Friday, February 20, 2015

Cuomo To Mandate All CUNY And SUNY Students Do Internships

Because what all students need is to be forced to do free labor in order to get a college degree, Governor Cuomo is going to mandate "experiential learning" for all CUNY and SUNY grads:


Part Q - Make experiential learning a graduation requirement at SUNY and CUNY
Purpose:

This bill would make experiential learning a mandatory requirement for graduation at the State University of New York and the City University of New York to ensure our public institutions of higher education connect students to employers and jobs.

Summary of Provisions and Statement in Support:

This bill would amend Education Law to require the Boards of Trustees of the State University of New York and the City University of New York to each pass a resolution  making experiential learning or applied learning activities a mandatory requirement for graduation.

To gain employment after graduation, it is no longer sufficient for a student simply to attain a degree or certificate in a specific field. Rather, students must also demonstrate work readiness and prior relevant experience to prospective employers. Experiential learning such as cooperative education ("co-op") and internships provide a win-win-win for New York's businesses, colleges, and -- most importantly -- students.

Budget Implications:

Enactment of this bill is necessary to implement the 2015-16 Executive Budget.

Effective Date: This bill would take effect April 1, 2015

Even better, notice this language:

Enactment of this bill is necessary to implement the 2015-16 Executive Budget.

Experiential learning may be a great idea but there's no reason why it needs to be mandated by the governor and shoved into the budget with a "Yay or Nay" vote from the Legislature.

Let each SUNY and CUNY program make it's own decisions on "experiential learning" and enact (or not) their own proposals accordingly.

The Stony Brook Statesman covered this story yesterday SUNY students are NOT happy with this AT ALL:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing for experiential learning through internships and/or part-time jobs as a new graduation requirement for all SUNY students in his proposed SUNY budget for next year.
Frederick Walter, the former president of the Stony Brook University Senate who currently serves on the SUNY Senate, said Stony Brook is ahead of the curve as the current Stony Brook Curriculum calls for experiential learning upon graduation; however, how the Governor describes experiential learning and how Stony Brook University does are completely different.

The SBC asks that students at some point learn through experience, whether it be through internships, jobs, research, scholarly activity or service learning, among other experiences. Cuomo’s plan would mandate experiential learning through internships.

According to Walter, an internship would definitely help a business or journalism major, but certain students would not benefit from working as an office intern, but they rather need experience in study labs doing research and experimentations.

Issues with experiential learning being mandated by the Governor go beyond a lack of an explanation of exactly what experiential learning is. There are over 60 SUNY campuses, not counting CUNY schools, which also fall under the list of SUNY campuses.

As Walter pointed out, this mandate would be “a system-wide thing. There are 400,000 students in the SUNY system. It is huge…there aren’t enough companies in the state of N.Y. offering internships.” Not only that, but with over 60 unique schools, mandating the same requirements for all would be foolish, Walter said.

Stony Brook University professor and Director of the Center for News Literacy Dean Miller noted additional issues. Experiential learning should be a requirement “only if students have access to it” and “so many students can’t afford internships because so many of them are unpaid,” he said.

Some are wondering just where Cuomo got his education expertise:

Requiring all students to gain an internship would force certain disadvantaged students into picking up unpaid spots, which is “lunacy,” Miller said. 

Cuomo has faced opposition for trying to mandate this.
Walter said many SUNY Senate members wonder why the governor is mandating curriculum, as no governor has done so previously. 

Cuomo is a politician not a professor, therefore he does not fully understand what he is mandating.

The response from Cuomo?

The Governor’s Press Office did not comment.

Since when does the governor get to act like dictator in New York State and mandate whatever he wants in the budget?

Since Pataki took the Legislature to court and won that power:

Cuomo is also potentially testing the limits with which policy matters can be included in appropriations bills, a matter that was first considered in the landmark ruling Pataki v. Silver.

That ruling allowed governor’s significant leeway in budget-making powers, which Gov. David Paterson used to his own advantage in ramming major spending cuts through the “extender” process when the budget was passed its April 1 due date.

Cuomo's shoving more and more policy into the budget in order to push legislation that he wants that might be more problematic if the Legislature were to vote on it straight up.

This "experiential learning" mandate is particularly problematic because, as the Stony Brook Statesman notes, there are 400,000 students in the SUNY system.

There are another 480,000 CUNY students - that means there an awful lot of internships students are going to be looking for in order too graduate if Cuomo gets his way.

If you thought Cuomo's education reform plans for K-12 are insane, take heart - so are his education reform plans for CUNY and SUNY.

Isn't it time we take back our democratic form of government from the autocratic Governor Cuomo?

12 comments:

  1. This proposal is idiotic. College seniors will likely have to settle for shoveling elephant dung at the Big Apple Circus to fulfill Cuomo's requirement.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yo Cuomo! Many students are currently employed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. From Wikipedia:
    Megalomania is a psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of power, relevance, omnipotence, and by inflated self-esteem. Historically it was used as a name for narcissistic personality disorder prior to the latter's first use by Heinz Kohut in 1968, and is used today as a non-clinical equivalent.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm guessing he's going to find all these internships in the same place he's planning to find the outside evaluators who will do the observations that principals won't be trusted to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They'll be at his girlfriend's (where he sleeps) house; you know....where they decided they didn't have to apply for permits to do improvements on her house because the taxes would rise! It's only illegal for all of us; not them. This new proposal must suit him personally somehow!

      Delete
  5. Only Preet can save us now.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Another sign that the Emperor wears no clothing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. WTF. Here is the message from Cuomo's Puppetmasters, " Hey poor, working and middle class kids, we see that you were able to make it through the gauntlet called Common Core. We thought we could bore and test you to death . We hoped that you'd drop out , so we could count on you to be our cheap labor force.

    You thwarted us. You somehow persevered and made it to College. Well , we have an even better deal for you smarty pants! You're not going to be our cheap labor force, you're going to be our free labor force. Thanks! "

    ReplyDelete
  8. As a parent it bugged the heck out of me to pay summer tuition so my son could complete an internship. He made contact and arranged the intern position, he worked independently on the internship, the college took a semester's tuition and incurred zero costs--not a cent. What a fraud. Maybe Cuomo is looking at internships as a way for SUNY & CUNY to take in money without incurring costs. It is also likely that he is doing this so his 1% buddies get a lot of unpaid labor. Il Duce is too far gone--kids should be going nuts about this!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cuomo used to serve as Attorney General of NY State but apparently he is not familiar with a court ruling discussed in the NY Time article below:

    This is an incredibly important decision as far as establishing that interns have the same wage and hour rights as other employees," Turner said. "You can't just call something an internship and expect not to pay people when the interns are providing a direct benefit to the company."



    In ruling for the interns, the judge followed a six-part test outlined by the Labor Department for determining whether an internship can be unpaid. Under the test, the internship must be similar to an educational environment, run primarily for the benefit of the intern as opposed to the employer, and the intern's work should not replace that of regular employees.



    Glatt, the lead plaintiff, lamented the fact that unpaid internships have become so normal "people do it without blinking an eye."



    "It's just become a form of institutionalized wage theft," he said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. Glatt has an MBA from Case Western Reserve University and said he is currently studying law at Georgetown University Law Center.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Cuomo second guessing the Long Isl evaluators shows how Cuomo's dumber than Bloomberg. At least Bloomie didn't alienate the principals. Probably nobody likes Cuomo now, except his hedge fund patrons and the ed reform media bandwagon.

    ReplyDelete
  11. There are certain good points in this bill. People are discussing that bill in various different ways keeping in mind both plus and negative points.

    ReplyDelete