Newsday Editorial Says State MUST Get Kids To Take Their State Tests This School Year Or Else!

The shrillness of the deformers continues:

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week of actions it may take, including financial penalties, if the percentage of students taking the tests falls below 95 percent. Of course, in New York in Spring 2015 that percentage fell to about 80 percent, and to about 50 percent on Long Island. The timing serves notice to those who have supported opt-out to oppose excessive testing and test prep and the fear they claim comes from tying student scores to teacher evaluations: students must take tests so that schools, districts and states can be assessed. Washington will not budge on this.

In New York, education reformers also have taken a huge step back, decoupling tests from teacher evaluations for four years and promising new achievement standards and better exams. Now the state must convince unions, parents and teachers that they have been accommodated as much as possible, and must get students to take the tests this spring. And they must get participation percentages up in districts that get little federal funding, because the whole state could lose funding if New York participation doesn’t reach 95 percent.

If poorer districts with generally low opt-out numbers lose federal money because richer districts with high opt-out percentages pull down the state numbers, Albany can and should make up that shortfall. It should take state aid away from high opt-out districts and award it to high-needs districts where nearly all the kids take the exams.

The threat that money will be taken away by the feds is as much jive this year as it was last year.

Does anyone really think that the Obama administration is going to take away school aid because of opt out in an election year?

Please...

The desperation of the deformers is clear as they use FEAR to try and stem the opt out movement.

The curtain has been pulled back on the Endless Testing regime and exposed for the empty compliance measure it is.

Deformers are desperately trying to get people back to believing that there's some meaning to the state testing regime.

If FEAR over their own kids won't work, then they'll use FEAR over the funding.

But given the political realities of the Obama administration thankfully sunsetting next year with an election held in November, their threats are empty ones.

That won't stop the fear-meisters at Newsday from trying to sow discord, of course.

But we can call this Newsday editorial what it is - fear-mongering - and the Newsday editors who published what they are - fear-meisters.

Opt Out Parents Will Not Be Fooled By Rhetoric Shifts On Testing

The Obama administration issues some meaningless rhetoric yesterday about there being too much emphasis on testing in schools, an announcement that was hailed in some quarters (e.g., the professional shill class - the unions) and met with skepticism in others (e.g., many parents and teachers in the blogosphere and twitterverse.)

Here at Perdido Street School the announcement was met with a shrug.

The testing cap the Obama administration talked about yesterday (limiting testing to 2% of school time) is meaningless so long as teachers and schools are rated and either fired or closed based upon test scores.

Educrats can put some arbitrary cap in place all they want - the insane emphasis on testing and test prep will remain so long as the tests are used as bludgeons against teachers and schools.

And in fact, the Obama administration has ensured that teachers will be rated via test scores because they threatened to take NCLB waivers away from any state that didn't follow that Obama administration dictate on test score-based teacher evaluations - and did take away Washington State's waiver for not following it.

So the Obama educrats can talk about seeing the light on testing all they want - their actions speak much differently than their words and show that the emphasis on testing is not changing at all.

Same goes with Governor Andrew "I will break the public school monopoly" Cuomo in New York State.

Cuomo hailed the announcement on testing yesterday even as has moved to increase the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations to 50% and put into place a receivership program that hands schools that are "struggling" on their test scores to charter school operators.

In addition, Cuomo refused to let his test-centric teacher evaluation system be part of his Common Core review, ensuring that no changes would come to the system (even though it's currently being challenged in court because of irrational swings in the test score component.)

Like Obama, Cuomo says one thing about testing but contradicts those words with his actions.

The Endless Testing regime lives on despite the rhetoric shifts from the Obama and Cuomo administrations.

Politicians think voters are stupid and easily misled but as Chris Cerrone pointed out yesterday, this is not so with opt out parents:

#optout parents are VIGILANT. We know what changes must occur to our children's education. pic.twitter.com/yNisLOngmI

— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) October 24, 2015

The politicians and educrats are trying to knock off the number of test opt outs by issuing some meaningless rhetoric around testing, but we will NOT be fooled by their words.

The proof will be in what happens in schools - and currently, the insane emphasis on testing remains because tests continue to be used as bludgeons against both teachers and schools.

Don't Believe The Obama Administration Jive On Capping Testing Time (UPDATED - 3:35 PM)

From the "We caused it - now we're trying to walk it back without really walking it back" file:

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.

... 

“I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, who has said he will leave office in December. “But I can’t tell you how many conversations I’m in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking from instruction.

“It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.”

So long as teachers and schools are rated based upon test scores, the "cap" on testing time the Obama administration educrats talk about is meaningless.

In New York State, teachers currently have 20% of their ratings based upon state test scores (even if they don't teach classes that end with state tests) and 20% based upon so-called "local assessment" measures that may be state test data crunched a different way.

Last spring Governor "I want to break the public school monopoly" Cuomo shoved through a reiteration of the evaluation system tied to school funding that increases the weight of state test scores to 50% because not enough teachers were being rated ineffective and fired under the old system.

In addition, he shoved through a school receivership plan that forces "persistently struggling schools" to increase their test scores in one year and "struggling schools" to increase their test scores in two years or be taken over by the state.

With such a test-centric environment (one that was absolutely encouraged by the Obama administration's Race to the Top program and their NCLB waiver system), the Obama educrats can call for a cap on testing time all they want - nothing about the system will change so long as the scores are used to fire teachers and close schools.

In any case, the administration isn't going to put out "guidelines" until January on the testing changes, so for now all we have is some meaningless rhetoric that may excite Randi Weingarten but will have little practical effect on what happens to all the overtesting that is currently going on in schools.

In short, the Endless Testing regime continues no matter the Obama administration public relations statements.

UPDATED - 3:35 PM: Peter Greene points out in comments that the Obama administration has hawked this testing cap gambit before. 

He's got a new post analyzing today's announcement and finds they're

offering pointless PR nuggets and avoiding the real discussion, which is why, exactly, we need the BS Tests at all, and what possible justification there is for using the BS Tests to measure, rank and rate students, teachers or schools.

But the tests are a "civil right," don'tcha know?

Cuomo Embraces Biden To Try And Circumvent Criminal Investigation Over Moreland?

Governor Cuomo had several high profile appearances with Vice President Joe Biden the past few weeks in which Cuomo touted Biden as a presidential candidate even as the candidate Cuomo is allegedly backing, Hillary Clinton, struggles with political problems and falling poll numbers.

Fred Dicker's column today has three possible theories for why Cuomo is touting Biden, a move which is surely pissing off the Clintons and harming her at a time when she needs all the help she can get.

The first one is, Cuomo hopes to be Biden's VP if Biden were to win the nomination.

The third one is, Cuomo's looking to stick it to Bill de Blasio any way he can and touting Biden (and stealing away de Basio's minimum wage increase issue with Biden) was just another opportunity to do so.

I'm not sure I buy either of those theories, but Theory # 2 certainly seems plausible to me:

The second theory holds that Cuomo has been promoting Biden to put pressure on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Southern District US Attorney Preet Bharara, and possibly Obama himself to block or terminate Bharara’s investigation of Cuomo’s shutdown last year of the corruption-fighting Moreland Commission and allegations he or his aides sought to interfere with the probe.

“There’s no way Preet would bring an action against Cuomo without Lynch and probably Obama himself signing off, and Biden would be right in the middle of that,’’ said a prominent New York City official.

Many Republicans also subscribe to that theory.

“Obama and his attorney general will make the decision on whether there will be a criminal prosecution of Cuomo, and one way of trying to avoid this is by embracing the vice president at the expense of Secretary Clinton,’’ said national GOP consultant John McLaughlin.

In court filings the feds made this week in the case against Sheldon Silver, prosecutors revealed that two out of the three Moreland Commission co-chairs and the chief of investigations all felt that Cuomo and his staff interfered into the commission's work.

The third co-chair, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick has defended Cuomo publicly but his wife is a judge who was up for reappointment by Cuomo, so his statements are a bit suspect, especially since the NY Times reported that privately he too complained of Cuomo's interference into the commission.

Theory # 2 is certainly plausible.

The Obama administration has circumvented investigations into pals before.

The one that immediately comes to mind is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the self-described "Little Obama":

As Deadspin notes, there's "a variety of sexual, financial, and ethical improprieties" swirling around Johnson. Among other things, the mayor is suing -- and being sued -- by the National Conference of Black Mayors. And Johnson is also accused of using public money and resources for his own personal benefit involving work done for the National Basketball Players Association.

That last scandal is particularly interesting, because it mirrors accusations made against him in 2009, when he was accused of misusing federal grants meant for the Americorps program by Gerald Walpin, the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service:

The most significant issue appeared to be Mr. Walpin’s actions in connection with St. Hope Academy of California, which was run by Mr. Johnson and Dana Gonzalez. St. Hope Academy received federal money from 2004 to 2007 from AmeriCorps. Mr. Walpin said a large amount of the money was spent improperly, some of it on personal expenses.

Mr. Walpin made a referral to the United States prosecutor in Sacramento, recommending that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gonzalez face criminal charges and be banned from future contracts.

According to Walpin, the chairman of the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Alan Solomont, was a major Democratic fundraiser and was unhappy with his reports pointing out the misuse of federal money. Johnson was also said to be close to the Obamas, and shortly afterward the president abruptly fired Walpin from his job. The firing set off a flurry of inquiries from a bipartisan group of senators concerned that Walpin's firing had been been politically motivated. There were also allegations that the U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence Brown, filed an ethics complaint against Walpin to help lift a ban on Johnson receiving federal funds as well as curry favor with the White House. Brown was seeking a presidential appointment to become United States attorney for the Eastern District of California.

Now Johnson remains mired in scandal six years later and is being accused of allegations of corruption very similar to what was first alleged by Walpin. And in the intervening years, the Obama administration has acquired quite the reputation for selectively enforcing laws against compromised allies and for the vigorous prosecution of political enemies on dubious grounds. Johnson's current troubles certainly suggest that the president was wrong to fire Walpin, and are an unpleasant reminder of the Chicago-style politics that have come to define this administration's questionable uses of political power.

Cuomo's interference into the commission - including the potential that Cuomo short-circuited the commission in a quid pro quo deal with either Sheldon Silver, Dean Skelos or both - leaves him open to at the very least an investigation by the feds.

From the KJ/Walpin scandal, it's pretty clear Obama will step in to help a pal out of some legal trouble and it's quite plausible that's what Cuomo's counting on here with the Biden bromance.

It's also plausible that Cuomo's just hedging his bets as Clinton's poll numbers and chances at getting elected continue to fall.

But given the court filing on Friday revealing that two out of the three Moreland co-chairs and the chief of investigations felt Cuomo and his staff were interfering in their work, I lean toward Theory # 2 from the Dicker column.

Obama's Cynical Ploys On Education

From ABC News:

Free community college for all. 

Conversation-starter? Definitely. Political possibility? Not any time soon. 

President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night, then pitched it publicly at an event Friday in Knoxville, Tenn. 

"Community colleges should be free for those willing to work for it," Obama told a crowd at Pellissippi State Community College. "It's not a blank check, not a free lunch, but for those willing to do the work…it can be a game changer." 

The president called a community college education one of the "central pathways to the middle class." 

While certainly ambitious, the idea currently lacks a total price tag, proposed legislation, and Republican support on Capitol Hill. 

But the White House says that’s beside the point at this stage. 

The president merely hopes “to start a conversation,” Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz told reporters. 

The administration said the plan would cost the federal government an estimated $60 billion over 10 years, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in commitments from the states. The Republican Congress would need to pass legislation approving funding. State governments would need to each act as well. 

Details on how the Obama envisions covering the federal cost remain a mystery.

Not a chance in hell this proposal is happening.

That's why the administration hasn't really put together a plan to make it happen - they know doing so would be a waste of time and resources.

It's a cynical PR ploy, that's all.

It's a shame that the president and his merry men and women in reform have decided to engage in cynical PR ploys because it's worthy idea that should and perhaps could be implemented (if the administration had laid the groundwork for it.)

But Obama, Duncan and the rest of the administration have made enemies on both sides of the political spectrum, especially on education issues.

On Monday, Duncan is supposed to call for the "repeal" of No Child Left Behind (though he'll demand many of the onerous parts of the law - like annual testing in grades 3-8 - remain.)

That too is a cynical ploy.

It's not a "repeal" when you demand much of the old law stay when you "repeal" it.

Next time Obama accuses his critics of not being serious about stuff, remember the community college plan he suggested that he has no intention of trying to enact but does want to use to juice his numbers with young people.

Same goes for his NCLB "repeal" that keeps much of the onerous (and odious) parts of the law in place.

Goodbye To Race To The Top

It's Monday, but this should make you smile:

WASHINGTON – Opponents of Common Core standards for K-12 students will be happy that the fiscal 2015 budget bill Congress is expected to send to President Barack Obama by Monday morning would defund the administration's Race to the Top program.

It's official, folks.

Barack Obama is a lame duck, Arne Duncan's political juice has dried up and outgoing NYSED Commissioner John King sure isn't going to change any of that.

While the defunding of RttT doesn't change much of the educational insanity we have in New York courtesy of Andrew Cuomo and Merryl Tisch, it is one more reminder that as bad as things look in public education, there's sometimes a little something to make you smile.

And I gotta tell you, nothing makes me smile as much as hearing that Barack Obama's signature education reform program has just lost its funding.

Obama Looks To Keep His Education Policies In Place Long After He's Out Of Office

Obama looks to lock in Common Core, high stakes testing and teacher evaluations tied to test scores long past the sunset on the Obama administration:

The Obama administration is inviting states to apply to renew their waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act. And according to guidance issued Thursday, these renewed waivers could last all the way through the 2018-2019 school year -- locking down some of President Barack Obama's education policy changes well into the next presidency.

The new guidelines don't radically change the criteria for escaping the law's strictures. According to an Education Department document, states will have to ensure that schools cannot receive top ratings for accountability if they are not closing "significant achievement or graduation rate gaps" between different groups of students. Some states have struggled to keep promises they made under the 2011 waiver guidelines to improve low-performing schools. Under the new guidance, states must update their lists of such schools "to ensure that interventions are being implemented in the lowest-performing schools."

Beyond that, a state must continue to show "how it will continue to ensure all students graduate from high school ready for college and a career, through implementation of college- and career-ready standards and high-quality aligned assessments," the new guidelines say. Many states have satisfied this waiver requirement by adopting the Common Core State Standards, a controversial set of learning standards that formally define what students need to know in English language arts and math by the end of each academic year. Oklahoma dropped Common Core earlier this year, and lost its waiver in August as a result.

States must also continue to show that they are implementing teacher evaluations that take student performance into account, as they promised when they initially joined the program. Washington state lost its waiver for failing to comply with this directive.

Peter Greene took on the news at Curmudgucation:

The new guidelines are essentially like the old guidelines, with a hard line emphasis on basing evaluation of teachers, schools, students, principals, bus drivers, landscaping artists and the guy who delivers paper supplies to the school on standardized tests. It was just a month ago that Duncan was shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Dang. I don't know why the heck everyone got so obsessed with testy stuff. I guess it was all of us, huh?" Now he's back to "You will all eat, breathe, live and die by the tests. Or else."

For Obama-watchers, there is no surprise in this news.

There was no way the Obama administration was going to back away from CCSS, high stakes testing, teacher evaluations tied to test scores and all the other ed reforms they brought to fruition.

Sure, Arne Duncan paid lip service to over-testing concerns.

But he was jiving - this is the Ed Sec who never saw a test he didn't like or a test score that wasn't the responsibility of a teacher.

So now they're looking to impose the Obama ed policies long after Obama and Duncan will be gone from the scene.

Obama is looking to do the same with his immigration policies.

There's been a huge outcry over Obama using executive orders to bypass Congress.

It will be interesting to see if the NCLB waiver renewals Obama and Duncan want in place through 2018 or 2019 cause the same furor.

They surely ought to, as Neal McCluskey at Cato points out:

If the outcry over unilateral executive moves we’ve seen over the last few years remains consistent, Obamacare and immigration are likely to keep sucking up most of Republicans’ attention and the media’s coverage. But just as sweeping have been executive waivers issued from the hated No Child Left Behind Act – really the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – that have been instrumental in connecting numerous states to, among other things, the Common Core national curriculum standards. And yesterday, the Education Department issued guidance offering states the chance to obtain waivers – if they do the administration’s bidding, of course – lasting well into the term of the next president: the 2018-19 school year.

These waivers are almost certainly illegal – even a Congressional Research Service report often cited to suggest the opposite says they are unprecedented in scope and, hence, an untested case – and even if they are not deemed technically illegal, the reality is they still amount to the executive department unilaterally making law. NCLB does grant the Secretary of Education the authority to issue waivers from many parts of the Act, but it grants no authority to condition those waivers on states adopting administration-preferred policies. Indeed, as University of South Carolina law professor Derek W. Black writes in a recent analysis of waivers, not only does NCLB not authorize conditional waivers, even if a court were to read any waiver authorization as implicitly authorizing conditions, the actual conditions attached – “college- and career-ready standards,” new teacher evaluations, etc. – fundamentally change the law. In fact the changes, Black notes, are essentially what the administration proposed in its 2010 “blueprint” to reauthorize NCLB. And quite simply, the executive fundamentally changing a law is not constitutional.

The latest waiver guidance goes beyond even the toxic status quo. Not only is the President using his vaunted pen and phone to unilaterally make education law, but law that would continue well into his successor’s term. It is a very dangerous move that, quite frankly, deserves at least as much alarmed coverage as Obamacare waivers and immigration actions. If for no other reason, because the action is moving us swiftly toward a de facto federal curriculum. In other words, direct control over what the vast majority of the nation’s children learn.

Federal power can’t get much more invasive than that.

Nope, it really can't.

The Obama administration has picked up where the Bush administration left off with their authoritarianism.  

Imposing policies, laws and the will of Congress (or the people) be damned.

Some Good News Out Of The Election - Race To The Top Is Probably Not Long For This World

A Republican-controlled House and Senate is almost certain to try and dump the Obama education agenda, including Race to the Top and the school turnaround program:

Conservatives will almost certainly use the budget process to try to eliminate the Obama administration's favorite competitive-grant programs, such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and the School Improvement Grant program. GOP lawmakers in the House have tried for the past few years to scrap those programs, but Senate Democrats have always championed them in budget negotiations.

Conservatives will undoubtedly push school choice and vouchers.

But we may also see a NCLB Jr. bill come to the president's desk that gets rid of some of the more controlling features of NCLB Sr:

 Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, has already laid out his education priorities, which include overhauling the NCLB law and tackling higher education legislation.

...

The starting point for Alexander would be a bill he introduced last year to renew the NCLB law. The plan garnered support from every GOP member of the committee, but didn't get a single Democratic cosponsor.

The measure would significantly scale back the federal role in K-12 policy, allowing states to devise their own accountability plans, among other things. As under the current law, schools would be required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and report the results, including for subgroups of students, such as English-language learners and those in special education.

Obama won't want to sign anything like this into law even if it comes to his desk, so what we may end up with over the next two years is gridlock on these issues.

But if Lamar Alexander is going to push for more local control of schools, put a leash on Arne Duncan and his USDOE goons, scale back the accountability measures set by the feds and let states do some of their own setting, well, I'm all for that.

And if Alexander and his fellow Republicans kill RttT and the turnaround program, well, I'm all for that too.

The way politics works these says, especially around education issues, there's no red vs. blue dichotomy that works for me any more.

I may not support choice and vouchers as the GOP will push in this next session.

But I surely can support some of the other items on Alexander's list.

And if he goes after Common Core, well, I'm all for that too.

We'll see if these GOPers put their money where their mouths are on these issues.

After all, there are some corporations that stand to lose millions if education policy changes.

But if they do follow through on some of that stuff like getting rid of RttT and the turnaround program, I can get on board with that.

Cuomo Throws Christie Under The Bus

Governor Andrew Cuomo has been tossing a lot of people under the bus lately.

After holding a press conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday night to reassure New Yorkers over Ebola, he threw de Blasio under the bus Friday afternoon when he held a press conference with Chris Christie to announce stringent new mandatory quarantine rules for anybody who had come in contact with Ebola patients in West Africa.

The NY Times noted the "public rift" that had developed between city officials and Cuomo, with unnamed city sources saying Cuomo had not alerted anybody in the city about the sudden change in state protocol for Ebola.

That was Friday.

Then came Saturday, with Governor Chris Christie setting up "Gitmo on the Passaic" for a nurse returning from Sierra Leone who had worked with Ebola patients and forcing her into a mandatory quarantine in a tent outside Newark University Hospital even though she showed no signs of the Ebola virus.

The nurse, Kaci Hickox, wrote a scathing critique of the New Jersey Ebola protocol, saying it was characterized by "fear," "chaos," and "disorganization," and retaining counsel to sue the state over civil rights violations.

Christie got hammered in the press over the weekend for the treatment of Ms. Hickox, but refused to back down from his mandatory quarantine of her, falsely claiming that she was "ill" and needed to be held by the state of New Jersey until it could be determined what she was ill from.

Cuomo, seeing the hammer job being done to his pal Christie across the state and taking a load of flak from the Obama administration for putting in place a stringent new Ebola quarantine protocol that was ill-thought out and seen to be a barrier against recruiting future volunteers to battle the Ebola crisis in West Africa, suddenly shifted course last night and held a joint press conference with Bill de Blasio to announce more details of the state's protocol:

Facing fierce resistance from the White House and medical experts to a strict new mandatory quarantine policy, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday night that medical workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa but did not show symptoms of the disease would be allowed to remain at home and would receive compensation for lost income.

Mr. Cuomo’s decision capped a frenzied weekend of behind-the-scenes pleas from administration officials, who urged him and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to reconsider the mandatory quarantine they had announced on Friday. Aides to President Obama also asked other governors and mayors to follow a policy based on science, seeking to stem a steady movement toward more stringent measures in recent days at the state level.

It was the second striking shift in Mr. Cuomo’s public posture on the Ebola crisis in 72 hours; after urging calm on Thursday night, then joining Mr. Christie to highlight the risks of lax policy on Friday, Mr. Cuomo on Sunday night appeared to try to dial back his rhetoric and stake out a middle ground.

He said his decision balanced public safety with the need to avoid deterring medical professionals from volunteering in West Africa. “My No. 1 job is to protect the people of New York, and this does that,” he said. Those quarantined at home will be visited twice a day by local authorities, he said. Family members will be allowed to stay, and friends may visit with the approval of health officials.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, sitting beside Mr. Cuomo at a news conference in Manhattan, nodded in approval, and praised the governor for developing a set of flexible quarantine guidelines that, the mayor said, would show proper respect to those required to abide by them.

After Mr. Cuomo’s announcement, Mr. Christie issued a statement saying that, under protocols announced on Wednesday, New Jersey residents not displaying symptoms would also be allowed to quarantine in their homes.

What else to say here but Cuomo tossed his pal Christie under the bus just two days after tossing his "old friend" Bill de Blasio under the bus.

And this wasn't the first shift in Cuomo's stance on Ebola this weekend either.

On Saturday he made a statement saying he didn't think his quarantine was legally enforceable, then backtracked on that statement Sunday morning, saying he did think it was enforceable (see here.)

Here's how some on Twitter put the weekend shifts in protocol from Cuomo:

Cuomo swings back & forth on #Ebola. Ends with quarantine at home + income compensation. http://t.co/M8966kLNKz pic.twitter.com/33HVJLob62
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) October 27, 2014

@perdidostschool @peterfeld @POsroff I'm not sure how Gov Sparky did it, but in one weekend he managed to look both evil AND weak.
— Seema Kalia (@seemakalia) October 27, 2014

Cuomo wanted to come out of this looking tough and decisive. 

Clearly he and Christie wanted to draw a sharp contrast between how New York and New Jersey were going to handle Ebola cases and how the federal government has been handling them.

There were political calculations behind all of this for both Cuomo and Christie, with Cuomo running for re-election in 2014 and Christie running for president in 2016.

But they announced a stringent new Ebola quarantine that they couldn't actually carry out well and so, in the end, instead of looking tough and decisive, they both look like putzs who have played politics with the public's health.

In addition, Cuomo looks even more expedient than usual, with New Yorkers getting to see him throw two different "friends" under the bus in one weekend.

One last point - the guy who looks the best in all of this is de Blasio, who never shifted policy or rhetoric and has remained constant in how he has handled the crisis.

It has been an extraordinary four days of policy shifts, dueling press conferences and betrayals by Governor Cuomo.

As Seema Kalia noted on Twitter, he managed to come out of these four days looking both evil AND weak.

What's The Strategy Here?

Remember when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Ironic, that:

Resarch by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reported just 4 percent of US drone strikes in Pakistan have killed people identified as members of al-Qaeda.

Research by the London-based bureau found that only 111 out of the total 2,379 drone victims killed in Pakistan since 2004 was "a senior commander of any armed group". Just 84 victims were identified as al-Qaeda militants.

Following the 400th drone strike on 11 October, the report provides a damning assessment of the CIA drone program in Pakistan.

"More than a third of them were not designated a rank, and almost 30 percent are not even linked to a specific group. Only 84 are identified as members of al-Qaeda – less than 4 percent of the total number of people killed," the report said.

The investigative bureau's Naming The Dead project has been monitoring and collating research on the identities and backgrounds of US drone victims in Pakistan since June 2004.

Indiscriminately dropping drone bombs, taking the fight to the "terrorists" - and creating many more terrorists in the bargain:

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met in the Oval Office Friday with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakastani girl who was shot in the head on her school bus by Taliban gunmen for criticizing their rule, including banning education for girls.

The White House says the first couple invited Malala -- the youngest ever nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize -- to the White House "to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan."

In a statement, the White House says the United States "joins with the Pakistani people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala’s courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dreams."

In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she's worried about the effect of U.S. drone strikes. (The White House statement didn't mention that part.)

"I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," she said in the statement. "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact."

In other circumstances, were Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan in the wrong place at the wrong time, Obama might have her killed in a drone strike.

Not purposely, of course, but intent is not the point here.

The point is what actually happens as a result of Obama's drone war.

The goal of the drone policy is ostensibly to stop terrorists from targeting the U.S. and it's allies.

The actual outcome of that policy is to fuel more terrorism against the U.S. and it's allies.

The cynic in me wonders if running an Endless War, with more "terrorists" being created every year as the U.S. indiscriminately drops drones on people, not particularly caring who they hit, isn't the actual goal.

Nothing keeps a government and the elite that supports it in power like Endless War.

And surely things are not getting better.

The more drones we drop, the more "terrorists" we seem to create.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/11/205176/obama-and-first-lady-meet-with.html#storylink=cpy

Anybody Buying This Threat?

The Neo-Con News:

The Iraqi prime minister sent a scare through New York City by declaring Thursday that the Islamic State was plotting to launch attacks on subways in the U.S. and in Paris.

Haider al-Abadi dropped the bombshell during a brief meeting with reporters at the United Nations.

“Today, while I’m here, I’m receiving accurate reports from Baghdad, where there was an arrest of a few elements, and there are networks planning from inside Iraq” to attack “in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abadi said.

The plotters are ISIS fighters from France and the U.S. who are currently in Iraq, he said.

“Yes,” Abadi answered when asked if the ISIS attacks were imminent.

“No,” he replied when asked if the plot had been thwarted.

The Iraqi prime minister divulged no other details about the alleged scheme to cause mayhem in the U.S. and France, two countries that have been leading the charge against murderous ISIS militants.

Al-Abadi has his own reasons why he wants Americans in fear over the so-called ISIS threat.

Same goes for Cuomo and Christie, both of whom have jumped on "security" in the past month as a campaign issue.

This has all the earmarks of the "threats" the city faced in the run-up to Bush's re-election in 2004, a "vague" threat warning that politicians running for elections jump on as an election issue even as another wing of the government - the feds - say they have heard of no specific threat to the subways.

Of course New York City is a terrorist target and the subway system one of the more vulnerable areas to attack, so any threat should be taken seriously.

But the rhetoric around this, from the Iraqi prime minister to the New York and New Jersey governors, smells of election year politics to me.

Politico: Obama's Teacher Evaluation Reform Agenda In "Disarray"

It's a mess out there:

The idea seems simple enough: Identify the best teachers and reward them. Pinpoint the worst and fire them.

That’s been a linchpin of the Obama administration’s education agenda from the start.
But now the administration’s initiative is in disarray, with states scaling back, slowing down and, in some cases, putting off tough decisions until Obama is out of office.

Teachers union pressure, error-riddled evaluations and a wave of more difficult tests for students have won many teachers a reprieve from the newfangled evaluations during the school year now getting underway.

Teachers have filed suit in a half-dozen states to block complicated new evaluation formulas that in some cases have rated them based on the test scores of students they never taught. Parents have protested that their children have been required to take tests created for the sole purpose of evaluating teachers. One county in Florida is developing 724 new final exams — in classes like welding and P.E.

And after spending millions to develop modern evaluation systems, many states find they’re not identifying all that many bad teachers. In Rhode Island, 95 percent of teachers were rated effective or highly effective last year. In Florida and Indiana, it was 97 percent. In Tennessee and Michigan, 98 percent.

“It would be nice if we could have some kind of objective external measure to say, ‘This is what constitutes good teaching — or good enough teaching.’ But the fact is, there’s no way the statistical measures can do that,” said Brian Gill, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research who works on so-called value-added calculations.

How much longer until it all falls apart?

Hard to say in New York, where Governor Andrew M. Cuomo is a staunch education reformer who claims teacher evaluation reform as one of his big accomplishments in his first term.

But the more these systems are revealed as error-riddled, the more the public learns that teachers are being rated on test scores for students they didn't teach or for subjects they aren't licensed in, the more teachers sue over the error-riddled ratings, the more teachers remind parents angry over testing that many of the tests their children are taking are for the sole purpose of rating teachers, the faster this evaluation reform agenda falls apart.

With NYSED and the Board of Regents in New York State now looking to make the test score component of the APPR teacher evaluation system 40% of a teacher's rating, you're going to see a lot of teachers getting rated using test scores for students they never taught or for subjects they aren't licensed in.

It behooves teachers rated "ineffective" or "developing" on that test score component to sue SED, the Regents and the governor over that system.

And of course continued pressure on the politicians who back this crap is important - helping Tim Wu beat Kathy Hochul for lieutenant governor is a way to send a message to the Common Core-supporting, education-reform shills in Albany that they may pay a price for pursuing that agenda.

A few years ago, the Endless Testing regime, the Common Core implementation and evaluation reform seemed like a done-deal in New York State, baked into the system, with little parents or teachers could do to fight them.

But as it becomes more and more apparent that much of this reform agenda is half-baked, error-riddled, indeed, even harmful to students and teachers, the more likely it is we can get this stuff pulled.

When Joe Nocera starts writing columns about the toxicity of the Endless Testing regime and test-based accountability for teachers on the Times opinion page, we're starting to get there.

Much work to be done yet.

But as we start a new school year here in New York City, you've got to smile to see a front page story in Politico about the Obama administration's evaluation reform agenda being in "disarray" and on life support that looks like it will be pulled when Obama leaves office.

Duncan Threatened NY Over Test-Based Teacher Evals, Now Says "Fine For Another Year"

Back in June:

New York might lose out on $300 million if last-minute negotiations on teacher and principal evaluations untie Common Core test scores from final ratings, federal education officials warned Tuesday.

That’s how much New York is due to receive to implement a new evaluation system as part of its participation in Race to the Top, a competitive grant program launched by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009. New York won a total of $700 million after legislators allowed more charter schools to open, moved toward adopting the Common Core standards, and approved new teacher evaluation requirements.

...


But students’ poor performance on the first years of Common Core state tests, and a rocky rollout of the new teacher evaluations, have increased pressure on lawmakers to discount those scores. Ann Whalen, who oversees implementation of Race to the Top at the U.S. Department of Education, said that would “undermine four years of hard work by the state’s educators, school leaders and stakeholders.”

“Breaking promises made to students, educators and parents and moving backward on these commitments—including stopping the progress the state has made to improve student achievement—puts at risk up to $292 million of New York’s Race to the Top grant for improving schools and supporting their educators and students,” Whalen said in a statement.

Today:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced on Thursday that states could delay the use of test results in teacher-performance ratings by another year, an acknowledgment, in effect, of the enormous pressures mounting on the nation’s teachers because of new academic standards and more rigorous standardized testing.

Sounding like some of his fiercest critics, Mr. Duncan wrote in a blog post, “I believe testing issues are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools,” and said that teachers needed time to adapt to new standards and tests that emphasize more than simply filling in bubbled answers to multiple-choice questions.

Over the past four years, close to 40 states have adopted laws that tie teacher evaluations in part to the performance of their students on standardized tests. Many districts have said they will use these performance reviews to decide how teachers are granted tenure, promoted or fired. These laws were adopted in response to conditions set by the Department of Education in the waivers it granted from the No Child Left Behind law that governs what states must do to receive federal education dollars. The test-based teacher evaluations were also included as conditions of Race to the Top grants that have been given by the Obama administration.

...  

In his blog post, Mr. Duncan wrote that “too much testing can rob school buildings of joy, and cause unnecessary stress.” He also accepted responsibility for the federal department’s role in pushing states and districts too quickly toward new standards and tests.

The nearly 40 states that changed evaluations did so because of the pressure Duncan and the Obama USDOE put on them to do so.

The reason there is so much testing is because Arne Duncan and his boss, Barack Obama, wanted all this testing.

The reason my evaluation will be based on test scores - 20% state tests, 20% local "assessments" (which were even more horseshit than you think) - is because Arne Duncan's DOE pushed New York to institute these changes and threatened New York if any changes were made to them.

Now Arne Duncan is concerned that testing is taking the joy out of school?

Is he fucking kidding me?

In large measure, Arne Duncan and Barack Obama, along with the business people who pushed them into power and sustain them now, are at fault for all the testing, all the stress on kids and teachers, and all the joy being squeezed out of education.

You can tell reformers are feeling the pressure when even Duncan kinda acknowledges this.

Doesn't help me any if I come up "developing" or "ineffective" on my Regents-based evaluation component or local assessment (MOSL) component, however.

And God forbid I come up "ineffective" on both, I'm "ineffective" overall.

That's the law in New York State, thanks to Arne, Barack, Andy, the legislature and the Regents.

Even though Arne Duncan now says there's too much testing and too much stress related to the testing and the evaluations and the new standards and schools need time to implement them better.

Thanks, Arne.

I'd say this is better late than never - but it's really not.

AFT Will Call For Duncan's Resignation Too

Norm Scott at Ed Notes:

Former Chicago TU Pres Debbie Lynch Calls for Arne Duncan Resignation.

Lynch, who was CTU president from 2001-04 and ran and lost in '07 and '10 and is now a delegate from a college, made a special resolution calling for Duncan resignation. This came as a surprise to Randi and pretty much everyone in the house it seems since there was already a planned similar reso, as pointed out by Randi, that she knew about in advance. She suggested they be combined. They are finishing the committee nursing resos.

I think I reported earlier that word was out that the leadership would not openly oppose this -- as some have pointed out - the AFT never likes to look less militant than the NEA, which called for the end of Duncan's reign. And so it is Lynch at mic captures the limelight. Needing a 2/3 vote to put on agenda tomorrow's calendar, it passes unanimously. Will be on agenda tomorrow.

Of course, since Randi Weingarten just spent last Monday standing next to Duncan as he trotted out his "Educator Excellence Equity Project," I don't think this resolution has any real meaning other than, as Norm says, the AFT leadership doesn't want to look less militant than the NEA's, and they want to throw a bone to the rank-and-file.

Frankly, I don't care whether Duncan stays or goes.

Duncan isn't the problem.

His boss, Barack Obama, and the billionaires who put him into office, are.

Whether Duncan stays or goes (and he likely stays for the next two years), nothing is going to change policy-wise out of the Obama administration - they're not turning back on six years of deform work.

So it's cool that the AFT seemingly will call for Arne's ouster, but it doesn't have any real practical effect on much of anything.

Now if they had allowed an anti-Common Core resolution to come to a vote and given the convention the chance to call for the "End of the Core," that would be something else.

But there's a reason why Randi and her AFT minions are allowing this Duncan resolution to come to the floor but killed the anti-CCSS resolution in committee.

That's because they know the Duncan one doesn't mean much, but the anti-CCSS resolution would have meant an awful lot.

Quinnipiac Poll: Obama Worst President Since WWII

Heckuva job, Barry;

A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama is the worst president since World War II.

Key findings: 33% of American voters say Obama is the worst while another 28% pick George W. Bush

Congratulations, dude  - you've beaten out George W., the man who brought us the Katrina response and the Iraq war mess, as worst president since WWII.

That's a heckuva accomplishment.

How Many Teachers Voted For Obama In 2012?

I didn't - not after Race to the Top and Arne Duncan and the Rhode Island teacher firings that Obama applauded.

But I bet lots of teachers out there still voted for Obama because they were scared that Mitt Romney might get elected.

Well, here's what Obama and his people are doing now, teachers:

Teachers unions are girding for a tough fight to defend tenure laws against a coming blitz of lawsuits — and an all-out public relations campaign led by former aides to President Barack Obama.

The Incite Agency, founded by former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and former Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, will lead a national public relations drive to support a series of lawsuits aimed at challenging tenure, seniority and other job protections that teachers unions have defended ferociously. LaBolt and another former Obama aide, Jon Jones — the first digital strategist of the 2008 campaign — will take the lead in the public relations initiative.

And you can bet Obama supports his former aides working to destroy the teaching profession and protections for teachers, because that's exactly what Race to the Top and the rest of the Obama education policies were all about.

In the future, don't let the bogeyman scare you away from NOT voting for an anti-teacher, anti-public education Democrat.

 

I refuse to be bullied into voting for an education reform Democrat no matter who he/she is running against.

 

Take New York, for example.

 

I'm not supporting Cuomo no matter what - not even if a poll the night before the election shows GOP candidate Rob Astorino within striking distance of Sheriff Andy.

 

Cuomo is anti-teacher, anti-traditional public schools and anti-union - so I am anti-Cuomo no matter what.

 

Obama is also anti-teacher, anti-traditional public schools and anti-union - so I am anti-Obama no matter what.

 

Teachers who supported Obama despite his record - well, he's paying you back now as he sends forth Obama administration shills to attack teachers. 

The Insanity Of The Chinese Education System

This is the education system that Barack Obama and Arne Duncan admire so much:

Nearly 9.8 million Chinese high school students took the National College Entrance Exam, called gaokao, on June 7 and 8.

The emphasis on a two-day test has sparked criticism from some educators because of the incredible amount of pressure it places on students leading up to just one test. Gaokao has also been linked to China's rising suicide rate because of mounted pressure and poor test results.

Hengshui High School, the highest achieving secondary schools in gaokao over the last 14 years, has these as its two mottos:  “Life is not a rehearsal, because you won’t have the chance to live it all over again,” and “If you haven’t died from hard work, just work harder." At Hengshui, students study from 5:30 a.m. to 9:50 p.m., cannot have cell phones and are allowed just one day of vacation every month. Cameras are placed in each classroom to monitor students for laziness. These types of tactics are increasingly common at what many are calling gaokao-sweatshops — schools that exclusively prepare students for gaokao.

“I usually spent three to five minutes eating dinner,” a former student of Hengshui told China Daily.

Needless to say, the stakes are insanely high. 

Check out the photos in this Business Insider piece, along with the captions, and then ask yourself, why would anybody admire this kind of education system?

De Blasio Defends Teacher Tenure System In NYC

It's behind a paywall at Capital NY, but this much was up at State of Politics:

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the city’s teacher-tenure system after a California judge ruled yesterday that the Golden State’s teacher protection laws were unconstitutional.

I would expect corporate education reformers and their hedge fundie backers to attack tenure here soon, but probably wait until the California case plays out first so that they can see the best tact to take here.

But you can bet we'll have a similar case launched in NY.

I know many teachers are pissed at de Blasio, angry over the contract, some still mad about the snow day.

Some have argued, quite plausibly, that the new contract weakens tenure protections for teachers.

Still, one point about the politics I want to say here:

Would the last mayor have defended the city's teacher-tenure system publicly in the wake if the California ruling?

Has Cuomo?

Or Obama?

The Lesson For Liberals And Progressives In The Eric Cantor Defeat

Buh-bye, Eric:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated Tuesday by a little-known economics professor in Virginia’s Republican primary, a stunning upset and major victory for the tea party.

Cantor is the second-most powerful member of the U.S. House and was seen by some as a possible successor to the House speaker.

His loss to Dave Brat, a political novice with little money marks a huge victory for the tea party movement, which supported Cantor just a few years ago.

Brat had been a thorn in Cantor’s side on the campaign, casting the congressman as a Washington insider who isn’t conservative enough. Last month, a feisty crowd of Brat supporters booed Cantor in front of his family at a local party convention.

His message apparently scored well with voters in the 7th District.

“There needs to be a change,” said Joe Mullins, who voted in Chesterfield County Tuesday. The engineering company employee said he has friends who tried to arrange town hall meetings with Cantor, who declined their invitations.

Tiffs between the GOP’s establishment and tea party factions have flared in Virginia since tea party favorite Ken Cuccinelli lost last year’s gubernatorial race. Cantor supporters have met with stiff resistance in trying to wrest control of the state party away from tea party enthusiasts, including in the Cantor’s home district.

Brat teaches at Randolph-Macon College, a small liberal arts school north of Richmond. He raised just more than $200,000 for his campaign, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. Prominent national tea party groups did spend independently to help Brat.

Brat offset the the cash disadvantage with endorsements from conservative activists like radio host Laura Ingraham, and with help from local tea party activists angry at Cantor.

The teacher tenure story in California remains the biggest story of the day, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor getting knocked off by a Tea Partier is a pretty close second.

You can bet Cantor's defeat will catch the notice of GOP insiders and party stalwarts.

Contrast what happened to Cantor tonight with the surrender the Working Families Party did on the Cuomo endorsement last month.

Until people on the left start taking these smarmy corporate Dems out the way the Tea Party just took out the smarmy Cantor, corporate Dems will continue to take the left for granted, will say anything they need to in order to get votes, then pull a full betrayal as soon as the election is over.

You start primarying a few of these corporate Dems and knocking a couple of them off and you can bet they'll stop taking you for granted.

It's a shame the left hasn't learned this lesson yet - not in 2012 with Obama, not in 2014 with Cuomo.

Maybe the left will learn it someday.

But probably not.

Diane Ravitch Calls For An Investigation Into Bill Gates' Common Core Coup

How did the richest man in America buy himself the public education system?

The story about Bill Gates' swift and silent takeover of American education is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and imposing the Common Core standards on almost every state should be investigated by Congress.

The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and -- working closely with the U.S. Department of Education -- impose new and untested academic standards on the nation's public schools is a national scandal. A Congressional investigation is warranted.

The close involvement of Arne Duncan raises questions about whether the law was broken.

Thanks to the story in the Washington Post and to diligent bloggers, we now know that one very rich man bought the enthusiastic support of interest groups on the left and right to campaign for the Common Core.

Who knew that American education was for sale?

Who knew that federalism could so easily be dismissed as a relic of history? Who knew that Gates and Duncan, working as partners, could dismantle and destroy state and local control of education?

The revelation that education policy was shaped by one unelected man, underwriting dozens of groups. and allied with the Secretary of Education, whose staff was laced with Gates' allies, is ample reason for Congressional hearings. 

One person must be added to the scandal list Ravitch posts - Barack Obama.

Arne Duncan didn't hijack public education alone.

He did it at the behest of his boss, Barack Obama.

Time for the investigation into the Common Core coup.