and then they’ll wind up with a global agreement, and everything moves at the end, hopefully.”

It's not a hard concept to communicate - everything is connected in one gigantic quid pro quo instead of each bill standing (or falling) on its own.

Albany is a cesspool of corruption, it's obvious to anybody paying even an iota of attention, and no matter how much Cuomo swears these bills aren't linked, they are.

Clearly the resistance to Cuomo's education tax credit in the Assembly wasn't buckling as the legislative session came to a close, so now Cuomo's thrown some bribe money into the mix.

And that's what this is:

“The ploy is obvious—he is offering $100 million for urban schools in upstate districts represented by Assembly Democrats,” Billy Easton, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education, a labor-backed advocacy group, said in a statement. “He is trying to sweeten the pot to secure Assembly votes in support. But it must stand on its own merits. There is no room for a quid pro quo.”

Indeed there is no room for a quid pro quo but Cuomo knows no other way to govern.

Was Cuomo Partly Responsible For The Prison Break?

Fred LeBrun:

Don't worry about the governor. He's got all the television face time on national news he could ever hope for. He just shines stage center as the man in charge whenever we have a disaster or calamity, a leveling hurricane or flood, train wreck or in this case, sexy prison break in the North Country.

A pair of convicted murderers on the loose, with the governor calling the race and doing the color commentary leading up to their expected recapture.

It is a lot more appealing for the governor's attention than the frustrations of dealing with the Great Albany Hesitancy over legislative matters,

We can only hope the governor remains as enthusiastic about sharing his views with the public when it's time to thoroughly investigate not just how the escapees managed to get out of the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, but also what impact staff and overtime cuts and other factors dictated by his administration may have had on the event happening at all.

Be nice if the next time he goes on the media tour for the prison story, the press hit him hard on those questions.

But they won't.

Hell, according to NT2 blog, the Albany press corps didn't even cover Cuomo on his visit to Dannemora - they got pool coverage from the Cuomo press shop instead.

How do you like that?

Cuomo's PR people covering Cuomo and feeding the pictures and "news" out to the press corps.

That's one good way to make sure nobody really knows what happened.

A Great Way To Assess College Readiness

Workingmomfromnys had a reaction to the news that SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher wants to add more tests to the Endless Testing regime in order to test and track college readiness levels in high school:

Here is a way to assess college and career readiness.... give students more independent work and see how they do executing it and meeting deadlines. I bet that is a far better predictor of college or career "readiness" then any test....

Of course that sort of "college readiness" gauge doesn't make boatloads of cash for the Endless Testing regime or make the Gates Foundation technocrats happy, so it'll never fly.

SUNY Chancellor Envisions More Tests In High School To Track "College Readiness"

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher wants to pilot a new test in high schools for predicting students’ college readiness she says would offer more useful information than the standardized assessments already offered.

Zimpher was at a Clinton Global Initiative event in Denver earlier this week pitching her idea to investors. She has tentative commitments for $500,000 in in-kind donations, but needs $2 million to make the plan a reality, she said during an interview with Capital this week.

Assuming she secures the funding, SUNY would put out a request for proposals this fall to find a “diagnostic” test to pinpoint early where students are falling behind. Starting in fall 2016, the exam would be piloted in 10th and 11th grade classes in five New York school districts: Rochester and Yonkers, as well as rural districts near Binghamton, Plattsburgh and Geneva.

Partnering with local public and private colleges, high school teachers would use the test results to tailor individualized plans that aim to help struggling students improve and excelling students gain access to advanced coursework.

Zimpher sees these tests as more useful than the state tests so many parents and teachers are hostile too - and hundreds of thousands opted out of this year.

The "diagnostic" test has yet to be developed, so I fail to see how Zimpher's so sure this test will be more useful than the state tests.

Also the funding hasn't been secured for the program - is $2 million really enough to put such an expansive program in place?

We're talking the tests, the resources for the individualized plans that are supposed to help students, the "free" online "college readiness" course she plans to develop in concert with this testing program.

I know she's only looking to pilot this in five school districts, but given all that Zimpher claims this diagnostic test/college readiness program will do, I'm skeptical $2 million gets it off the ground.

I'm also skeptical that no matter how much she gets to run the program it will actually work.

Why not take the money she wants for testing, tracking, et al. and put it into smaller class sizes and other classroom resources?

Ah, but there's nothing "cutting edge" about that and so, alas, we get yet another testing/college readiness program that will cost millions and is doomed to inevitable failure.

You have to wonder, what matters more to educrats like Zimpher - the individuals she's charged with educating or the Endless Testing regime that feeds off all the testing/tracking she mandates?

Proposed Recommendations On Teacher Evaluations Make Clear Collective Bargaining Agreements Can Be Broken

This shows up a couple of times in the proposed teacher evaluation plan the Board of Regents released last night:

The alignment of these subcomponents among each other and with Student Performance category will be subject to audit and corrective action that may require changes in a collective bargaining agreement .

And:

If a district’s system does not result in meaningful feedback for teachers and principals, the Department may impose a corrective action plan that may require changes to a collective bargaining agreement.

They want to make sure everybody knows that NYSED has the power to take "corrective action" on the parts of the APPR system that are locally negotiated.

In short, you have the freedom to locally negotiate an evaluation system that meets exactly what they want or they will take "corrective action" and change it.

So much for local control or collective bargaining.

Why Is The Independent Observer Still In The Regents Teacher Evaluation Plan?

Board of Regents pulled a Friday evening document dump and released their proposed teacher evaluation plan.

Skimming through it, it remains a muddled mess, though the independent observation is now down to as little as 10% of the overall rating:

The statewide minimum standard would be two observations (one principal/supervisor; one independent) with the frequency and duration determined locally.

In addition to the above, short walkthrough observations are permissible.

Observations may exceed these minimum standards and any additional observations may be included in the overall observation score, as determined locally.

At least one observation must be unannounced .

The percentage for the principal/supervisor observation shall be established locally, but must be at least 80%;

The percentage for the independent observation shall be established locally, but must be at least 10%;

The percentage for the optional peer observation shall be established locally within these constraints.

What's the point of having to expend all the time, energy and resources on independent observers if the independent observation is only 10%?

I'll tell you what the point is.

Cuomo decided there will be independent observations and by golly, there are going to be independent observations!

We will have none of this in-house observation inflation that has obviously occurred over the past couple of years with APPR - except that, given that the outside observer can be worth as little as 10%, little will actually change from previous years.

In fact, if I'm reading this correctly, there can be two observations under this new system with the in-house one worth 90% and the outside one worth 10%.

Sure, there can be more observations, but the minimum is two, with one in-house (worth up to 90%) and one outside observer (worth as little as 10%).

So essentially, the in-house observation is the whole ballgame when it comes to observations.

Again I ask, what's the point of outside observers if they're only worth 10%?

Not that I want the outside observations at all, but I do like to point out the horse hockey in the system and here is a prime example of it.

More on the evaluation plan later.