Cuomo Approaches Teacher Evaluations With Same Illiteracy He Uses For His Economic Development Programs

It's been quite the couple of weeks for Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo, who likes to spend his days finding new ways to torture Bill de Blasio, found himself on the end of some of his own torture in the form of state and federal audits of some of his signature economic development programs as well as a legislative hearing that laid bare the failures of another one of his signature economic development programs.

First came state audits conducted by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli which were critical of Cuomo's economic development program compliance and accountability mechanisms:

The governor escalated yet another feud with yet another fellow Democrat after an unrelated press conference in the Bronx this afternoon. Responding to a series of unflattering summertime analyses of his signature programs, Cuomo bashed DiNapoli’s two-decade tenure representing parts of Nassau County in the Assembly and argued that history discredited the comptroller’s assessments.

...

The governor did not specifically attack any particular proposals the comptroller voted on in Albany but insisted the Assembly had been “part of the problem” and had “basically abandoned upstate New York.”

Cuomo’s slap at DiNapoli was a reaction to the comptroller’s findings earlier this month that the New York Power Authority, which was supposed to dispense power to struggling nonprofits and entrepreneurs at discounted rates under the governor’s Recharge NY program, had made numerous errors when assessing applicants’ eligibility. This meant noncompliant entities got cheap electricity from the state anyway, while groups that qualified for the program were barred from participating.

The governor appoints the power authority’s entire board.

That audit followed the comptroller’s July takedown of the Empire State Development Corporation, another Cuomo-controlled public-private venture, and its Excelsior jobs program. DiNapoli found that the development corporation had repeatedly handed out large tax breaks to companies without obtaining the necessary documentation to corroborate their eligibility or productivity.

Cuomo claimed DiNapoli's audits were not quantifiable but were instead "opinions":

“What you’re getting in an audit is that person’s opinion, right?” the governor said. “Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree, because it is only an opinion.”

Except that the state audits weren't "opinions":

The comptroller’s audits of Recharge NY and the Excelsior program were, in fact, based on numbers and hard data his office obtained from the NYPA and ESDC, from the businesses they worked with, and on eligibility requirements Cuomo’s own initiatives established. A DiNapoli spokeswoman refused to respond to the governor’s personal attacks.

“The reports completed by our professional auditors speak loudly for themselves,” said Jennifer Freedman, communications director for the comptroller.

Nice work by the governor there to take an audit based on numbers and hard data from Cuomo-controlled entities like NYPA and ESDC and turn them into "opinions", eh?

Later on, Cuomo tried a diversionary tactic to defend against the state audit findings:

Facing numerous analyses showing his signature jobs programs misallocated resources and put few New Yorkers to work, Gov. Andrew Cuomo argued today that any such assessments are only a matter of political point of view.

Speaking after an unrelated event in the Bronx, the governor defended his attacks last week on state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who released unflattering audits of two Cuomo programs this summer. The governor again insisted that those findings were just DiNapoli’s opinions, opinions which are open to debate given the comptroller’s history as an assemblyman from Long Island.

“I said these are matters where people give their opinion. I have certain opinions that are my opinions. I believe in marriage equality, right? I believe in $15 as a minimum wage. You could not believe—there are assemblymen who don’t agree with me, there are senators who don’t agree with me on the minimum wage. And if they write a report, they’re going to say my minimum wage idea was a bad idea, because they disagree with it. And that’s fine—that’s democracy. And assemblymen take positions during the course of their tenure. And some people support minimum wage, some people don’t support minimum wage. Some people don’t support economic development. There are people in the Assembly who say there is no economic development possible, leave it to the private sector. So you get opinions,” the governor said. “It’s a matter of opinion on many of these issues, and there’s no right or wrong. That’s why we have elections; that’s why we have debates. Donald Trump thinks one thing. Hillary Clinton thinks another thing.”

How any of this commentary was relevant to the Observer’s specific question about DiNapoli, a well-known liberal Democrat, is unclear. The audits the comptroller’s office produced had nothing to do with gay marriage or with the state’s new pay floors, but with Cuomo’s Recharge NY and Excelsior programs.

Of course none of that nonsense Cuomo spewed about the minimum wage or gay marriage had anything to do with the questions about the state audits and Cuomo's lame defense that they were "opinions."

Rather this nonsense was pure diversionary tactic - "Hey, look over there!  Gay marriage! Minimum wage hike!  Whee!  Yayy Cuomo!" - not a reasoned defense of his economic development programs to the scathing audit findings.

And again, as Will Bredderman at the Observer shows, DiNapoli's audits were anything but opinion:

Recharge NY, run through the Cuomo-controlled New York Power Authority, was supposed to dispense power to struggling nonprofits and entrepreneurs at discounted rates. But DiNapoli’s auditors found NYPA had made numerous errors when assessing applicants’ eligibility—meaning noncompliant entities got cheap electricity from the state anyway, while groups that qualified for the program were barred from participating.

The governor appoints the power authority’s entire board.

That audit followed the comptroller’s July takedown of the Excelsior jobs program, run through the Empire State Development Corporation, another Cuomo-controlled public private entity, and its Excelsior jobs program. DiNapoli discovered that the development corporation had repeatedly handed out large tax breaks to companies without obtaining the necessary documentation to corroborate their eligibility or productivity.

The comptroller’s audits of Recharge NY and the Excelsior program were based on numbers and hard data his office obtained from the NYPA and ESDC, from the businesses they worked with, and on eligibility requirements Cuomo’s own initiatives established.

But hey, what's some hard data and numbers taken from Cuomo's own entities when you can be diverting with some nonsense about gay marriage?

Cuomo tried a similar nonsensical defense with a federal audit this week that found New York State wasted $22 million dollars in Sandy funds:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed President Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development today for alleging New York mishandled $22.4 million in hurricane relief funds from Washington—insisting that his administration understands federal law better than Obama’s.

Cuomo, a Democrat who headed HUD during the Clinton administration, lashed out at an audit by Obama’s inspector general for the agency while addressing the press after an unrelated event in the Bronx this morning. IG David Montoya’s office found that Cuomo’s  Office of Tourism and Marketing did a poor job meeting the requirements of the block grant money it received in the aftermath of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

But the governor argued that Montoya and his staff don’t understand HUD rules.

“Some federal person, entity, did an audit. We believe they misread the law, and misread the regulations, about how the funding should be spent, and so we’re contesting their opinion,” he said, boasting of his administration’s response to the disaster. “During Hurricane Sandy, we expended billions and billions of dollars, literally. In the handling of the emergency and the construction and the aftermath, trying to get people to come back to the effected communities. So I’m very proud of what the state did.”

So what did the federal audit find?

In particular, Montoya’s auditors discovered that the state handed millions for marketing and promotions to the Empire State Development Corporation—a Cuomo-run public-private organization—and the city of Long Beach on Long Island without first obtaining an independent analysis of the costs of their respective programs. It also determined the state did not get sufficiently detailed budgets from either ESDS or Long Beach on how the federal dollars would get spent.

“State officials did not always establish and maintain financial and administrative controls to ensure efficient and effective program administration,” the audit report reads. “We attribute these conditions to State officials not placing sufficient emphasis on ensuring compliance with all procurement requirements.”

Montoya’s office brushed off Cuomo’s criticism.

“We believe that the audit speaks for itself, period,” said spokesman Darryl J. Madden. “Throughout the audit process the state was given ample opportunity to comment on our findings and results.”

Another scathing audit, this time federal, but same lame defense tactic from Cuomo - the audit's bullshit, it wasn't done right, we did everything we were supposed to do, etc.

But notice, Cuomo never uses any facts, figures or hard data in his defense against these audits - all we get are personal attacks and diversionary tactics.

The audits came on the heels of a legislative hearing that took another signature Cuomo economic development program to task - the infamous START-UP NY program:

ALBANY - Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top economic-development official on Wednesday bemoaned a wave of skepticism surrounding Start-Up NY, a state program that created just 408 new jobs in its first two years despite a $53 million advertising campaign.

Over more than two hours of questioning, a bipartisan group of state Assembly members grilled Empire State Development President and CEO Howard Zemsky about the much-debated jobs program at a hearing Wednesday on the state's efforts to boost its economy.

Zemsky was defiant as lawmakers repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of the Start-Up program, which allows qualifying businesses to operate free of state and local taxes for a decade if they set up shop in pre-determined zones, mostly at State University of New York campuses.

He repeatedly characterized Start-Up as a single "tool" in the state's economic-development "toolbox" and suggested criticism of the program is outsized and unfounded.

...

 

Cuomo and state lawmakers approved the Start-Up program in 2013, and the state spent $53 million promoting it with television advertisements in and out of state in 2014 and early 2015. The governor referred to the program as a potential "game-changer" and "catalyst for economic development" in upstate New York.

Empire State Development, which oversees the program, faced significant criticism after it was three months late in releasing a required annual report on Start-Up's progress.

That report, which was ultimately released on the Friday evening ahead of the July 4 weekend, showed the program created 332 new jobs in 2015, on top of 76 in its first year. The legally required information on Start-Up was confined to a few pages and a footnote within a broader report on the state's economic development program.

$53 million dollars, 408 jobs - but the Cuomo administration defends the program, calling criticism of the program outsized and unfounded.

Let's see, $53 million divided by 408 is $129,901 a job - yeah, that's quite an achievement in economic development.

How anybody defends that kind of program with a straight face is beyond me, but that's what you have to do if you're a member of the Cuomo administration and you've got all these failures on your hands and independent officials and/or entities scrutinizing them (as opposed to the Cuomo shills Cuomo is used to having prop up his record for him.)

In addition to all of this, the criminal investigation into another Cuomo economic development program, the Buffalo Billion Project, continues apace, with one former Cuomo crony, Todd Howe, reported to have dropped a dime on other Cuomo cronies, including former top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco and SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros.

When the indictments in that case come down, Cuomo will be the subject of another scathing expose into his economic development program expertise, this one at the hands of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, but I'm sure we'll get defense tactics out of Cuomo similar to the one's detailed above here.

Which brings me, finally, to my point about teacher evaluations here in New York State under Governor Cuomo.

Not so long ago, Cuomo claimed the old teacher evaluation system in New York State was too easy for teachers, not enough teachers were being declared ineffective and the whole thing needed an overhaul.

So, overhaul it got, though no one is quite sure what the overhaul has in it - Cuomo used the same numerical illiteracy he uses in his economic development programs for this new "scientific" teacher evaluation system.

And the best catch is, budget funds for schools are tied to the whole mess: 

School districts are still on the hook to evaluate every teacher, the results can still be used to make decisions about educators’ futures, and a 2015 law is about to require a host of new rules. And with just days left in this year’s legislative session, it’s becoming clear that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has little desire to see that change.

“This is a major issue that is right now going ignored,” State Senator Todd Kaminsky said. “People are saying it’s a time-out and it’s not.”

The strange situation came about because legislators passed a law overhauling the state’s teacher evaluation system last year to put more emphasis on state tests — and then education policymakers walked it back, banning state test results from being used altogether.

Lawmakers were responding to Cuomo’s view that too many teachers were earning top ratings. The state education department was listening to a growing movement of educators and parents upset about the growing influence of state tests.

In the end, the state education department decided teachers would get two evaluations. Next year, one will include state test scores but have no consequences. The real evaluations will use different metrics and can affect teacher tenure and firing.

Within those frameworks, districts and their teachers unions will have to agree on key details and those negotiations are ongoing.

“We are working with districts across the state to support their efforts as they complete their contract negotiations and to provide them as much flexibility as possible within the law,” State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said.

But many had hoped that lawmakers would agree to scrap the universally unpopular 2015 law by now, making it unnecessary for districts to negotiate the details of the two new plans at all. So far, that hasn’t happened — and since there are just three days left in the legislative session, few think change is on the way.

“The big hangup is obviously the governor’s office,” said Assemblyman Edward Ra, who supports repealing last year’s law. “It really creates a little bit of a mess for everybody.” (Officials from Cuomo’s office did not say whether the governor would support changes to teacher evaluations.)

Now, it’s up to school districts like New York City to work out the details of new evaluation plans with their teachers unions. Barring a big change in the next few days, they are facing a tight timeline: They need an agreement by Sept. 1 or they risk losing state funds.

 
What a mess - a Cuomo-created mess - and yet, somehow this child-man remains in power, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, issuing idiotic attacks and lame defenses when those expenditures are scrutinized, and continuing on to do more an more damage to the state.

One thing is pretty certain from all of this:

We have yet to get an independent audit of Cuomo's education policies that he's imposed on the state via the budget process (including teacher evaluations), but you can bet that if/when we get one, it will be as scathing as the ones we got on his economic development programs.

Cuomo Blames Regents For Problems He Caused

Cuomo's just throwing everybody under the bus these days - this time it's the Board of Regents (following on his former aides, Percoco and Howe, and SUNY Poly head Alain Kaloyeros, all of whom are under federal investigation for corruption):

HIGHLAND - Gov. Andrew Cuomo had harsh words Monday for the Board of Regents as the state science tests wrapped up.

Many parents across the state are continuing to refuse to let their children take the Common Core-based tests.

"The problem is the state Education Department, which is the the Board of Regents," said Cuomo, who was in the mid-Hudson for an event at the Walkway Over the Hudson.

"It did a terrible job in implementing Common Core," Cuomo said. "Now, state Education Department people say, 'Well, that's you, governor, you're the state.' Actually, no. I have no role in selecting the Board of Regents," he added, noting that the Regents are elected by the state Assembly. 

... 

Cuomo said the 17-member Board of Regents must "change their perspective and their level of competence." 

"They lost the faith and trust of the parents of this state, and they're going to have to remedy that," said Cuomo. 

"It's not that the parents are irrational. The parents are rational. The system was implemented poorly and it did a lot of harm," he added.

A big part of the reason parents have lost "faith and trust" in the system is because of the education policies Cuomo has pushed - including the draconian education law that made test scores 50% of a teacher's evaluation.

Cuomo likes to make as if he has no power over education, but he's used his budgetary powers numerous times as governor to impose his own desires on the education system, whether it be tying teachers to 50% of their students' test scores or forcing New York City to pick up the tab for charter school rents.

This is just another example of Cuomo causing problems, then trying to pass the blame off elsewhere.

Are the Board of Regents to blame for some of this mess?

Absolutely - the Merryl Tisch Board of Regents certainly was to blame.

Same goes for the David Steiner and John King NYSED.

But Cuomo's got lots of blame for this mess too - and parents around this state know this.

Just witness his polling on education - it's in the toilet, along with the rest of his administration.

Preet Bharara can't cart this criminal out fast enough.

Come on, Preet - when's Preetmas?

Regents Exam Season Begins, But NYSUT Says The Scores Are Not In APPR (Even Though They Are!)

You can see here the fun I had on twitter with an NYSUT hack over the APPR test score moratorium that isn't actually a moratorium since high school teachers are not effected by it in the least.

Today starts Regents season - the ELA Regents, along with a math and history test are all today.

More Regents exams continue the rest of the week, including Common Core math exams.

The ELA test today is the Common Core variation and it will indeed be part of my APPR rating, thus making the claim that Common Core state tests are not part of APPR ratings an erroneous one:

Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

 The politicians keep saying there's a moratorium on state test scores in APPR.

The unions are running ads saying the same thing.

The education reporters are writing about the moratorium in their education stories.

Except the "moratorium" doesn't actually exist.

It's been learned long ago that if you repeat lies often enough, they become truth.

This is what has happened with APPR.

The lie just keeps getting repeated over and over and over.

Here is the truth:

• The Education Transformation Act of 2015 requires that 50% of  a teacher’s evaluation be based on a student performance measure. This will not change unless the law is amended.  

• Although teachers will still receive a growth score based on state tests, a 4 year moratorium has been passed on the use of state-provided growth scores for NYS Grades 3-8 Common Core ELA and Math tests in teacher evaluations. 

• ALL teachers will still be subject to a 50% test-based evaluation as per the law. Schools must administer an additional, locally determined assessment  (approved by the state department of education), and scores from that test will supplant the state test derived growth score in a teacher’s evaluation. 

• Teachers will receive a “transitional score” during the moratorium. 50% of this score will be based on observation, and 50% will be based on the locally-determined assessment. This transitional score will be used for making tenure decisions, and as per the law can be used to fire a teacher.

• While growth scores derived from the state tests may not be used for purposes of evaluation during the moratorium, they will still be recorded, and upon request be made available to parents. Teachers evaluated by Regents exams and by the 4th and 8th grade science tests will still be evaluated using those scores.

• Once the moratorium is over, NYS will move to a three year average growth score. In other words, teachers will receive a growth score based on student performance from the previous 3 years. It is unclear whether or not state test growth scores captured during the moratorium will be used in the average growth score for the 2019-20 school year.

• Based on flawed growth scores, schools will continue to be placed into receivership and subject to autocratic control. This will happen disproportionately in schools located in economically disadvantaged Black and Brown communities, as laid out in the Economic Policy Institute’s report, “The Racial Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods – A Constitutional Insult.”

Time For NYSUT To Take Real Steps To End The Endless Testing Regime

This is cross-posted from New York Rank & File and it's in response to the propaganda NYSUT has been spewing forth about there being a "moratorium" on the use of test scores in teacher evaluations (a claim that is patently false):

Rank and File Teachers Call on NYSUT Leadership to Do More

We are a coalition of educators motivated by a desire to provide our students with an authentic, developmentally appropriate, culturally relevant, and child-centered public education. As we near the 2016 testing season, hundreds of thousands of young learners will be asked to submit to 9 hours of flawed and harmful state assessments that reduce teaching and learning to a test score, narrow the curriculum, label the majority of children failures, and squander resources, ultimately providing no educational benefit.

 

While the opt out movement has captured the attention of policymakers,there has been no substantive change. The only change is that school districts must now use limited time and resources to negotiate another APPR plan that requires both more testing for NYS children and a continued focus on evaluating teachers through test scores.

Despite this glaring lack of relief for students, the state teachers union (NYSUT) has failed to sound the alarm, and instead has launched a million dollar member-funded “multi-media campaign to highlight progress.” While a campaign video vaguely states that “there is still a lot of work to do,” the campaign is absent of any call to action. A similar campaign by the UFT–the state’s largest local union, based in NYC–goes so far as to spread misinformation, making the false claim that teachers will not be evaluated by test scores for the next 4 years. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
As educators, we are committed to sharing factual information so that those impacted by these policies can make informed decisions. Here are the facts:

• The Education Transformation Act of 2015 requires that 50% of  a teacher’s evaluation be based on a student performance measure. This will not change unless the law is amended.  

• Although teachers will still receive a growth score based on state tests, a 4 year moratorium has been passed on the use of state-provided growth scores for NYS Grades 3-8 Common Core ELA and Math tests in teacher evaluations. 

• ALL teachers will still be subject to a 50% test-based evaluation as per the law. Schools must administer an additional, locally determined assessment  (approved by the state department of education), and scores from that test will supplant the state test derived growth score in a teacher’s evaluation. 

• Teachers will receive a “transitional score” during the moratorium. 50% of this score will be based on observation, and 50% will be based on the locally-determined assessment. This transitional score will be used for making tenure decisions, and as per the law can be used to fire a teacher.

• While growth scores derived from the state tests may not be used for purposes of evaluation during the moratorium, they will still be recorded, and upon request be made available to parents. Teachers evaluated by Regents exams and by the 4th and 8th grade science tests will still be evaluated using those scores.

• Once the moratorium is over, NYS will move to a three year average growth score. In other words, teachers will receive a growth score based on student performance from the previous 3 years. It is unclear whether or not state test growth scores captured during the moratorium will be used in the average growth score for the 2019-20 school year.

• Based on flawed growth scores, schools will continue to be placed into receivership and subject to autocratic control. This will happen disproportionately in schools located in economically disadvantaged Black and Brown communities, as laid out in the Economic Policy Institute’s report, “The Racial Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods – A Constitutional Insult.”

NYSUT officials recently responded to educators on social media calling for NYSUT to pursue an amendment to the law by stating that they believe the Regents will enact the 21 recommendations of the Common Core Task Force. In a recent interview on The Capital Pressroom, NYSUT President Karen Magee opined that it is “premature” to call for changes to the law and reiterated NYSUT’s belief that the Regents will implement the Common Core Task Force recommendations.

It should be noted that the Task Force has not recommended ANY changes to the focus on test scores in teacher evaluations, making this response irrelevant. While the task force pays lip service to the need for shorter tests, it fails to recommend any substantial change. For example, the Task Force report calls upon New York to follow the examples set by North Carolina, Texas, and New Mexico. The testing practices in these States are hardly positive role models for a reduction in testing. In North Carolina, testing has been reduced to a one day, four hour exam. In Texas, testing has been capped, forcing the average student to sit for 120 minutes, with no administration lasting more than eight hours. And in New Mexico, testing has been reduced by a paltry 15%. In New York, that would reduce 9 hours of testing for 10 year olds to 7.5 hours; some students with disabilities would still be forced to endure 15 hours of testing. This is cold comfort.

We call on the leaders of NYSUT and the UFT to suspend their misleading media campaigns. We also call for NYSUT to work for an immediate amendment to the education law 3012d, that requires teacher evaluations be based on high-stakes tests. Those tests will continue to count for 50% of teacher evaluations.  

Additionally, we call upon NYSUT leaders to launch a new, fact-based media campaign that will inform their members and the public that very little has changed for the children we serve. The continued requirement of students to participate in flawed and inappropriate testing this spring, as well as additional, local assessments (solely for the purposes of teacher evaluations) must stop. Furthermore, we demand that NYSUT urge all teachers to join the effort to save our profession, and to protect our students by refusing NYS tests in grades 3-8 for their own children.

Parents across New York State have labored for the past three years to protect their children and support educators. It is time that NYSUT and UFT leaders do the same. Now is not the time to lose the support of the public and our allies.

Signed,

BATs (Badass Teachers)

MORE (Movement of Rank & File Educators)

Stronger Together Caucus

Teachers of Conscience

**********************************************************************

The following organizations support The Call to Stand Up for Students:

Long Island Opt Out

Bronx Educators United for Justice

Opt Out CNY

Change the Stakes

New York State Allies For Public Education

Lace to the Top

NYC Opt Out

Pencils Down Rockland County

NYS Receivership and NYC Renewal Schools Action Group

ReThinking Testing MidHudson

The Paperclip Revolution

40,000 Educators Will Have APPR Scores Recalculated BY NYSED After Errors Are Discovered

From the NY Times:

More than 200 teachers and principals received erroneous scores from New York State on a contentious measurement that ties their performance to how well their students do on tests, according to state documents obtained by The New York Times.

The error, which affected a small percentage of scores for the 2014-15 academic year, could be another blow to the practice of linking educator performance to student exams, a system that has come under fire in recent years.

A letter sent to district superintendents on Friday said that certain test results had been excluded from state-provided growth scores — which track student performance on state exams — for less than 1 percent of the more than 40,000 educators who received such feedback.

These are the erroneous scores they're admitting to - you can be sure there are others.

And of course it's not the fault of the incompetents at NYSED or the incompetent governor:

The state Education Department attributed the error to a contractor, American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research group based in Washington, and said the blunder affected principals and certain teachers whose growth scores included schoolwide measurements of student performance. (Teachers whose scores incorporated only their own students’ tests were not affected.) The letter said the problems occurred “almost exclusively” in grades nine through 12.

The end result is this:

Scores for the more than 40,000 educators would be recalculated at the contractor’s expense; the higher score would be the one that counts.

The system is so complex, so inexplicable, that when a teacher sued over her test score component, NYSED twice refused to show cause for her ineffective rating on the component (here and here.)

NYSED is owning up to the erroneous scores, but you can bet if there were an independent accounting of the evaluations from an entity outside of the state without something riding on the outcome (i.e., some ed reform-linked group or some entity on the state payroll), they'd find more.

And yet, we STILL have this system in place, with teachers having 50% of their ratings linked to so-called student performance as measured by state tests and/or local tests - despite the claims that there is a "moratorium" on using test scores in the evaluations.

The system is rotten to the core, yet it seems as if it will live forever.

NYSUT And The UFT, Allied Again With Cuomo, Spend Millions On Propaganda To Fool Their Members And The Public

Had some fun on Twitter yesterday with a couple of union hacks, one the PR guy from NYSUT, that went something like this:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @nysut Why do deliberately misstate our position and communications? Hard to debate nonsense.

— Carl Korn (@CarlKornNYSUT) January 23, 2016

My response:

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut Who's misstating? You say no state tests in evals. Regents exams are in evals.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut When you say there's a moratorium on state tests in APPR, you are wrong.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

There was no response from Carl Korn, but another union hack jumped in with this bit of genius:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT 3-8 NYS tests in my eval this year? Zilch, nada, bubkis. Union still supports my kids #optout.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

My response to that:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT You do know CCSS Regents exams are in APPR, yes? Those don't count?

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Lace To The Top jumped in with this very relevant fact:

@perdidostschool @TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT and 3-8 Eval scores will still be generated and be used as "advisory"

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) January 23, 2016

Which got this response from said union hack:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT Got it. Get it. Still work to do. Still making progress.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

To which I responded:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT No, you get zilch, bupkis, nada - to use your own words back at you.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT The victory rhetoric from both the UFT and NYSUT show how little leaders get.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Here's the truth of things - Cuomo is sucking up to the union these days, what with his poll numbers in the toilet overall (39% job approval in the last Siena poll) and especially negative on education issues (68% of New Yorkers disapprove of the job he is doing handling education.)

The hacks running the union could care less about whether their members are harmed by APPR or not, they care only for their own power, prestige and perks.

They're happy to have the governor back on board, sounding almost like Mike Mulgrew when he talks about community schooling, well, that is progress indeed!

Unless you're a teacher affected by Cuomo's odious 2015 education law that requires 50% of a teacher's evaluation come from test scores - a law which Cuomo says does not need to be amended or repealed, a law which neither the UFT nor NYSUT plan to work to repeal.

So now, with Cuomo friendly with the union leadership again, the union heads have allied with the governor against their own members, spending millions of member dues on ads that are full of lies and propaganda (here's the UFT ad, here's the NYSUT ad.)

Even the governor himself has contradicted what the union ads are telling the public, saying back in December that test scores are indeed STILL part of APPR evaluations:

“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.

In case you're not willing to believe me or the governor, here's NYSED, via James Eterno at ICEUFTblog:

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

Yet the union ads - and the union hacks on Twitter - tell us differently, that the number of test scores in APPR evals this year is "zilch, nada, bupkis..."

I dunno about you, but I have had enough of the lies and propaganda out of NYSUT and the UFT, the harm they are doing to teaching, teachers and schools with the games they play with their ed deformer allies (see here for more of the games Mulgrew has played with Cuomo over the years.)

And if you think this is all hyperbole, that there's no way the union heads are playing a pro-wrestling "Good Guy/Bad Guy/Good Guy Game" with Cuomo - check out who's Number 4 on the all-time Cuomo meeting list and who enjoys late lunches with the governor to, you know, talk things over.

That would be one Michael Mulgrew of the UFT, the largest local in the state that can literally whack NYSUT leaders when they don't like what they're doing.

As I said above, I've had it with the games the union leaders play, the lies and deception they send out with every ad, every social media piece.

NYSAPE sent out this very informative tweet about where things stand today regarding state tests, the opt out movement and APPR teacher evaluations - you should send this tweet wide and far to cut through the self-serving jive and propaganda emanating out of NYSUT and the UFT, all of it using YOUR money to pay for it.

Do not be fooled, NOTHING has changed. Here is what you need to know: pic.twitter.com/cAKteQLtZI

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 24, 2016

Note To MaryEllen Elia, NY Pols And NY Press: Test Scores Are Still Part Of APPR Evaluations

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — As education commissioner MaryEllen Elia updated a Senate panel on her agency's 2016 priorities Wednesday, lawmakers noted a "different vibe in the room.”

Her meeting with the Senate Education Committee came a little more than six months after she took over heading the agency from John King, a champion of the Common Core learning standards who became a polarizing figure in the state after their troubled rollout. He left for the federal agency and is now acting secretary of education there.

...

Among the priorities that Elia detailed Wednesday were revising the principal and teacher evaluation system, involving teachers in revising the Common Core learning standards and creating state assessments.

The Regents board has already put a moratorium on the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations through the 2019-2020 school year while the system is under review. It has also made changes to the state tests, shortening them and increasing the time allotted, and the Education Department is reviewing the standards, assessments and evaluations.

Moratorium?

Is this a "moratorium"?

Common Core grade 3-8 scores won't be used for teacher evaluations until 2019 but other tests will still be in there including high school Regents Exams unless they are tied to a state growth model. Does going from a growth model to a Student Learning Objective (SLO) system constitute an end to high stakes testing?  I don't think so.

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

For math and ELA teachers, the Regents exams are the new Common Core exams, many with low passing rates - especially in math.

Moratorium on using Common Core test scores for teacher evaluations?

Hardly.

When will the education press stop writing stuff like "the Regents board has already put a moratorium on the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations through the 2019-2020 school year while the system is under review"?

Because it's not true - NYSED's APPR Q&A lays that out quite specifically, as did Governor Cuomo a while back.

The more accurate description is, there is a partial moratorium on test scores for some teachers while the rest continue to be linked to test scores - including Common Core Regents test scores for some high school teachers.

UFT Spends $1.4 Million On Pro-Cuomo Ad

No, seriously:



That ad - which they spent $1.4 million on, btw - functions as a pro-Cuomo ad, talking about the governor's Common Core Task Force and making it sound like Cuomo is doing the right thing on education.

The truth is, he's not.

Test scores are STILL part of APPR teacher evaluations, either local tests or the Regents exams.

The governor himself said it.

So the claim in the ad that Cuomo's doing right is, well, wrong.

The public education system remains as test-centric as ever, nothing's changed post-Cuomo CCSS Task Force.

But you wouldn't know that from this ad.

A while back I blogged how Cuomo's talking up community schools and sounding like Mulgrew in the bargain, coupled with the UFT's refusal to have Cuomo's odious 2015 education law thrown in the garbage where it belongs, was a sign that the UFT and Cuomo had a backroom deal going.

This ad is further confirmation of it - your dues money going to run an ad that helps out Cuomo politically.

Cuomo Sounds Like Mulgrew On Community Schools

Tom Precious in the Buffalo News:

In his speech Sunday, Cuomo also appeared to soften his rhetoric substantially from last year on the causes of public schools that are deemed to be “failing” as learning centers for their students. A year ago, Cuomo released a report showing 109,000 children across the state go to school in 178 persistently failing schools – marked by high dropout rates, low test scores and other factors. At the time, he was pushing a plan to allow for outside takeover of failing schools and making it harder for teachers to get tenure.

On Sunday, he criticized “the bureaucracy” that resists change in the education system, but he talked of “community” school-type settings as the solution. “We want to take those failing schools and say, ‘Look, the problem isn’t just education,’ ” he said.

Cuomo said that if people think that the problems in such failing schools are teachers and the education system, “then you’re missing the point, because the kids in those schools need a lot more than a teacher and normal education.”

The Cuomo budget plan to be released Wednesday will call for $100 million to expand an array of services offered at failing schools. A precise breakdown by school was not available Sunday, but he suggested it will offer more money for nutrition, mentoring, afterschool, counseling and other programs in the failing schools. “Don’t call it a school. Call it a community school,” he said.

A Cuomo spokesman noted that community schools were added “as an eventual product of the process” involving failing schools. “This is consistent with that,” the spokesman said.

What to make of all this?

Why is Cuomo "softening" his tone on so-called "failing" schools and calling for the community school model to solve the problems.

Well, I have a theory:

Remember all those meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo (he's # 4 on the all-time meeting list) and the July lunch date he had with the governor and his secretary, Bill Mulrow, in New York?

Remember when Mulgrew told the DA that there's not much they expect to get done this legislative session?

Looks like some kind of deal was worked out between Mulgrew and Cuomo.

Here's what I bet happened:

Cuomo wants the law to remain on the books so he doesn't look like a complete schmuck, having the thing dismantled one year after spending so much time, energy and political capital getting it through.

The unions want community schools to be the model for fixing "failing" schools.

I bet Mulgrew and the unions agreed they wouldn't push against Cuomo's odious 2015 education reform law that imposed receivership and 50% test scores in teacher evaluations in return for Cuomo supporting Mugrew (and Randi"s) beloved community school model.

I've seen a lot of teachers on social media wondering why the unions aren't pushing to have the 2015 education law changed.

It makes no sense, what with the governor under 40% in job approval and running scared that he's going to be charged by the US attorney for corruption, that the unions wouldn't seek to dismantle last year's law.

In addition, it's an election year - when would you ever have more leverage on pols in Albany than in an election year?

But they're not working to dismantle Cuomo's education reform law at all - instead they're tamping down expectations, saying nothing can get done this year because the politicians are busy and don't want to talk to them.

Seems odd but look no further than the way Cuomo's talking about community schools to get an indication for why.

A deal appears to have been worked out, with the unions selling teachers down the river on test scores/APPR and schools on receivership in return for Cuomo pushing community schools.

Just theorizing, of course, but given the history of UFT/NYSUT sellouts and given all the meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo,idle theorizing it isn't.

It makes no sense that the unions wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to have that 2015 law dismantled unless they got something back from Cuomo in order to sit on their hands and do nothing.

And you know how Mulgrew (and Randi) love community schools.

There we have it - another vaunted UFT sellout.

Your union leadership at work, selling you out, one meeting at a time.

Long Island Superintendents Object To Test-Centric Evaluation System

John Hildebrand in Newsday:

Four Long Island school superintendents took their objections to Common Core testing and related “reforms” on the road Monday night to a public forum at Sayville Middle School attended by about 150 parents, teachers and others.

The school chiefs, all from central or eastern Suffolk County, contend the state’s tough new tests in English and math, tied to classroom evaluations, have forced teachers to spend too much time prepping students for those assessments.

 The result, these administrators say, is that students often have far less time than in the past for in-depth research on other subjects — for example, history and civics.

Cuomo's Common Core task force has called for a temporary de-coupling of state Common Core tests from teacher evals, but there's a catch - the de-coupling won't count for high school teachers whose students take Regents exams and "local" assessments will replace the state exams to make up the 50% test component for APPR.

So:

Local assessments will now b driving force in classrooms - get UR opt out letters in! Encourage others 2 do same https://t.co/a2kQo4H9Ov

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 5, 2016

The powers that be want you to think a lot has changed in education post-Common Core task force.

The truth is, little has changed - "local" assessments replace state tests for many teachers, Regents exams continue to be a part of APPR for high school teachers and whatever Common Core tweaks the state plans will not disrupt the "instructional focus" of the Core. 

In short, same old same old.

Homeless New Yorkers Reject Cuomo's Mandated City Round-Up When Temperature Hits Freezing

The Daily News:

Homeless New Yorkers gave the cold shoulder Sunday to Gov. Cuomo’s order that could force them off the streets when the temperature dips below freezing.

“Hell no, I won’t go to a shelter! How’s that even lawful? You can’t force people off a public street,” said Luis Diaz, 31, who was shivering with his girlfriend on a Midtown streetcorner as temps hovered in the mid-40s.

“It’s going to be crazy. They don’t have enough room. They don’t have the infrastructure to do this. Where are they going to put us? If they’re shoving us in shelters with crazies and people who can’t handle being in there, there is going to be a lot of fights. We’re safer out here.”

“I feel violated by this,” added William Sanders, 45, who said he considered it “cruel and unusual punishment” to be forced into a shelter, where he said he has faced hostility from other residents because of sores on his legs but has been unable to get medical services.

“There is going to be anger and violence in the shelters if we go against our will. They are putting us in a really bad situation,” he said.

...

A handful of homeless people welcomed the new policy. “Some nights are really cold. You try to stay warm, but you can’t,” said Jose Flores, 47, who typically sleeps outside a Harlem subway station. “If I’m out here freezing, I’d welcome any van taking me to a warm place. People can die out here."

But most rejected the idea.

“That’s not right,” fumed Steve Jones, 63. “The governor can’t force people into shelters. We should have an option. People have rights.”

This is Cuomo trying to make it look like he's doing something about homelessness while really doing nothing about it.

In fact, he's exacerbated the problem.

Cuomo cut $68 million from a program that provided housing subsidies back in 2011.

He's not adding any more funds to what municipalities receive in order to deal with the mandate he imposed yesterday:

Cuomo's executive order "adds no legal or financial resources to NYC's programs to assist the homeless" https://t.co/6dpoBhKiL2

— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) January 4, 2016

He's getting headlines, which is one of his main goals, and he's looking to make de Blasio look ineffectual, which is another of those main goals.

But as for alleviating homelessness with this mandate - not so much.

And as to his argument that it's the humane thing to do, it seems many homeless New Yorkers are rejecting that argument.

As to the practical angle of the argument, no one's quite sure how this mandate will work - kinda like other Cuomo mandates like his APPR teacher evaluation and the SAFE Act.

Cuomo's big on big announcements - not so big on making those big announcements work in the real world.

Regents Exam Scores Still Part Of APPR Teacher Evaluations

Remember that jive about there being a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR that upset the deform shills at the Wall Street Journal yesterday?

As many of us have suspected, there's a lot less than meets the eye to the "moratorium":

The moratorium removes state-provided growth scores based on the state standardized, Common Core-aligned third- through eighth-grade math and English language arts exams from the calculations for teacher and principal evaluations.

...

The Regents exams and fourth- and eighth-grade science tests would still be factored in.

But wait - I thought there was a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR?

Turns out it's a special Cuomo "moratorium" in which some state test scores are still used - you know, like Regents scores for high school teachers.

The devil, as always, is in the details, so we'll see for sure in January when Cuomo gives his state of the state/budget address - assuming he's not under indictment, that is.

Teacher Accountability Systems Need Accountability Too

Some drivel in the Wall Street Journal this morning that Cuomo is caving on "accountability"  for teachers - they're very sad about the proposed "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR.

Somehow the lawsuit Sheri Lederman brought against NYSED for APPR never makes it to their accountability argument.

You may remember Sheri Lederman, the teacher who received a 14 out of 20 on her state test score VAM one year, which fell to 1 out of 20 the next despite her students getting very similar scores to the year before.

The next year, btw, Lederman's test score VAM rose to 11 - so for those scoring at home, it went from 14 to 1 to 11 in three years.

How is it that "teacher accountability" exactly?

There are these jive assumptions in the deform narrative that test score VAM's and the Danielson rubric are "objective" measures of teacher performance.

They're not.

NYSED's test score VAM is so unreliable that when Lederman sued, they twice tried to get the lawsuit dismissed rather than expose how they devised the score.

As for Danielson, the so-called "objective" rubric used for teacher evaluations, ask teachers about the scores they're getting in their Danielson evaluations and many will tell you there is nothing "objective" about the process.

Administrators can use the Danielson to focus on whatever they want to focus on and claim a teacher is deficient in something while ignoring other areas that might raise the overall Danielson score.

To claim there is anything "objective" in a classroom evaluation is to make believe that the so-called judgment of the evaluator comes down from the Mount, along with Moses and the Ten Commandments.

If an administrator wants to give a good evaluation rating to a teacher via the Danielson, he/she will, and if he/she wants to nail somebody with it, they can do that too.

The truth is, the Danielson was devised to give districts the tool to "document" when they want to get rid of teachers, but that doesn't mean the documentation itself is based in reality.

If we're going to talk about teacher accountability, we ought to talk about accountability for the teacher accountability system as well - the assumptions that it is based upon must stand up to scrutiny.

Clearly NYSED wasn't too confident they're test score VAM would stand up to that scrutiny, since they tried as hard as they could to avoid explaining it (or the bell curve they use for APPR) in court.

As for Danielson, I'm now starting to think that every observation should be taped so that teachers have the video to use if they need to counter claims made by administrators in their Danielson evaluations.

There is an awful lot of talk about so-called teacher accountability from politicians, from the media, from ed deformers - but the system that measures so-called teacher accountability almost always skirts its own accountability and lives in this fantasy world where it stands as some objective measure of performance.

Today's drivel in the WSJ is just one more example of that.

MaryEllen Elia Says You'll Be Able To "Touch" All The Wonderful Changes Coming In Education

MaryEllen Elia, on the propaganda trail:

ALBANY — Substantive changes will be made to testing, teacher evaluations and the Common Core learning standards in New York State, state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia said in a television interview set to air Monday night.

“We’ve already started it,” Elia told WCNY’s Susan Arbetter on "Connect:NY," which airs on PBS.

...

 She said she understands the concerns of test refusal groups, which have said they will keep urging parents to opt their children out of the state and local exams linked to the teacher evaluations until they see change.

“I understand people saying, ‘Let me see it. I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to make sure it’s there.’ Well, they’re going to be able to see it and touch it. That’s what we’re doing,” she said.

Uh, huh.

Sure you are.

So far, here's a rundown of the wonderful changes we've gotten in education policy.

Changing the Common Core but keeping the "instructional focus" the same.

De-linking state tests from teacher evaluations for four years, but elevating "local" tests to take their place.

Dunno how delusional Elia is, but if she thinks rhetoric and tweaks are going to fool anybody, she's kidding herself.

Cuomo/Regents Bait And Switch On Testing/Teacher Evaluations Will Not End Opt Out

From the NY Post:

Opponents of Common Core standards are urging parents to boycott next year’s state math and English exams, despite the state imposing a four-year freeze on using the results to grade students or teachers.

NYS Allies for Public Education said Wednesday that state and local school districts are administering too many tests and want the Common Core standards scrapped completely.

“We will continue to refuse to allow our children to participate in this system until all harmful reforms are removed,” said a spokesman for the group LI Opt Out.

About 200,000 students boycotted the last exams.

Teachers are still going to be evaluated using test scores and, depending upon the district, may still be evaluated using the state tests.

The Common Core isn't going anywhere, the Cuomo Common Core Task Force called for no "instructional shift" from the Common Core, just tweaks around the edges so they can say "Changes are being made!"

This bait and switch will not fool us.

The union leadership can fall all over itself declaring this a "win" for students, parents and teachers against the corporate reform movement, but those of us in schools know differently.

Nothing's changed, the Endless Testing regime lives on, APPR continues to use test scores to rate teachers, and with the Cuomo task force calling for a switch to "local" tests for APPR, there will be a whole lot more testing in the system next year.

The fight goes on.

Chris Gibson: Don't Trust Cuomo For Common Core Fixes

From the Daily Star:

Calling the Common Core curriculum “a mistake,” Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo Tuesday to “start over” and to bring parents, teachers and administrators into the discussion.

“It’s disappointing that the governor needed a task force to find out what parents, teachers and administrators have been saying all along — that Common Core has been a mistake,” the congressman said in an interview from Washington.

“We should roll this back and start over,” added Gibson, who has indicated he is planning to mount a campaign for statewide office in 2018, the year the two-term Cuomo faces re-election.

...

Cuomo has since hit the brakes on his drive to use the test scores to rate teachers, and last week a Cuomo-appointed task force set up to review Common Core recommended that the state adopt its own curriculum standards. It also urged that the student test scores not be used in teacher evaluations until the 2019-2020 school year.
Gibson questioned whether Cuomo’s embrace of the task force recommendations is sincere.

“He is using words suggesting he is listening now but we’re going to have to watch him closely,” the congressman said.

Close watch of Cuomo and the Board of Regents shows how they're double dealing with the "de-coupling" of test scores from the APPR teacher evaluation system, shifting part of the test component from "state" tests to "local" tests that may, in fact, be "state" tests (see here and here.)

So indeed, watching Cuomo closely as he "fixes" the Common Core problem in New York is warranted.

We know that his Common Core task force recommended little instructional shift from the Core, more of a renaming of the Core than a changing of the Core, even as they recommended developing "new standards."

As Kate Taylor reported in the NY Times in her piece on the task force recommendations:

It is unclear how different the new standards will be from the Common Core. The task force’s report calls for enlisting educators and parents to help create them, and it recommends modifying the standards for kindergarten, first grade and second grade so that they are more age-appropriate. But it says little about the standards in the upper grades, in which students take state tests, and it says that, generally, the new standards should “maintain the key instructional shifts set forth in the Common Core.”

Cuomo said he wanted a "total reboot" of Common Core and education policy when he first announced the creation of his task force, but essentially what we're getting with both Common Core and the test score component in the APPR teacher evaluation system is a little tweaking at the edges so that they can say "Everything's changed!" but in practicality, nothing really has.

Somebody on twitter said last night, you can tell when Cuomo's lying or deceiving you because he's talking.

That's pretty much what we've gotten from him in his "total reboot" of education policy - lies and deceptions, along with a couple of misdirections.

So Gibson is right - Cuomo is not to be trusted, he is to be watched closely throughout this process and, in the end, when he issues his agenda during his State of the State/budget address (assuming he's not under indictment by that point), called out for his betrayal of public education and the public trust and fought on every agenda point.

We will not be fooled.

Cuomo Says Test Scores Are Indeed Still Part Of The APPR Teacher Evaluation System

Governor Cuomo says, despite news coverage to the contrary, test scores are still going to be part of his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation system:

“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.

That's right, kids - your APPR teacher rating is going to be devised, in part, using test scores, either "local" tests approved of by NYSED or, wait for it, state tests.

If you've been reading this blog or a few of the other blogs on the blog list over to the right, you'd already know that test scores are still part of your APPR teacher evaluation rating despite the Cuomo Common Core Task Force report or the vote of the Board of Regents yesterday to implement a four year "moratorium" on the use of the Common Core tests in teacher ratings.

But it can't be any plainer than Cuomo put it on Sunday - test scores are still in APPR and depending upon what "local" tests your district decides to use for that part of APPR, you still might be rated by state tests, since some districts use that measurement for the local part of the APPR test score component.

How's that for a vaunted UFT/NYSUT "win", eh?

How's that for a "decoupling" of tests from teacher evaluations?

How's that for a bait and switch with the test scores/APPR ratings?

The cynic in me admires the bottom barrel cynicism of this move from Cuomo and his deformy pals at the Board of Regents and on his Common Core Task Force.

Seriously, to get all those headlines claiming test scores were no more for teacher evaluations until 2019 when they're actually not going anywhere.

The cynicism takes your breath away, it's that good.

Report: Cuomo's Common Core Task Force Will Call For "Up To A Four-Year Moratorium" On Using Test Scores In APPR

From Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — In its draft report of recommendations to the governor, the Common Core task force is calling for an overhaul of the state's testing system, the creation of new state standards and transparency on those standards' rollout, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO New York.

The draft report, given to the majority of task force members for review Wednesday, is expected to be finalized and will likely be released Thursday or Friday, task force members told POLITICO New York.

The draft also includes a space for the task force to weigh in on the impact of student test scores on teacher evaluations, and the panel will likely use that space to recommend up to a four-year moratorium, according to a source familiar with the task force's plans.

Devil is always in the details but if this is what ends up in the governor's agenda, I'm not impressed.

The "creation of new state standards" will be Common Core Mach II, with just enough tweaked so they can say this is "all-new"!

The overhaul of the state's testing system can mean a whole bunch of things, but until we get details on it, I'm not ready to give it my blessing.

I know they say these new tests will be age-appropriate and teacher-created and all that jazz, but as far as I can tell in the Era of Common Core, no entity-developed test has been either, so I remain skeptical of what the testing overhaul will come up with in the end.

As for the four-year moratorium on test scores, that doesn't mean much to me either - a moratorium is nothing more than a delay and a delay on junk science in APPR means they're still using junk science in APPR.

Remains to be seen what actually ends up in the governor's agenda, but if this is the big news, I'm not that impressed.

Feels to me like another attempt to make it look like big change is coming without big change really coming.

What they're really trying to do is put a stake through the opt out movement by claiming its rationale for existence no longer holds.

But so long as the Endless Testing regime remains in place and is the underlying principle behind the education system, opt out very much has a reason to exist.

More as we get it.

Cuomo's Common Core/APPR Dog And Pony Show

I read through Keshia Clukey's Politico NY post on the Common Core task force recommendations that are set to be issued to Governor Cuomo this week and the sense I was left with is, they're going to tweak the standards just enough to claim they're not Common Core anymore, they're going to look to change the name to something else (something like "New York State Standards," though I'm partial to "Cuomo Core" myself) and they're going to declare "Mission Accomplished!"

In short, it looks like we're in for another Cuomo dog and pony show special, not that this comes as a surprise.

Many of us thought this CCSS review was nothing more than Cuomo and the powers-that-be in Albany trying to stage manage the politics and optics around the Common Core and the Opt Out protests.

We knew they want to change as little as possible other than the perceptions around the policies.

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia indicated that when she said she wanted to "repaint" the Common Core so that parents would like it better.

Dunno how stupid they think people are, but I would be very, very surprised if the parents and teachers who are part of the Common Core and Opt Out protests fall for this charade they've got coming.

APPR will get a tweak too - they'll probably shove through some temporary "moratorium" to "de-couple" test scores from teacher ratings for a set period of time, which means test scores will eventually be placed back into the APPR formula.

Again, I would be very, very surprised if many people are fooled that a moratorium is substantive change, as by definition, a "moratorium" is nothing more than a "delay."

As far as I can tell, Elia's paint job on the Common Core is a bit of scenery for Cuomo's Common Core/APPR Dog and Pony Show that's set to open to previews this month and get a starring role in Cuomo's State of the State/budget address in January.

Thoughts?

Chris Gibson: If NY Sticks With Common Core And Heavy-Handed Education Policy, It's All On Cuomo

Congressman Chris Gibson on the "Every Child Succeeds Act," the education bill that passed the House this week and is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama before Christmas:

New York educators and legislators are hopeful the passage of a bipartisan education bill in the House of Representatives this week will convince the state to abandon the more controversial aspects of its own education reform.

The bill, the Every Student Succeeds Act, dismantles George W. Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act and shifts authority over the nation's public schools from the federal government back to states and local school districts. Not only does it let states to decide whether student test scores are an appropriate way to evaluate teachers or assess schools, but it also prohibits the federal government from mandating or even incentivizing states to adopt learning standards like the Common Core.

 ...

U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, called the bill a major step forward in reducing federal overreach in classrooms and in empowering states and localities. The bill gives New York the flexibility to decide how it wants to test its children and evaluate teachers, he said.

"The ball is now clearly in the governor's court," he said. "We have so many parents and teachers and students that have been upset with Common Core. Well, this bill allows states to withdraw from Common Core without penalty. In addition, the state has taken a heavy-handed approach to schools that are failing, and that has been in part driven by the federal government. That federal overreach is now gone, so anything the governor continues to do in education will be from his own volition. He can no longer lean on the federal government."

I remain skeptical that Cuomo, who's completely on the take from the education reform industrial complex/Heavy Fund Managers For Education Reform, will want to derail the heavy-handed education policy he's helped impose onto the state, including Common Core, the Endless Testing regime, punitive teacher evaluations and a state receivership program that allows the state to take over "failing" public schools and hand them to private entities.

But he certainly wants to make it look like changes are coming.

Thus the Common Core Task Force, thus the trial balloons in the Times about de-linking test scores from APPR, thus the soothing words from him about education policy changes coming.

With his approval numbers in the toilet and his approval numbers on education even worse than that, Cuomo's got to walk a tightrope here, making it look like he's bringing about real change to education policy while assuring his owners, er, campaign donors in the hedge fundie/education reform world that he's still pursuing their agenda.

As Gibson notes, with NCLB III in place, Cuomo's going to have one less scapegoat to blame for the toxic, punitive education reform agenda he wants imposed on the children, teachers and schools of this state.