Wednesday, April 8, 2015

What Did NYSUT Get For Dropping $600K On Lobbying?

From State of Politics:

Expenses records filed with the state’s lobbying regulator show the education battle show at least $757,093 was spent by both pro-charter school groups or the statewide teachers union during January and February.

The figure is likely to grow when the organizations reveal their March and April lobbying data later in the year with the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

The New York State United Teachers union alone spent $591,093 during the first two months of the year, with money being spent on travel to Albany for rallies, advertising and in-house printing and postage.

Records show that during the same time period last year, NYSUT spent a fraction of that amount on lobbying costs: $179,350.

The ads and the rallies put a dent in Cuomo's poll numbers.

But Cuomo got his way on his education reform agenda anyway.

If you go back over this blog, you'll see different ad ideas I had for how to take on Cuomo and his education reform agenda (see here, here and here, for example)

NYSUT didn't take me up on my ideas (and to be honest, I didn't expect them to) and went with their own campaign instead.

It helped a little, since Cuomo's poll numbers, especially on education issues, dropped.

But the end result was still a major victory for Cuomo and a major defeat for teachers.

I would have helped design their ads for free and maybe gotten better results than NYSUT got for $600K.

This ad idea in particular would have had Cuomo and his flying attack monkeys jumping:

New Cuomo Ad Idea: Governor Cuomo Spends $1.7 Million On Court Costs To Keep From Spending More Money On Public School Kids

This came up in yesterday's post about how Cuomo is spending $1.7 million on legal fees and expert witnesses to keep from having to spend more money on public schools:

A reader wrote:

Cuomo is losing his sense of reality. I am now reading how Cuomo is spending almost 2 million dollars to defend not spending more money on schools!!!! This is so crazy people. Say it again, Cuomo is spending almost two million dollars to defend his policy of short changing schools of funding. 

And that gave me an idea:

NYSUT should run ads "Cuomo spends $1.7 million on lawyers to keep from spending more money on public school kids..." Bet that would be great for his poll numbers.

What say you NYSUT?

Want to take Cuomo's numbers down even more?

Run an ad with public school teachers looking into the camera and telling the public how Cuomo is spending nearly $2 million dollars on court costs to keep from having to pony up for more money for public school children. 

Alas, was not to be.

Instead NYSUT and the UFT took him on their way and we got the results we did - complete defeat.

17 comments:

  1. So RBE, in a nutshell the new evals begin when? September? No, right? Don't they have till mid Nivember to come up with a death trap and lam for us teachers? When do the new evals go into effect for real???
    additionally, I looked at the new evaluation matrix which you can find on google images. It's actually not that bad. there are only 3 ways to get an overall rating of Ineffective. It's actually pretty hard to receive an "I".
    You'd have to obtain an I on total observations and your school get an I or a D. The only other way is if you get a D and your school gets an I. Other than these 3 ways, it's Developing or higher. Look at the matrix. It's not bad.

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    Replies
    1. "Not bad" is in the eye of the beholder.

      As for when it goes into effect, I believe it's 2016-2017. The budget language declares 2016-2017 as the timeline for lifetime certified teachers having to "register" w/ NYSED. My guess is, that;s going to be the timeline for the new system, since NYSED doesn't have to come up w/ the details until June 30 and districts have until November to make deals w/ the unions on it.

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    2. I am not so sure about the 2016/17 timeline. My understanding is next year, unless a local does not approve. Will try to confirm.

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    3. That actually makes more sense, but how does it work if district/union are still in negotiations until November?

      Can a system go into place 25% into the school year?

      I don't know the answer to that...

      I do know that the registration lifetime certification teachers have to do w/ NYSED starts in 2016-2017 according to the budget language.

      What a mess!

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    4. Hold observations until after Nov. 15 or let principal do first one. The score is not going to be tabulated until after June 30 , 2016 so the Nov. 15 date doesn't matter. The testing isn't done until April.

      I am still of the opinion we (NYSUT) should file a lawsuit to stop the re-registration of lifetime certificates. It's an ex post facto requirement that should be challenged. Why the hell am I giving NYSUT $1,000 a year?? Do something Karen Magee!!!

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    5. Too soon to judge it. The real tell will be the VAM formula that NYSED produces. And whether or not they tie all teachers to "tested" subjects.

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    6. A. STUDENT PERFORMANCE CATEGORY. SUCH CATEGORY SHALL HAVE AT LEAST ONE
      SUBCOMPONENT AND AN OPTIONAL SECOND SUBCOMPONENT AS FOLLOWS:
      (1) FOR THE FIRST SUBCOMPONENT, (A) FOR A TEACHER WHOSE COURSE ENDS IN
      A STATE-CREATED OR ADMINISTERED TEST FOR WHICH THERE IS A STATE-PROVIDED
      GROWTH MODEL, SUCH TEACHER SHALL HAVE A STATE-PROVIDED GROWTH SCORE
      BASED ON SUCH MODEL; AND (B) FOR A TEACHER WHOSE COURSE DOES NOT END IN
      A STATE-CREATED OR ADMINISTERED TEST SUCH TEACHER SHALL HAVE A STUDENT
      LEARNING OBJECTIVE (SLO) CONSISTENT WITH A GOAL-SETTING PROCESS DETER-
      MINED OR DEVELOPED BY THE COMMISSIONER, THAT RESULTS IN A STUDENT GROWTH
      SCORE; PROVIDED THAT, FOR ANY TEACHER WHOSE COURSE ENDS IN A STATE-
      CREATED OR ADMINISTERED ASSESSMENT FOR WHICH THERE IS NO STATE-PROVIDED
      GROWTH MODEL, SUCH ASSESSMENT MUST BE USED AS THE UNDERLYING ASSESSMENT
      FOR SUCH SLO;

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  2. Forget about the $600,000 that went down the drain. What about the tens of millions of dollars in VOTE COPE contributions over the past decade to a bunch of creeps that turned their collective backs on all of us. Andy Pallotta should never be allowed near VOTE COPE again. NYSUT recommended we vote for all these Assembly losers and they stabbed us.

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  3. My superintendent just told me his understanding is the evaluation changes are effective for 15/16.

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  4. I am reading the legislation. It is quite interesting. It states that the second observation can be performed by a peer who is rated either effective or highly effective. That person can come from your own school or a different school. So a district concerned about these changes could train its own teachers to do the non-principal/administrator observation. It is up to the district.

    The legislation clearly states "This act takes effect immediately." (That means 15/16.) The observation/APPR component cannot take effect until the union agrees to it if there is a contract in place. Hence, the threat to take away the state aid increase.

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    Replies
    1. Are you sure about the peer observer? I think the peer observation is an optional "third" observation. The first two, one by a building supervisor, the second by the outside observer, cannot be a peer.

      As for the 2015/2016 start date, yes, you're right. Went back and looked at it.

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    2. After I posted that I re-read the section and I do believe that I am wrong. I apologize for posting that item. You are right. In my district the principal will do one and the chair/director will do another. The latter are in a different building. Principals will have to go to different buildings to cover observations for elementary classroom teachers. I have already heard that some districts are going to hire additional full time administrators for the sole purpose of doing "independent" observations. Expect those positions to cost up to $200,000 each including benefits on Long Island. Total waste of taxpayer monies. Thank you Carl Heastie, John Flanagan and Andrew Cuomo.

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  5. I know we discussed this before on this blog, but a careful reading of the legislation indicates that those of us with lifetime certificates are being required to re-register them, we are not required to complete "state approved" professional development. Those with more modern certifications are covered by that requirement. It is as if Cuomo's crew knows this is going to get challenged and figured if we got slapped with the 100 hours requirement they would surely lose a court challenge. I am still not convinced they wouldn't lose just over making us register lifetime certificates we paid for under the law at that time.

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    Replies
    1. I'm not a lawyer. Perhaps a question for the NYSUT or UFT legal department. If they're not, you know, too busy not doing anything.

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  6. The same thing the UFT got when it spent 2.6 million on Thompson for mayor.

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    Replies
    1. Ah, yes - the vaunted Thompson endorsement.

      I was going to do a "Kiss of Death" piece about Chuy Garcia after the UFT fundraised for him, just for old time's sake.

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  7. There is a teacher in my school who has some sort of NYC Permanent License and no NYS Certification because it wasn't required when she started in 1982 (and she can't retire because she took about 10 years off to raise children)....what happens to her? Does she have to go for NYS Certification now? Is she fired? She has full tenure and the NYC License, she says, was in place of NYS Certification which was not required in NYC when she was hired (and not even recognized).

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