NYSED Subpoenaed In Cuomo Corruption Case

Scott Waldman at Politico NY:

ALBANY—The state Education Department has received a subpoena in connection with a probe by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office into a number of energy-related state entities and developers, according to sources familiar with its contents.

The state Education Department is independent of the Cuomo administration. The subpoena seems to indicate that the federal investigation, which reportedly focuses on the Buffalo Billion project, entails a wide net.

...

A Bharara spokesman has declined to speak on the probe, which appears to focus on longtime Cuomo aide Joe Percoco as well as Todd Howe, a lobbyist and longtime Cuomo associate.

The subpoenas that have been issued touch on several pieces of the Cuomo administration’s energy policy.

The broad-based subpoena received by the education department names the Department of Public Service and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as well as the New York Power Authority, according to the sources.

The education department crosses into energy policy with energy service contracts as well as through a solar initiative to put solar panels in schools.

This investigation into Cuomo's economic development programs gets bigger and bigger by the day.

Would love to see the look on Cuomo';s face every time he learns about another subpoena.

Because the more Preet subpoenas individuals and entities involved in Cuomo's economic development programs, the bigger the case he's building to eventually bring against some people.

Some Students Spent Between 6 And 13 And A 1/2 Hours On Testing Yesterday

Yesterday three Regents exams were given - Global History, English and Geometry.

All over the city, high school juniors who had previously failed the Global History and/or Geometry exams were taking those tests again.

Many were also taking the English exam.

Here's how the schedule went yesterday for students slated to take the ELA Regents exam and one or two more exams:

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Global History Regents Exam
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM - English Language Arts Exam
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Geometry Regents Exam

A student taking two exams yesterday spent six hours on the tests.

A student taking all three exams yesterday spent nine hours on the tests.

And some students from the special education department who receive extended time testing accommodations spent as long as 13 and a 1/2 hours on the tests.

Think about that for a moment.

Think about how much is riding on these tests for the students (who need them to graduate), for the teachers (many of whom are tied to the scores for their APPR teacher evaluation rating despite the claims of the UFT and NYSUT to the contrary) and for the schools (which can end up in receivership or closed based upon those scores.)

I keep hearing from Carl Korn of NYSUT that test scores don't count for teachers anymore, that the pressure is off for students and schools too.

I've heard similar from some of the UFT and NYSUT shills on Twitter (one of whom told me that there was "zilch, nada, bupkis" in his rating tied to test scores.)

Apparently the union hacks at NYSUT and the UFT are unaware of the stakes tied to tests that continue to ride high in high schools for students, teachers and the schools themselves.

Does anybody want to guess how well a student who took two tests back-to-back for six hours yesterday did on those tests?

How about students who took all three for a nine hour testing extravaganza?

How about special education students who had extended time and could have been taking the tests for as long as 13 and 1/2 hours?

Does anybody want to guess what the test component/teacher evaluation ratings for teachers whose student took three tests in one day are going to look like?

It's absurd to think that the geniuses at the Board of Regents and the State Education Department decided to shove as many tests as possible into as small a window as possible, knowing that some students would have to take more than one test a day, some as many as three.

But it's not a surprise.

Because these people DO NOT CARE about children or teachers or schools.

They care only about test scores, expediency and compliance.

And by that gauge, everything yesterday was swell - three tests knocked off, grading starts today for those three, some more tests today, with that grading to begin on tomorrow and so on until it's all done by Sunday.

And there you have it - testing on a tight schedule, all done so that schools can get the scores in by the weekend, the next semester's scheduling completed by Monday and the Spring Semester off to  a start by next Tuesday.

Now if you ask, does this system serve children, teachers or schools, the answer would have to be no.

But remember, the members of the Board of Regents and the educrats at NYSED don't really care about that.

Scores, expediency, compliance - that's what matters.

They ought to be brought up on child abuse charges for what was done yesterday and what will continue to be done this week.

But they won't be.

Hell, they won't even be taken to task by the union leaders at NYSUT or the UFT since the union heads are too busy claiming there's a test score moratorium in APPR and attacking any teachers who point out how wrong they are.

How much has changed as a consequence of Governor Cuomo's Common Core Task Force?

In high schools just about nothing has changed.

What will it take for NYSUT and the UFT to admit this?

I dunno, but it certainly will take more than my efforts, since I keep telling NYSUT's Carl Korn this and he keeps ignoring me.

In fact it seems politicians, the unions and reporters all keep saying so much has changed in education when, in reality, little has changed at all.

Yesterday's insane Regents exam scheduling was the latest iteration of that.

Governor Cuomo keeps telling us he's reduced testing in schools.

I wonder how well he would have fared taking 13 and a 1/2 hours of history, math and English tests yesterday?

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.

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.

NYSED On Lockdown

Interesting story from WNYT:

Things are back to normal at the state Education Department building in Albany after a brief lockdown Thursday morning.

The Education Department tells us that the lockdown happened after a fight between two employees.

The building was searched and cleared by both the police and security staff.

There is no word yet on what the two were fighting about.

 
Kinda emblematic of the contributions NYSED brings to education as a whole.

Also, shame they took the building off lockdown.

Less harm done when it's that way.

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'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?

Cuomo Administration Official Criticizes MaryEllen Elia's Common Core Plan

Division between Cuomo and Elia/NYSED on Common Core and the Endless Testing regime (via State of Politics):

As the battle over potential changes to the controversial Common Core standards begins to take shape in New York, an official in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is reacting cooly to a package of preliminary recommendations being made by Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.

The commissioner, who outlined the recommendations on Monday ahead of the department’s task force to revise and study the standards, suggested

-Extending the current freeze on the reporting of test results for grades three through eight on permanent records through the 2018-19 school year
-The creation of an advisory council for computer-based tests.
-Spending $10 million to create Native Language Arts examinations that would allow those learning English to take the tests in Spanish
-An additional $2.9 million for alternative assessments for students deemed to have severe disabilities.
-The creation of a “teacher portal” that would enable educators across the state to receive additional resources in the rollout of Common Core in history and science.
-A proposed five-year spending plan for teacher and principal professional development.

The Cuomo administration official, however, was not impressed.

“SED’s recommendations only offer more of the status quo and are just thinly veiled requests for financial resources by a state agency,” the official said.

Cuomo is throwing Elia and NYSED under the bus on Common Core (and he will throw her and SED under the bus every chance he gets in order to distance himself from the mess he in part created through his education reform agenda - just as he did with John King and SED)

No surprise here - Cuomo's M.O. has been to try and avoid responsibility for the mess he helped create with his APPR teacher evaluation system and his pro-testing, pro-CCSS agenda.

That said, the Cuomo official is right that the SED "package of recommendations" is nothing other than minor tweaks to a broken machine.

A "teacher portal" and five years of extra PD?

An "advisory council" for computer-based tests?

That's the best Gates Foundation genius Elia could do?

Not much to these recommendations, is there?

If this is the best Elia can do, she's going to be out on her Gates Foundation-favored ass sooner rather than later.

Cuomo's already turning on her and using her as a scapegoat for unpopular policies and Elia shows no willingness to actually call for changes to those policies or comprehend how deeply unpopular they are.

Ridiculous NYSED Claim About Common Core Support Will Add To Opt Out Numbers

Yesterday NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said 71.5% of respondents to the rigged NYSED survey about Common Core support the standards.

Commenters at Perdido Street School responded with scorn:

Parents will provide NYSED all the feedback they need on the April "survey".

And:

When Elia proclaims that everyone loves the CC and it's still full speed ahead with the bullshit, she'll add another 200,000 to the opt outs in April.

And:

Amazing, anyone who has kids knows that number is a complete fabrication. It insults parents, teachers, the public and students. They must have used Common Core math to arrive at that figure.

I think the insulting treatment from Cuomo, Elia and company over education policy will end up backfiring on them too.

Cuomo rigged his CCSS public hearings for minimal attendance by having them in small spaces at times that are so close to school hours that many people can't get to them in time to sign up and speak (see here and here.)

Elia rigged the NYSED Common Core survey to make it as arduous, complex and jargon-laden as possible so that only the most committed would finish it (see here.)

Now she's claiming 71.5% support for CCSS when polling from Siena shows widespread opposition to the standards (see here and here.)

This comes on top of the Endless Testing propaganda site she put together, replete with talking points and sample tweets, for superintendents to use in communicating with parents and teachers about the wonders of the state's testing regime.

The powers that be continue to play games with parents and teachers, on the one hand saying that they're "listening" to the dissatisfaction over Common Core and Endless Testing (see Cuomo's approval numbers on education here and here) while doing all they can to ensure the status quo with the other.

But as the commenters noted, their gambits won't work - when the education policies of Endless Testing and Common Core do not change, parents and teachers will not be fooled by rigged surveys, rigged Common Core hearings, or "sample" pro-Common Core social media messages.

NYSED Uses Rigged Survey To Claim 71.5% Back Common Core

No wonder NYSED made the Common Core survey so long and complicated - they were going to use it to claim they have wide support for their reforms:

A state-backed survey soliciting detailed critiques of the Common Core has drawn responses that are largely supportive of the standards, according to the state Education Department.

The state Board of Regents heard an update Monday on the department’s “AimHighNY” survey, which was launched in October as the state began a review of its first five years with the oft-debated, more-stringent education standards.

So far, about 71.5 percent of the feedback elicited through the survey has been “supportive of the standards,” according to the department’s presentation. The remaining 28.5 percent was not supportive.

The survey is geared toward teachers, administrators and others who deal with the standards every day. Indeed, the majority of the 5,500 survey takers — 62.2 percent — have been teachers. Parents have made up 21.6 percent of the survey pool, with administrators coming in at 6.9 percent.

The way they rigged this is to make the survey an arduous process:

Survey takers can’t just leave general critiques of the standards; Instead, they have to be about specific aspects of the Common Core, down to the grade level, subject matter and detail.

Here's how some would-be survey-takers described the process:

“I started and stopped after 5 minutes. A person would need to be totally familiar with every standard and the curriculum used in a school to be able to complete this survey. This is another slap in the face to the parents, because they will not be able to answer the questions.” -Lorri G.

“This survey is set up horribly and only asks questions about each SPECIFIC standard, and takes over half hour to complete. The important thing to point out to the media is that the standards are copywritten and cannot be changed. Just another false move on NYSED’s part to make it seem like they are listening. Smoke and mirrors.” -anonymous New York parent.

“It’s horrible!!! It is so drawn out and confusing. Just like Common Core. It would take hours to literally answer each question for each grade level for each course and section of each module. They set this up to fail just like common core. They figure no one will take the time to fill it out so it will look like every thing is fine and dandy.” – Monique Armann

“Yet this is open to all, but “all” are having a difficult time navigating the specific and individual standards within the survey. Heck, teachers have a difficult time with them and we have to deal with them on a daily basis in the classroom. Elia, is more or less laying down the gauntlet. “Here’s your chance, teachers. You said the Common Core State Standards are narrow, inappropriate, misguided, ineffective, imposed, relentless, demoralizing, overly complex, nontransparent, inadequate, and unreliable (I may have left out one or two). You may address the standards, individually, in your free time, but beware, if you stray from addressing the standard in any way, we’ll reject it out of hand. Also, did we mention your cookies must be in order on your device? I know we said you can come back to your information, but…well, no. Oh, and you can’t change your mind once you’ve submitted anything. No, why would we let you do that? Really, teachers, we don’t expect you to do this. We’ve made it very difficult for everyone. But, in the end, we will be able to shrug our shoulders and say, we gave NY a chance to respond. Argue that.” -Kristin S.

Here's how Anna Shah of the  Hudson Valley Alliance for Public Education described the survey:

“I wish I had good news, but I’m skeptical about the survey. The survey seems to have been developed, in my opinion, to be cumbersome and burdensome… I don’t believe you can go back and I believe that if you do not complete the survey in one sitting then you are out of luck, and have to start over from scratch.

Frankly, I have serious concerns about the survey because beyond the substance of the questions and its format, the survey appears to require parents to comment on each specific standard. Given the fact that many parents are not educators, I’m not sure that this is a fair question to ask of the “public” at large. How many parents are incredibly familiar with common core standards and the impact they are having on our students? I’m sure parents are probably not as familiar or knowledgeable about each and every standard and corresponding sequence that follows, so the set up of the survey seems to expressly disqualify the average parent from participating at the outset.

More troubling, it explains that information or comments that do not directly relate to a standard will be disregarded. So, for example, generalizations about how the cc curriculum is developmentally inappropriate and is adversely affecting students and children, which the average parent absolutely and positively has legitimate experience with, is likely to be summarily dismissed.

Also of importance, the fact that the survey privacy disclaimer explains that if you choose to complete the survey and submit a response to be considered by the committee, then you are consenting to allowing nysed to data mine your Info and collect information beyond normal procedure- for example nysed specifically explains that they will be tracking your IP AND web use both before and after you take the survey, and collecting information about the sites that you have visited before, after, and during the survey. I have some ideas about why they’re doing this.

Regardless, this is definitely more incentive to urge families to refuse the test, and gives me great concern SED is being less than genuine in putting the survey forward to the public.”

Get the word out there that the 71.5% support NYSED is claiming for Common Core based upon the survey is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.

Cuomo's having his Common Core "review" hearings held during school hours (or right after school) in an attempt to limit criticism and NYSED has created a Common Core survey that is long and complicated in order to rig the results.

But polls in New York show how deeply unpopular Common Core is (see here and here) - those NYSED couldn't rig.

NYSED Commissioner Elia Looks To Bust Buffalo Teachers Union

Herein lies the endgame for "receivership":

In one of her most significant actions as state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia has granted Buffalo Superintendent Kriner Cash unprecedented power to make changes at the district’s most struggling schools, bypassing the teachers union contract.

Those changes could include a longer school day and year, required teacher training and more control over staffing – all things Cash says are essential to improve student performance.

 In a 107-page ruling released Monday, Elia largely imposes Cash’s proposals with some modifications that call for giving teachers more notice of contractual changes and preference for other jobs, should they be displaced from their position. She also recommends that a committee created to assist with staffing at the receivership schools be limited to three or five people, and consist of an odd number to prevent deadlock between union and district representatives.

Ultimately deformers want the power to bypass union contracts in every school, but they're happy for now to start with the "struggling" ones and work their way onward later.

The Buffalo Federation of Teachers plans to sue.

Helluva day - Boston mayor throws a bomb by making a secret deal to close a bunch of Boston schools and Elia gives her handpicked Buffalo superintendent the power to bypass the union contract in the "persistently struggling" schools in Buffalo.

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia Declares War On Opt Out Movement

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia sent out a letter to superintendents around the state touting an NYSED "toolkit" for districts to use to "educate" parents about the wonders of the Endless Testing regime.

The toolkit amounts to a lame PR campaign that tries to sell the same old pro-testing talking points we've heard from ed deformers and educrats before.

To say the toolkit was not well-received by superintendents and parents is an understatement.

This is from this morning's Politico NY education email:

“One anti-testing group believes this will only ‘fuel’ the movement. ‘It’s a declaration of war,’ said Jeanette Deutermann, co-founder of anti-testing group New York State Allies for Public Education and administrator of Long Island Opt Out. ‘This is a marketing strategy they’re using …This is insane...’...  

When Patchogue-Medford schools superintendent Michael Hynes received the email and kit he said he felt ‘embarrassed’ and then ‘angry.’ ‘I was embarrassed for the state education department because to me it’s a waste of time and it’s a waste of money from their vantage point, a waste of energy to actually give superintendents a module, a script on how to engage parents.’ He promptly responded to the department, saying he “did not need a tool kit,” and deleted the email, Hynes said. Seventy percent of the Long Island district's 3,291 eligible students refused to take the April exams. More than 1,500 students already have handed in refusal letters for next spring's round of testing, he said…

Elia came into her NYSED gig saying she wanted to "repaint" the Common Core standards so that parents would see how swell they are.

This toolkit is part of the "repaint" job she's doing on CCSS and the Endless Testing regime, but it's difficult to see how using stale talking points about testing is going to help change perceptions of the Endless Testing regime:

“Shoreham-Wading River schools Superintendent Steven Cohen said he was hoping the tool kit was more up-to-date…’Unless the state education department and commissioner can really explain to people or address these questions in a way that people will accept, I think people are going to continue to wonder why these reforms are being pushed the way they are.’” http://politi.co/1WzEa6h

It's pretty clear from the way Cuomo's handling his CCSS review task force (i.e., trying to limit attendance) and  now from the Elia opt out toolkit that neither the governor nor the state educrats plan any substantive changes to the Common Core or the Endless Testing regime as currently constituted in this state.

If either of them think that stale talking points about testing and a dog and pony show about Common Core are going to fool parents and teachers who are fed up with the reform agenda, they are sorely mistaken.

If anything, they're going to fan the flames of the opt out movement when they say with a straight face "Hey, we listened and heard you!" when it's quite obvious they did not such thing and just continued on with their reform agenda despite words to the contrary.

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch Will Not Seek Re-Election To Board Of Regents

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch on Monday said she would step down from her post when it ends in March.  

Tisch made the surprise announcement in Albany this morning at the board’s monthly meeting.  

She was first elected chancellor in 2009 and had served on the Regents board since 1996.

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY reports Tisch said she will spend the rest of her tenure trying to "calm the waters".

Given how polarizing Tisch has been, this statement is laughable.

In any case, your thought on Tisch's exit?

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.

How Did Mary Ellen Elia Get Hired At NYSED Given the Mess She Left In Hillsborough?

The Tampa Times has another piece about the mess former Hillsborough Superintendent MaryEllen Elia left in the school district as a result of the "innovative" evaluation teacher evaluation system she pushed in partnership with the Gates Foundation.

Here's a summary of their findings:

• The Gates-funded program — which required Hillsborough to raise its own $100 million — ballooned beyond the district's ability to afford it, creating a new bureaucracy of mentors and "peer evaluators" who don't work with students.

• Nearly 3,000 employees got one-year raises of more than $8,000. Some were as high as $15,000, or 25 percent.

• Raises went to a wider group than envisioned, including close to 500 people who don't work in the classroom full time, if at all.

• The greatest share of large raises went to veteran teachers in stable suburban schools, despite the program's stated goal of channeling better and better-paid teachers into high-needs schools.

• More than $23 million of the Gates money went to consultants.

• The program's total cost has risen from $202 million to $271 million when related projects are factored in, with some of the money coming from private foundations in addition to Gates. The district's share now comes to $124 million.

• Millions of dollars were pledged to parts of the program that educators now doubt. After investing in an elaborate system of peer evaluations to improve teaching, district leaders are considering a retreat from that model. And Gates is withholding $20 million after deciding it does not, after all, favor the idea of teacher performance bonuses — a major change in philosophy.

• The end product — results in the classroom — is a mixed bag.

Hillsborough's graduation rate still lags behind other large school districts. Racial and economic achievement gaps remain pronounced, especially in middle school.

And poor schools still wind up with the newest, greenest teachers.

Financial instability and debt were not Elia's only track missteps - there were also the multiple instances of children dying under her watch without the district taking responsibility (and action) to make sure these tragedies didn't happen again.

Here's a post from May 28 that covers that:

Complicity And Cover-Up: MaryEllen Elia's Failure Of Leadership In The Deaths Of Hillsborough Students

The tragic stories of Isabella Herrera, a 7 year old who died in 2012 while on a Hillsborough school bus, and Keith Logan Coty, a 6 year old who died of a brain hemorrhage in 2014 after getting sick at his school, suggest the kind of leadership we'll get from new NYSED commissioner MaryEllen Elia.

Then Hillsborough superintendent, Elia never took responsibility for the failure of district personnel to call 911 in a timely manner when Isabellea Herrera was found unresponsive on a Hillsborough school bus.

In fact, Elia did all she could to deflect responsibility from herself and the district and cover-up district complicity in the child's death because of an outdated policy that had school bus drivers call dispatchers instead of 911 in an emergency.

As Joe Henderson of the Tampa Tribune wrote, if not for a lawsuit from the Herrera family, the circumstances of the girl's death - a direct consequence of school district policy continued under Elia - would not have come to light:

For all the community outrage over circumstances that contributed to the death of 7-year-old special-needs student Isabella Herrera, consider this: If her parents hadn't filed a federal lawsuit over the way her case was handled, the public still wouldn't know there was ever a problem.

There wouldn't be a task force to study ongoing problems with how issues with special-needs students are addressed.

School bus drivers would continue to follow the 21-year-old policy of calling dispatchers instead of 911 in an emergency such as the one that led to Isabella's death.

Six of seven members of the Hillsborough County School Board would still be in the dark about what happened that January day on the bus taking Isabella home from classes.

Life would go on just always. Except, of course, for Isabella and her family.

She had a neuromuscular disease that made her neck muscles weak. She was supposed to have her head back as she sat in her wheelchair, but she tilted forward and it blocked her airway. When it was discovered, the driver called dispatch and the aide on board called Isabella's mother.

By the time Lisa Herrera arrived and dialed 911 herself, her daughter was blue and unresponsive. She was pronounced dead the next day.

But Superintendent MaryEllen Elia didn't make the news public. She relied on a sheriff's office investigation that she said found no criminal wrongdoing, and appeared to let it go at that. During an interview last week, I asked why she didn't release the news. She fell back on the sheriff's report.

If you're the parent of a special-needs student, though, you would have liked to know there was a problem. I should say, is a problem. There have been three other issues with special-needs kids just this year, including the recent death of a student with Down syndrome who wandered away unnoticed and drowned.

The Herrera family filed its lawsuit a few days after that — about nine months after Isabella died. Now we have a task force, and a policy change allowing bus drivers to call 911 if the situation warrants. As school board Vice Chairwoman April Griffin told The Tampa Tribune though, "It goes way, way deeper than that. But I think it's a start."

This would be a better start: Expand the task force to probe the circumstances of why it took a lawsuit to bring this to a head. This isn't a witch hunt, but there has to be accountability.

What happened in the aftermath of this tragedy was at best a case of bureaucratic bungling.

When a child dies, a leader doesn't fall back on official reports and policy excuses. A leader gets to the bottom of things and then lets everyone know what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. A leader asks uncomfortable questions about the culture in a school system that values policy and procedure over good judgment and common sense.

That didn't happen here. And if not for a lawsuit, no one would have known.

Two years later, another child died after Hillsborough school staff failed to call 911 in a timely manner:

TAMPA — Keith Logan Coty played baseball, soccer and football. He was a principal's honor roll student in the first grade at Seminole Heights Elementary School, his mother said.

He'd had a heart murmur, but the doctor had cleared him, his mother said.

He died a year ago at age 6 of a brain hemorrhage, and a lawsuit filed Friday blames staff at his school for failing to call for help quickly enough. The lapse is especially unfathomable, lawyers say, as the issue of timely 911 calls was cited in another high-profile student death in a Hillsborough public school.

"How many kids under the care of this school district must die before the district gets it right?" lawyer Steven Maher asked, announcing the federal suit in a news conference Friday.

Exactly a year ago — Jan. 17, 2014 — Keith began feeling sick after lunch, the suit says. He went back to his classroom about 12:24 p.m., complaining to his teacher about a severe headache. She told him to lie down. He did. Then he started vomiting.

About 12:51, the teacher called Keith's mother, Kaycee Teets. There was no sense of urgency in the voice mail message she left, which Maher played at the news conference. It simply asked Teets to pick up her son because he was throwing up.

Before Teets could arrive, another school employee entered the room and found Keith lying on his side, making a gurgling sound with foam streaming from his nose. "His lips were blue," the suit said. The school nurse was summoned. Although Keith was unresponsive, the suit alleges the nurse did not perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation; nor did she use the defibrillator at the school.

About 12:58 p.m., a worker in the front office called 911. The information given to the 911 operator was confusing, the suit alleges. At one point the caller said Keith was breathing. His mother insists he was not.

When an emergency vehicle arrived at 1:03 p.m., Keith was "in the corner, visibly blue, not breathing, and unresponsive." Paramedics were able to resuscitate the child, and they took him to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa.

A scan revealed he had a brain hemorrhage. But, according to the suit, no one told the doctors about his headache, information Teets learned hours later when she spoke with Keith's teacher. Not suspecting a neurological problem, doctors focused on possible cardiac issues instead.

Keith "went without oxygen for at least 10 minutes as a result of the delay in commencing CPR," the suit alleges. He stayed on life support long enough for his organs to be taken for donation, and he was pronounced dead later in the day.

The suit, filed days before Superintendent MaryEllen Elia could face a School Board vote on terminating her contract, is reminiscent of a suit the same firm filed in 2012, also involving a child alleged to have died after emergency treatment was delayed.

Isabella Herrera suffered a neuromuscular disability and was on a school bus when she stopped breathing. No one called 911 until Isabella's mother arrived. The school district ultimately settled that lawsuit for $800,000.

The Herrera suit was filed in federal court, alleging a civil rights violation; rather than a negligence suit in state court, where the award would have been limited under sovereign immunity. Maher was trying to prove a districtwide lack of training and care so severe, it amounted to a level of indifference toward disabled students that qualified as discrimination.

This time, Maher said, the 911 policy and procedures amount to discrimination toward all of Hillsborough's 200,000 students.

The district argued in the 2012 suit that there was no pattern of indifference. And, after the drowning death of a second special-needs child that same year, Hillsborough revamped its training of staff, particularly those who care for disabled children.

But 911 calls have remained a source of confusion. While Elia quickly stated there is no prohibition against calling 911, administrators sometimes advise staff to let the front office make the calls. Phone service is not always reliable in the classrooms, they say, and it's easier for emergency workers to find the office than a particular classroom.

Maher and Teets said that makes no sense to them.

"I would call 911. There would be no question," Teets said. "Any person would do that. I walked into a classroom and found my child, blue on the ground."

Stephen Hegarty, the district's spokesman, said, "I cannot comment on pending litigation."

Maher said his firm is asking for monetary damages, but did not specify the amount.

Where are the great leadership qualities Elia supposedly has in the aftermath of these tragedies involving Hillsborough students?

If one student dies as a result of the failure of staff to call 911 in a timely manner, wouldn't you think a "great leader" would put together an effective protocol so that such a tragedy wouldn't happen a second time?

Elia instead did her best to cover up the circumstances surrounding Isabella Herrera's death - something that was noted when Elia was feted with a commendation by the Tampa Bay City Council after she was fired as Hillsborough superintendent.

Mary Mulhern, a council member who voted against the commendation for Elia, told the Tampa Tribune:

"MaryEllen Elia was fired by her employers — by her boss, the School Board," she said. "I can't think of another case where someone gets lauded and celebrated after they've been fired from a job that is a public responsibility. … When you are responsible for the lives of children, I think one strike is too many."

Elaborating, Mulhern cited the deaths of three students:

• 7-year-old disabled student Isabella Herrera, who died in January 2012 after suffering respiratory failure aboard a school bus. A bus video show that the driver and an aide did not call 911, but used a radio to try to reach their supervisor, as was protocol, then called Herrera's mother, who arrived and called 911. The School Board, most of whose members were unaware of the death until the girl's parents sued, agreed to pay $800,000 last year to settle a federal lawsuit.

• 11-year-old Jennifer Caballero, who had Down syndrome and drowned in a pond behind Rodgers Middle School after wandering away from a crowded gym class in October 2012. The school district agreed to pay a negotiated settlement estimated at more than $500,000. Investigations led to three firings and several resignations at the school. The district also took steps after the deaths to improve safety for special-needs students on buses and in school.

• 6-year-old Keith Logan Coty, who died a day after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in January 2014 at Seminole Heights Elementary School. In a lawsuit, his parents accuse the school district of being indifferent to student safety and of discouraging staffers from calling 911 in emergencies. The district denies the allegations.

"If somebody dies, it goes to the top," Mulhern said. In the Herrera case, she said, "her employers didn't know this happened for nine months. … For me, that's enough. That's three strikes."

Mulhern said she didn't "disagree that (Elia has) done very good work over 10 years," but the concerns about student safety were overriding for her.

"The powers that be in Tampa and Hillsborough County just circled the wagons around this powerful person," who, Mulhern noted, had the authority to give out contract. 

Say what you will about former NYSED commissioner John King's flaws as a leader - covering up district complicity in the death of a student and a failure to fix emergency protocol for 911 calls involving students weren't on the list.

The more you learn about MaryEllen Elia and her "leadership," the more you see the big mistake the Board of Regents made by hiring her as NYSED commissioner.

Also, the more you learn about Elia as a person, the more you see how appropriate her nickname - MaryEllen EVILia - is.

Did the members of the Board of Regents talked to anybody other than reformer cheerleaders when deciding to hire Elia to replace John King King at NYSED?

Here's a "great leader" who left behind her a financial disaster in the district, three dead students (two of whom might not have died had she not covered up the district's responsibility in the first death), a lot of enemies and a "mixed" academic record at best (as the Tampa Bay Times piece on the Gates Foundation/Elia evaluation mess noted.)

Why was someone this awful hired to run the New York State Education Department?

NYSED Admits Common Core Review Is A Dog And Pony Show

From yesterday's Politico NY morning update:

STATE ED: NO ‘MAJOR RE-WORK’ PLANNED FOR COMMON CORE—POLITICO New York’s Keshia Clukey: “The state Education Department is soliciting comment on the Common Core learning standards, but it's ‘not undertaking a major re-work of the standards,’ it said on the website for its survey. The department launched its 40-day comment period Wednesday with a survey, dubbed AIMHighNY, available to parents, student, educators and community members...‘[State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia] has consistently said it’s too soon to know what will be changed exactly, but we owe it to our students to maintain our commitment to high standards,’ Education Department spokeswoman Jeanne Beattie said in an email. ‘And she believes our review will lead to a stronger set of standards for students...We are not starting from scratch..Over the past five years, New York teachers have made great strides implementing the more rigorous learning standards in their classroom. We owe it to them and to our students to build upon what’s working and revise what’s not.’” http://politi.co/1M73HZa

Rather than send any comments to NYSED for their dog and pony show Common Core review, best to send comments to your state legislators instead and tell them you will hold them PERSONALLY accountable for the mess that is education policy in New York State and will look to vote them out office at the very next opportunity.

Those are the comments anybody in Albany will understand.

And to be frank, until a couple of the criminals in Albany get voted out BECAUSE of their support for education reform, Endless Testing and Common Core, I suspect that not much will change.

Karen Magee: Parents And Teachers Have No Confidence In State's Education Reform Plans

From the "No kidding" file:

Constant changes to New York education policy and flawed rollouts have caused teachers and parents to lose trust in the State Education Department, said New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee.

Magee spoke about this lack of trust on WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom Tuesday. Teachers have lost confidence in any new plans coming from the department and feel their feedback doesn’t matter, she told Susan Arbetter.

Her comments come nearly one week after educators told members of the Assembly’s education committee that they’re worn out by all the new education reform legislation in recent years. At a public hearing on struggling schools last week, they said the constant changes have districts more caught up in compliance than actually improving anything.

“There continues to be an appearance that the plans have not been well thought out or well-developed,” Magee said Tuesday. “There’s no evidence of pilots happening…on a small-scale basis to identify what the strengths and weaknesses are, to bring in the professionals and all the stakeholders, including the community, to discuss if a plan is working. Get real feedback like you would with any other plan and then make modifications before you go for the all-across-the-state rollout. We roll things out in the state and then wait to see what the consequence are.”

Of course the lack of piloting or planning the reform changes is a crucial part of the education reform playbook.

This is shock doctrine stuff, not meant to improve anythnig at all - just cause "shock and awe" to the system, bring about chaos and calamity and ultimately help reformers in their privatization efforts.

Pity NYSUT and Magee won't say that and instead make as if Cuomo and his reformer buddies actually care about improving things as opposed to wanting simply to "break" the whole thing up.

Only 8% Of School Districts Have Vaunted New Cuomo APPR Evaluation Plan In Place

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — The vast majority of school districts and teachers' unions seem to be having difficulty coming to an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

As of the end of last week, only 12 plans had been approved, with another 47 submitted for review, according to the state education department. There are 674 districts statewide.

The new evaluation system was put into place last session. It puts more emphasis on students' state test scores, and has been met with criticism, including from the state Board of Regents, which put in place a waiver system to delay the implementation.

The districts have until Nov. 15 to have their plans in and approved by the state or risk losing state aid. Those that believe they can't meet the deadline can instead apply for a waiver, which can extend the deadline up to September 2016.

Little over a month to go, more than 90% of districts do not have plans approved and in place yet.

There are still some that are in with the state awaiting approval, but even if all 47 of those are approved, that leaves over 600 districts without plans in place.

Can't wait to hear Cuomo's statement when the deadline comes and hundreds of districts are looking for waivers.

John King To Become Acting Secretary Of Education

Continuing the theme that there is no failure an education reformer cannot fail upward from:

President Obama will tap former New York Education Commissioner John King to become the acting secretary of education, replacing Arne Duncan, who is stepping down at the end of the year. 

King, a Brooklyn native, was the youngest education commissioner in New York history, having been appointed to the post at the age of 36 in 2011 by the Board of Regents.

King’s background is in leading charter school organizations and was the co-founder and co-director of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School.

His tenure at the Department of Education was a rocky one: The roll out of the controversial Common Core education standards was criticized by both parents and the state’s teachers unions. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also was critical of the Department of Education’s handling of the implementation of the standards.

King left for the Obama administration at the end of 2014 to serve as a special advisor to Duncan.

A rocky tenure at NYSED?

That's an understatement.

Cuomo has blamed NYSED for the half-assed Common Core implementation - that was fully King's purview at SED.

Nice thing is, now he can take all that expertise at failing and bring it to the nation at large.