Andrew Cuomo Allegedly Goes Corleone On Merryl Tisch

Newsday has a very interesting story out tonight about something Merryl Tisch allegedly told to a middle school principal from Red Hook:

A Long Island Republican has posted on the Internet video from a forum this week on the Common Core academic standards where a Hudson Valley middle school principal relayed a conversation she said she had with state Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch, touching on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

  In it, the principal says Tisch told her the governor pressured the chancellor, in no uncertain terms, to make the Common Core rollout work. A spokesman for Tisch says the story isn’t true.

  Here’s how it unfolded:

   Karyann (Katie) Zahedi, principal of Linden Middle School in Red Hook, told the panel of Assembly members Wednesday night that she and other educators strongly expressed their concerns to Tisch about the Common Core, which has generated controversy around the state.

  “She was frustrated that we were so critical,” Zahedi, speaking of Tisch, told an audience that included parents and educators.

  “She said to me: ‘How would you like to be in my position?’” Zahedi continued. “This is what she says: ‘I’m at the governor’s mansion and he shouts at me that if you don’t get this done, if you don’t get this through, I’ll put three geniuses in a room and I’ll force it down your throats.’”

It's possible Tisch is just putting the blame on Sheriff Andy, but knowing how Cuomo operates, Tisch's story is believable too.

I'm sure Cuomo wants Common Core implemented because he took a bunch of DFER money and hedge fundie cash to get it implemented (along with the charter school cap lifted, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and the testing regime in the state "strengthened.")

I can believe Cuomo got in her face when the pushback against the Core, the Endless Testing, the APPR teacher evaluation system and inBloom intensified and started making the papers.
I can believe he is totally on board the Ed Deform Express behind the scenes and still pushing this stuff, even as students, parents and teachers around the state turn against it.

And I can believe he got totally tough behind the scenes, telling her this shit better get done or Luca Brasi's ghost is going to visit SED and the Board of Regents and get make them an offer they can't refuse.

It's completely in Cuomo's character to take no responsibility for the ed deform agenda in public anymore, to actually run from questions and make like he's never heard of this Common Core thing before, while pushing behind the scenes to get it done.

He's a bully and a coward, but in 2014 we're going to get him on the public record over this stuff, starting with his State of the State speech.

Cowardly Cuomo Continues To Run From His Own Education Reform Agenda

From Newsday:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo didn’t bite Monday when asked about a proposal by Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport) to eliminate some student testing, re-evaluate the Common Core academic standards and tighten student-data privacy.

Flanagan, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, unveiled his proposed legislation last week.
"Who is this?" Cuomo said when a reporter asked him about Flanagan's initiative.

Cuomo then suggested Flanagan put forth a bill. When told the senator already had, the governor said: "I don't know. I'd have to see the bill."

Critics have pointed out that Flanagan's bill is jive and does little more than give SED even more power than they already have over districts.

Nonetheless, that Cuomo won't even go on the record over something as mild as the Flanagan bill shows you how little he wants to do with the controversies over Common Core, the SED tests, inBloom or his own teacher evaluation system.

The past two years, during his State of the State speeches, Cuomo has lectured about how he plans for NY State to be out front in the education reform movement, how he is the official "lobbyist" for students who plans to look out for them by making sure they get more tests, more days in school, better teachers blah blah blah.

He sure had a big mouth on education in 2011 and 2012 - even early in 2013.

But now that all this stuff has become controversial, he won't even go on the record over the Flanagan bill.

As with fracking, he continues to run from the education issues.

So far, he's gotten away with it.

But he won't get away with this in January when he gives his next State of the State and we compare this year's speech to the past few State of the State speeches he gave or when he begins running for re-election in 2014.

He'll be put on record over these issues whether he likes it or not.

Holding Andrew Cuomo Accountable For His Common Core/Testing Agenda

Great piece from Karen Dewitt at WXXI:

Everywhere Governor Cuomo goes these days, he’s dogged by questions from reporters about what’s widely perceived as a rocky start up of New York State’s adoption of the new national Common Core standards for school children.

Cuomo was asked essentially the same question in recent days in stops from Buffalo, to Lake Placid.

“Can you talk about the common core, a lot of people  have issues with it," asked a reporter in Lake Placid on  November 20th.

In his answers lately , Governor Cuomo distances himself from the growing discontent that’s led to raucous meetings between state education officials and angry parents and teachers.

At an event on Staten Island, Cuomo called the implementation of the Common Core standards “problematic” .  In Lake Placid, he acknowledged the unease.

“It’s been very controversial,” Cuomo said. “It’s very controversial here in the state.”

Just a month ago, on October 23rd, Cuomo sounded much more supportive of the Common Core implementation, saying change can be hard “even when it’s right”.

“When you come in with a big change, there’s normally fits and starts, and it’s a little jerky, so that’s to be expected, “Cuomo said. “But Common Core curriculum, nationwide that’s where the country’s going, that’s the state of the art.”

Cuomo made those comments  just a few days after a raucous meeting in Poughkeepsie, where parents and teachers complained to State Education Commissioner John King that their children are taking too many tests, and teachers are not given adequate preparation to teach the new curriculum required to meet the standards. At one point, King was shouted down.

The Poughkeepsie forum was also Commissioner King’ s first meeting with parents and teachers since the first set of exams were released since the Common Core was adopted.  Those tests concluded that two thirds of the state’s third through eight graders were not adequately prepared to be on track for college or careers in the 21st century.

Since then, unease about the adoption of the standards has only grown. It’s been the subject of two sometimes contentious legislative hearings, and at a recent forum on Long Island, things were not much calmer.

In New York State, the Governor does not have direct control over education.   Cuomo has no power to appoint the education commissioner. King was chosen by the State Board of Regents. The Regents members are picked by the legislature.  Cuomo is quick to point that out.

“The governor is not in charge of the State Education Department,” Cuomo has said more than once.

A recent Siena Poll shows New Yorkers have become disenchanted with the Common Core. Nearly half hold doubts about its effectiveness.

Steve Greenberg, a spokesmen for Siena polls, says voters, though, may not make the distinction of who has authority over the education department, and Cuomo will likely be held accountable whether he’s actually in charge of it or not.

“Education is a key issue, and I think what this poll says is that all of those involved in education have to do a better job of informing the New York voters and citizens of what their efforts are, what their purpose is , and how they’re going about doing it,” Greenberg said.

Cuomo has not been shy in speaking out about education matters in the past . He has referred to himself as the “lobbyist” for students, and in the past has railed against excessive school spending, saying “more money” is not the answer. Cuomo does have the power in the state budget, to partly determine who much money schools will receive.

Cuomo also advocated for the state’s quick adoption of the new higher standards, as well as new , tougher teacher evaluations. New York is one of only two states to fast track the transition to Common Core.

While the Governor can’t directly affect education policy, he and the legislature can pass legislation to slow down the implementation of the Common Core standards. Many groups, including teachers unions, have been calling for a moratorium.  At each stop the governor has made in recent days, he has hinted that he might just try to do that.

“The state could pass a law that stops it, starts it, accelerates it, etc.,” Cuomo said.

The governor says he’s going to be keeping an eye on the situation. 

Cuomo is twisting himself into a pretzel trying to make like he had nothing to do with the state's education reform agenda, nothing to do with the Common Core implementation or tests or teacher evaluation systems that mandates these tests, but people remember his dubbing himself the "lobbyist" for students and pushing all of these reforms on the state.

The record is there to see and read and hear from his past speeches, statements and press releases.

He cannot hide from it and he will be held accountable for it.

He knows that, of course, which is why he's trying to make believe like he had never heard of this "national curriculum" known as Common Core until a few weeks ago.

He fools no one with this jive.

No one.

Own up to it, Sheriff Andy.

This is your curriculum, your reforms, your evaluation system, your data collection project.

Everyone knows it no matter what you say now.

Cuomo Was Right The First Time

Cuomo, when asked by a newspaper editorial board how he would react if New York City elected Anthony Weiner mayor, said "Shame on us!"

That story made the circuits around the Internets and then, suddenly, tough guy Cuomo was pulling it back.

It was just a joke.

Just kidding.

Come on, Andy.

You're a tough guy.

Stick with what you first said.

We all know it's what you really believe.

NY Post And NY Daily News Slap At Andrew Cuomo Over Teacher Evaluations

Ooh, lookee here - Rupert Murdoch just slapped Cuomo across the face with today's editorial on teacher evaluations and the Daily News made matters worse by comparing him unfavorably (at least in their minds) to the behemoth across the Hudson, Chris Christie (who happens to be Cuomo's rival, perhaps, for the 2016 WH race.)

Cuomo never likes to be criticized by any news outlets, but he especially hates to be taken to task publicly by his patron, Rupert Murdoch, or Murdoch's proxy in Albany, Fred Dicker.

You can bet Cuomo will respond the way he always responds when slapped by Murdoch - he'll act as fast as he can to make Uncle Rupert happy.

Remember, that's what he did the last time Murdoch slapped at him by calling him "Chicken Cuomo" on Twitter over teacher evaluations.

Within hours, Cuomo responded by giving Uncle Rupert everything he wanted (at least at that time) on evaluations.

But now it turns out it wasn't enough.

How long will it take for Cuomo to give Murdoch what he wants once again?

Oh, and one last thing - are the DN and Post coordinating editorials?

Funny how they ran the same one on the same day.

Daily News editor Colin Myler of course is a former criminal, er, employee of News Corporation, so perhaps there is some coordination there.

Or perhaps somebody in the education reform/hedge fundie world pushed to have the editorial pages run the editorials so close together.

More likely it's the second choice.

With the start of school just a few weeks away, I suspect we are about to get a very heavy-handed push from the education reform world and their media mouthpieces to get a punitive, test-centric teacher evaluation deal here in NYC that will give the DOE the right to impose dozens of local standardized tests in every subject in every grade on top of the state tests and use the scores from both to evaluate and fire teachers.

Who cares if adding dozens of high stakes standardized tests a year to every grade in every subject makes sense?

Who cares if this so-called accountability movement is actually doing much more harm than good to kids?

After all, there is money to be made by Uncle Rupert and the rest of the reformers on all the testing, the test prep and the accountability and data tracking tools, and there is money to be saved by firing all those expensive veteran teachers and replacing them with cheaper (and disposable) newbies.

Cuomo Will Cut Aid To Districts That Do Not Tie Teacher Evaluations To Test Scores

And he's calling Shelly Silver a teachers union shill in a broadside attack against the Assembly Speaker via Cuomo's favorite venue for political attacks - the Murdoch-owned NY Post:

In one of his most dramatic moves since taking office, Gov. Cuomo will use the budget he makes public tomorrow to impose union-hated teacher evaluation systems on 700 school districts throughout the state, The Post has learned.

The popular governor will do so by including language in the budget that ties receipt of 4 percent state aid increases promised to the districts in last year’s budget — some $800 million — to adoption of the teacher-evaluation system developed by the state Education Department, which has been blocked from city schools by a teachers-union lawsuit, a source close to the situation said.

All the systems, including the New York City schools, will have until Dec. 31 of this year to adopt the teacher-evaluation systems or lose the money, the source said.

...

Cuomo’s tactic will be based on a controversial set of Court of Appeals rulings that date from 1998 to 2004, finding that governors could change state laws and, in effect, adopt new ones by including language to do so within the budget.

“Shelly and the teachers union will likely go ballistic,’’ was how one source close to the Cuomo administration put it about the governor’s plan, referring to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), a teachers-union ally.

Notice three things here.

First, Cuomo is back in Rupert Murdoch's good graces now that's he returned to union-busting and teacher bashing.

Last week Murdoch nicknamed Governor 1% "Chicken Cuomo" for failing to impose a test score-based teacher evaluation system on teachers like Bloomberg wants.

But now that Cuomo's doing Murdoch's bidding on education reform once again, Post reporter Fred Dicker is back to slobbering all over Cuomo in the newspaper, writing about how "popular" the governor is and helping the governor by attacking Cuomo's enemies in the paper.

Also notice the preliminary strikes Cuomo lobs against both Assembly Speaker Silver and Senate Majority Leader Skelos as teachers unions shills through Dicker.

Cuomo is serving notice that he's going to smear anybody who stands in his way of his corporate education reform agenda as "harming the kids" or shilling for the unions - even though common sense says pushing through a massive new evaluation system that imposes new city and state standardized tests in every subject at every grade level might just be, you know, an idea that should be slow-walked.

But not in Governor 1%'s mind - state and city tests in every subject in every grade and teacher evals tied to those scores - that's just the ticket to improve public education in the state.

Last point - notice how Dicker changes the phrasing of Cuomo's "I'm going to be the chief lobbyist for students" from last week's State of the State speech to "Cuomo is the chief advocate for students."

A Siena poll released today showed people didn't like that term or idea - too close to the phrase "corporate lobbyist," I guess.

So leave it to Fred Dicker and the Murdoch Post to rebrand Cuomo "Chief Advocate."

Cuomo's a chief advocate all right - for the interests of the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, Pearson Education, and News Corporation.

When this new evaluation system goes into place, it will be interesting to see how parents in places like Scarsdale and Great Neck react to it.

Remember, this is a value-added system - teachers MUST add value to every student's test scores, even the high-scoring ones in Scarsdale and Great Neck.

The chaos that we have in New York City with school closures and firings and the like - that's going to come to Great Neck, Scarsdale and other wealthy suburbs too.

Not to mention all those new standardized tests they're going to add into all the subject in all the grades.

What will Cuomo's poll numbers look like after a year where parents see new city and state standardized tests added to every subject in every grade and teachers doing nothing but test prep for all these tests because if they don't "add value" to the scores, they're going to be rated "ineffective," humiliated in the local papers when they publish the individual teacher scores, and eventually fired?

TWU President Tells Cuomo To "Shove It"

The unions - from CSEA to PEF to the UFT and the NYSUT - have fallen all over themselves to stay on the good side of Governor 1% (or "Chicken Cuomo" as he's known to his patron, Rupert Murdoch.)

This weekend one union leader finally told the union-busting, union-hating Cuomo what he can do with himself:

As the MTA’s contract with the Transport Workers Union Local 100 was set to expire at midnight last night, hundreds of workers gathered in the bitter cold outside the negotiations at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown for a raucous rally where they were joined by several local politicians.

“I’ve been bargaining for the better part of the last 48 hours,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said. “I’m going to go back into that hotel and I’m going to tell the chairman of the MTA, I’m going to tell the governor to take their petty demands and shove it.”

As the state faces a looming deficit, Mr. Samuelsen said Governor Cuomo and the MTA are attempting to balance the budget “on the backs of Local 100 members” by taking five vacation days, creating part-time bus operators, limiting overtime and not granting a pay raise, among other sticking points.

Politicians who support working people, politicians who see that American society cannot be the 1% getting it all and the 99% getting the shiv, came out to support working people over the governor and the MTA:

Prior to Mr. Samuelsen’s appearance at the rally, which also included a tribute in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the crowd heard statements of support from City Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito, Ydanis Rodriguez and Tish James.

“We are here to support the leadership of TWU and to support all of you, because this is the best way to continue Martin Luther King’s dream,” Councilman Rodriguez said.

Both Councilwoman Mark-Viverito and Councilwoman James invoked the Occupy Wall Street protests in their speech to the TWU crowd.

“You keep this city running and we want to make sure that we support each and every one of you,” Councilwoman Mark-Viverito said. “The 99% is kicking, the 99% is saying, ‘We’re not going to take it anymore, we’re not going to give back anymore.’”

“We have to give homage to Occupation Wall Street who talked about the growing disparity in the city of New York and throughout this nation,” Councilwoman James said. “Those discussions are out front and it’s because of all of you working families, working individuals in the city of New York who deserve a fair contract, who deserve a living wage to sustain your families. That is why we are out here this evening in the cold and I’m glad its cold out here because it reminds us of our struggle.”

As a member of the UFT, I have watched my union leadership fall all over themselves to stay on Cuomo's good side.

As a member of the AFT, I have watched my union leadership fall all over themselves to keep their "seat at the table" in the Obama administration's discussions of education policy.

While they have been doing all of this groveling, both Cuomo and Obama have been pushing anti-teacher and anti-union measures meant to bust our unions, scapegoat teachers for all the problems in the public education system, give local districts the power to fire any teacher at any time for any reason and promote testing, testing, testing over true education.

My union leadership - Mike Mulgrew at the UFT and Randi Weingarten at the AFT and Richard Ianuzzi at the NYSUT - ought to be telling Cuomo and Obama they can "shove it" when they come around with these measures and policies.

They ought to be telling the American people and the people of the State of New York that the test score-based evaluation system pushed by Obama is NOT getting rid of the odious provisions of No Child Left Behind, as Obama and his Secretary of Education Privatization, Arne Duncan, like to say.

Rather this Obama policy is doubling down on the very measures that Americans hate about the Bush law - the narrowing of the curriculum, the erasure of any measure of skill or proficiency in the system except for test scores, and the destruction that the emphasis on scores has done to children, teachers and schools.

The UFT and the NYSUT and the AFT and the NEA ought to be telling Obama to shove his Gates Foundation-funded education policies, shove his 2012 re-election, and shove that idea he has that working teachers who are being scapegoated by this administration are going to vote for Obama again.

They ought to be saying "Remember Central Falls!"

Instead they offer endorsements of the president a year and a half before the election, as the NEA did.

And when the teacher-hating Andrew Cuomo declares New York State is suffering a "crisis in accountability" because teachers refuse to agree to a test score-based evaluation system with wide swings in stability and a margin of error larger than Andrew Cuomo's ego, the UFT and the NYSUT ought to be attacking Cuomo back and arguing that if there is a "crisis in accountability" in this state, it resides at the Regents and the NYSED where state officials are promoting corporate-friendly education "reform" policies while taking money, jobs and trips from corporate education reform companies like Pearson Education and News Corporation.

They ought to be arguing that the "crisis in accountability" in this state resides at Tweed Courthouse and City Hall in New York where the mayor and his Gates Foundation-funded education reform cadre push reforms like merit pay, school closures and test score-based evaluation systems for teachers that will make the education system WORSE while their own policies over the last ten years have resulted in a stagnation in test scores, phonied up graduation rates and chaos and destruction in the system like we have never seen before.

They ought to be arguing that if there is a "crisis in accountability" in this state, it resides with Governor Cuomo himself, who allowed the crooks on Wall Street (many of whom promote this corporate education reform stuff in their spare time when they're not raping investors and ravaging pension funds) to steal billions when he was attorney general, declining to criminally prosecute any of the architects of the 2008 financial collapse.

They ought to be telling Cuomo to shove his "I'm a lobbyist for students" jive by pointing out his kids go to private schools where teachers are NOT evaluated by test scores, where FEAR is NOT the rule of the day, where schools are NOT constantly under threat of closure if they don't show improvements in their quarterly test score results, where endless test prep and endless testing do NOT replace real learning.

They ought to point out that the self-appointed lobbyist for children is hurting students by promoting nothing but testing upon testing in the education system around the state.

Instead, the UFT urges us to call 311 and complain to the operator about Bloomberg.

And so, on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, when Obama will point to himself as the culmination of King's dream and when Cuomo will claim he is the guy on the right side of the civil rights/education issue, I say both Obama and Cuomo - Goldman Sachs-funded and corporately-co-opted politicians - can shove their corporate education reform policies, their union-busting, their teacher-bashing and their water-carrying for the 1%.

The dream I have today is that my union leadership at the UFT, the AFT, the NYSUT and the NEA wake up from their slumbers and join me in telling these corporate-owned politicians to shove it too.

King might have used difference language in this struggle against the union-busting, corporate-reform movement, but you can be sure he would stand with us today in this fight.

Rupert Murdoch Talks, Andrew Cuomo Listens (and Snaps To Attention!)

Rupert Murdoch offered the following via Twitter yesterday after Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City speech:

Bloomberg’s bold teacher proposals today terrific. How will chicken Cuomo respond? If UFT refuses this money good teachers will scream.”

Now Cuomo, who needs and wants Rupert Murdoch's respect and love (and press) even more than he needs and wants air, could have responded two ways.

He could have responded the way he usually does when someone attacks him (or he even thinks somebody attacks him) - with a rhetorical sledgehammer.

This is what he did to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this week.

Or he could bow down to almighty Rupert's wishes and back Bloomberg up on his teacher bashing.

Which is EXACTLY how he responded a half an hour later after Rupert's "tweet":

“I commend Mayor Bloomberg for outlining a positive vision for New York City’s future and the most important part of building that future, our students. The State and City’s education system is facing a crisis in accountability and performance. Our continuing pattern of being number one in the nation on spending in education and thirty-eighth in graduation rates hurts our students across the State, including the over 1.1 million public school students in New York City.

As I said in my State of the State Address, and Mayor Bloomberg reiterated in his State of the City today, we need an education system that puts students first. Both the Mayor and I agree that this starts with implementing a teacher evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for their performance. I look forward to working together to create an accountability system that puts the interests of students ahead of the interests of the education bureaucracy."

It is interesting how Cuomo says New York teachers are unaccountable while he does the work of a newspaper mogul/media oligarch who somehow has skirted the law in a scandal in Britain involving phone hacking, computer hacking, bribery, extortion, evidence tampering and conspiracy to cover-up a crime that has seen 18 of his employees arrested, including his number 1 deputy in England, and may yet see his son, James Murdoch, taken away in cuffs.

Yet somehow Cuomo ignores all of that mess (that "lack of accountability") to back Murdoch and Bloomberg up that teachers are unaccountable and until this "crisis in accountability and performance" in New York public education is fixed, New York's school system will continue to suck (even though as ED WEEK and the business channel CNBC both showed this week, none of this stuff Cuomo says about the New York State school system is true.)

So Andrew Cuomo is a chicken, all right - a chicken who snaps to attention when his patron and surrogate daddy Rupert ""Phone Hacking" Murdoch says a cross word to him.

Whatever Rupert wants, Rupert gets - from "Chicken Cuomo".

Fortunately the Daily News reports that Shelly Silver and the Assembly are no longer going to defer to the governor on policies that are harmful to New York State, as they did last year.

That's important, considering "Chicken Cuomo" seems to be in the business of doing the bidding of a corporate criminal like Murdoch who stands to make billions off the teacher accountability measures Cuomo and Bloomberg want to enshrine into law.