Campaign Finance Investigation Focuses On UFT And NYSUT Donations In Buffalo

Just up in the last hour at the Buffalo News:

Erie County prosecutors are asking questions about campaign donations to a Buffalo-based State Senate race in 2014 as part of a burgeoning statewide investigation that extends to the mayor of New York City.

Acting Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Flaherty Jr. said he will not discuss details, but acknowledged his office is involved. Sources familiar with Flaherty’s effort say it revolves around the 60th District race between Republican Mark J. Grisanti and Democrat Marc C. Panepinto, which Panepinto won.

...

It is expected Bonanno’s investigation will center on whether any illegal coordination occurred between contributing committees and individual campaigns. Suggestions of such activity surfaced during the 2014 campaign, according to Erie County Republican Elections Commissioner Ralph M. Mohr.

“There were complaints that there was coordination between the teachers union and the Panepinto campaign,” Mohr said, “in the general campaign and specifically with signs.

“But there was never any formal complaint,” he added.

It is also expected that transactions The Buffalo News reported last July between the Erie County Democratic Committee and a political action committee linked to a state teachers union will be involved in the probe.

Some of the details:

The News reported that a significant donation to the Erie County Democratic Committee for Panepinto’s campaign – involving some of the same unions and consultants now under scrutiny – was never recorded. Campaign finance reports showed the United Federation of Teachers Committee on Political Education sent $100,000 on Oct. 28, 2014, to Erie County Democrats. Two months later, the local Democrats sent $50,000 to the Red Horse Strategies political consulting firm in Brooklyn, which was working for the Panepinto campaign.

Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy J. Zellner said at the time that the committee never received money from UFT/COPE, a teachers union political committee. In fact, he said he never reported the income and never cashed a check because he never received one.

A UFT spokesman also said at the time that the union cut a check for Erie County Democrats on Oct. 28, 2014, as part of its efforts to aid Senate Democrats, but never sent it after establishing other priorities.

Campaign finance records show the New York State United Teachers union spent more than $1 million on the 2014 race to defeat Grisanti.

Campaign finance law in New York State is opaque and complex, so your guess is as good as mine whether there's anything here for the UFT and NYSUT to be worried about.

NYSUT dropped $1 million to defeat Grisanti in 2014, which sounds like an awful lot of money, until you hear that charter school proponents spent $1.5 million+ in the recent special election to replace soon-to-be imprisoned Dean Skelos in his Long Island state Senate seat (their guy lost anyway.)

Quite frankly it bothers me a bit that de Blasio's getting a campaign finance colonoscopy for his 2014 efforts to win the state Senate for Dems when nobody blinked at Cuomo for raising $17 million from undisclosed sources for his Committee To Save New York and using $10 million of that to fund TV ads touting his agenda.

It also is bothering me that the teachers unions are getting this scrutiny for their donations but nobody's looking at the hedge fund managers and education reformers spending millions to elect their guys and push their anti-union/pro-charter school agenda.

Quite frankly, somebody ought to be looking into how StudentsFirstNY, Families for Excellent Schools and some of the other ed deform/Wall Street entities are spending their cash and the same goes for Cuomo.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The unions are running ads saying the same thing.

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

Except the "moratorium" doesn't actually exist.

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

This is what has happened with APPR.

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

Here is the truth:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rank and File Teachers Call on NYSUT Leadership to Do More

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Signed,

BATs (Badass Teachers)

MORE (Movement of Rank & File Educators)

Stronger Together Caucus

Teachers of Conscience

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

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

Long Island Opt Out

Bronx Educators United for Justice

Opt Out CNY

Change the Stakes

New York State Allies For Public Education

Lace to the Top

NYC Opt Out

Pencils Down Rockland County

NYS Receivership and NYC Renewal Schools Action Group

ReThinking Testing MidHudson

The Paperclip Revolution

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

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

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

— Carl Korn (@CarlKornNYSUT) January 23, 2016

My response:

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

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

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

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

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

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

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

My response to that:

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

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

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

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

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) January 23, 2016

Which got this response from said union hack:

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

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

To which I responded:

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

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

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

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somebody Tell The UFT And NYSUT They're STILL Using Test Scores In Teacher Evaluations

If you see the ads the unions are putting out, you'd think the test scores are gone from teacher evaluations.

They're not, as James Eterno at ICEUFT blog points out in his latest post.

Are the unions heads stupid, do they not know that Regents scores are still being used on teachers, that local tests are going to take the place of state tests for other teachers?

Nahh - the union heads are not stupid.

They think you are.

And they're kinda right.

How it is that teachers don't rise up en masse in the UFT and call Mulgrew on his shit is beyond me.

Same goes with the debt-riddled NYSUT.

How it is that the union heads get to call war peace and peace war in their ads (member dues-paid ads, btw) without the vast majority of the rank and file reacting in outrage is why this the sell-outs keep happening over and over.

I know some people think Friedrichs is going to change all of this, that once the unions lose 35%+ of their membership, they'll become more responsive with the rank and file and stop the lying, the condescension, the deception, the sell-outs.

But watching them pre-Friedrichs, I doubt that's the case.

The leaders running the unions wouldn't know how to run the union honestly, how to deal with the rank and file without condescension or deception, wouldn't be able to think of strategies to deal with management that aren't sell-outs.

These ads from the UFT and NYSUT proclaiming a four year test score moratorium in APPR are an outrage and an insult and just one more example why, when Friedrichs takes away the leadership's ability to take dues from people's paychecks, that many are going to take that opportunity to say goodbye to the unions.

It's a shame, it doesn't have to be this way.

The union heads could actually try and shift the way they run things, become more responsive to member concerns, less deceptive with and condescending to the rank and file, develop strategies that protect members instead of selling them out.

Alas, watching how they're doing things in the months before the Friedrichs decision comes down it's clear that the people in charge do not intend to do that.

Will Randi/Mike Oust Another NYSUT President?

In April 2014, former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi was ousted by AFT President Randi Weingarten and UFT President Michael Mulgrew in a coup that saw the entire leadership of NYSUT, other than Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, whacked from office.

Today Ken Lovett at the Daily News reports another NYSUT leadership whacking could be in the offing:

The recent surprise retirement of the state teacher union’s top lobbyist came amid pressure from Michael Mulgrew, head of the city teachers union, sources said.

Mulgrew, whose members make up a major segment of the state union, is said to have grown disenchanted with Steve Allinger during the legislative session.

Mulgrew didn’t deny he played a role in Allinger’s departure.

“We have to get work done, move fast, and everyone has to be on the same page,” he said.

Union insiders say the Allinger situation is part of a larger schism that has left state teachers union President Karen Magee isolated from the rest of her union leadership halfway through her first term.

Sources said Mulgrew is also unhappy with Magee, though he denied it.

The two unions, Mulgrew said, “are moving together in a much more coordinated effort than we were before. All (Magee’s) positions have been good. She’s taking the right path on things.”

It was NYSUT that was telling members of the Legislature NOT vote for Cuomo's poison pill budget that increased the test score component in APPR to 50% and gave the state the power to takeover schools with a "receivership" program, while Mulgrew and the UFT were telling them it was okay if they did vote for it.

If Magee's isolated from the rest of her union leadership (i.e., Andy Pallotta, Mikey's Man at NYSUT), it can't be because Mulgrew thinks she's not standing up enough against Cuomo and his ed deform juggernaut.

Hell, nobody rolled over to Cuomo more than Mulgrew and the UFT in the last legislative session.

In any event, it sure didn't long for another UFT-engineered whacking at NYSUT, did it?

UFT Warns Over Friedrichs But Still Doesn't Get The Real Danger

UFT President Michael Mulgrew on the Friedrichs case:

The U.S. labor movement today faces perhaps the gravest threat to its existence since the creation of our modern system of labor law and collective bargaining in 1935.

In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the plaintiffs challenge the “fair share” requirement that public-sector workers in unionized jobs who choose not to join their union must still pay their fair share of the cost of union representation and services.

They argue that agency fees should be abolished because money is speech, and requiring nonmembers to pay fees to unions therefore violates their First Amendment rights. That is patently false. Agency-fee payers can choose not to have their fees spent on unions’ political activities.

Let us be clear: Friedrichs isn’t about the First Amendment; it is about undermining this country’s labor unions because we are the last great defenders of working people and the middle class. The far-right forces behind the lawsuit despise unions because it is our collective voice and collective action that prevent them from further enriching themselves at ordinary Americans’ expense. They don’t just want to abolish agency fees; they want to abolish our unions and undo the decades of progress we have made.

Let us be clear: Mulgrew's upset not because Friedrichs threatens to undermine the "last great defenders of working people and the middle class" in this country but because it threatens to undermine the gravy train that the current leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT ride on.

The AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership stopped defending the rank and file years ago, have sold us out at every turn to the education reformers, are complicit in much of the harm done to the teaching profession (including the use of VAM, which AFT President Weingarten once championed along with Chancellor Joel Klein when Weingarten was UFT President, and teacher evaluations tied to test scores, which UFT President Mulgrew happily agreed to in 2012), and exist simply to aggrandize their own egos and enrich their own purses.

With the Friedrichs decision looming, you'd think the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership would become more responsive to rank and file, especially since they might have to beg members to stay with the union and continue to pay dues post-Friedrichs.

But instead, they continue to do whatever the hell they want, from endorsing Hillary Clinton long before the presidential primary season started to telling New York State legislators who voted for Cuomo's poison pill budget that imposed a receivership law for "failing" schools and upped test scores to 50% of a teacher's evaluation that it was all right for doing so.

And they spend their time attacking critics to their leadership, as happened this past week when NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta asked the NY attorney general to look into a blog post written by a teacher that dared to criticize NYSUT for selling members out.

Quite frankly, I see the words someone wrote that Mike Mulgrew signed his name to about Friedrichs and I roll my eyes because I know that they know that they don't give a shit about any of the stuff Mulgrew says he does.

Al they care about is maintaining power, maintaining control, and maintaining the gravy train.

It's a shame they're not taking the Friedrichs threat seriously and thinking about ways to become more responsive and responsible union leaders.

Alas, it seems that the leadership of the AFT/UFT/NYSUT is incapable of that.

Andy Pallotta Has The Sads Over A Blog Post

Yesterday somebody told me that NYSUT leadership is upset about this post from Sullio that succinctly and devastatingly explains how the NYSUT leadership runs things at the union.

The gist of the post is that leadership doesn't care what rights and protections teachers have lost, doesn't care how the rank and file feel about these lost rights and protections, and doesn't care to do anything to rectify these lost rights and protections because membership dues are required by law so why should they care?

Apparently NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, who was never once mentioned in Sullio's post, is upset because he says the post compares him to a gangster - this despite the fact that the mob is never mentioned in the post either.

The only reference to the mob is a brief clip from the film Goodfellas that explains how, when you're paying protection money to the mob, it doesn't matter what happens during the week that might make those payments inconvenient - you've got to come up with the protection money no matter what.

You know, kinda like how teachers have to pony up their union dues every month no matter how many rights and protections disappear because the NYSUT leadership is either complicit with the education reform movement that seeks to destroy the teaching profession or is totally incompetent to stop them (take your pick on which but I lean toward Choice #1.)

Pallotta wants the state attorney general to look into the blog post and filed a discrimination complaint  because, you know, what better things can NYSUT spend time, money and energy on then attacking a blogger who accurately depicts how NYSUT runs its operations.

NYC Educator took on NYSUT leaders over this here.

Sean Crowley did the same here.

Here's my take:

With the Friedrichs case to be heard this year by the Supreme Court and the likelihood coming that the U.S. will be made into a "right-to-work" nation where union dues cannot be compelled from government workers after that case is decided, you'd think NYSUT leadership would be busy re-thinking their "Top-down/Fuck the rank and file cuz' I got mine" way of running things, but given Andy Pallotta's concern over a blog post, that's apparently not the case.

I dunno, perhaps Pallotta has the sads because NYSUT leadership is about to lose a few cars off their union gravy train post-Friedrichs, perhaps he's not a fan of Goodfellas and prefers Casino instead (though I dunno why, since Casino seems so derivative of Goodfellas.)

Either way, Pallotta ought to grow up and worry less about blog posts and more about what's going to happen to NYSUT once the Supreme Court says members no longer are compelled to pay dues.

If I were him, I might be thinking, "Hey, maybe we have to start serving our members and actually protecting their interests," but given the nonsense we've seen from NYSUT so far this year, it doesn't appear that's where the leadership's heading.

Instead they appear to be going down the road of "We'll try and exert even tighter control and destroy any opposition and/or criticism" even as their political House of Cards comes tumbling down around them.

I'm no professional political strategist like Andy Pallotta, but something tells me that strategy will be about as effective as NYSUT's strategy against Andy Cuomo's toxic education reform agenda.

Should The Buffalo Teachers Federation And NYSUT Go To Court Over Union Busting In Buffalo?

It has been reported in various places that the Buffalo Teachers Federation, with the help of NYSUT, are looking at taking the state to court over the powers that were granted to the Buffalo schools superintendent to break the union contract in five "struggling" schools.

Here's Keshia Clukey at Politico NY with a statement from NYSUT on that:

“At this point in time, NYSUT’s attorneys are looking at every available option and we’ll take any action that’s needed to ensure we defend our teachers’ and our parents’ voice,” NYSUT President Karen Magee said Tuesday. The Buffalo Teachers Federation falls under the umbrella of NYSUT.

...

“The thing that concerns me the most about the commissioner’s decision is it basically mirrors the rushed implementation of the Common Core,” Magee said. “You would think that the engagement process and the right to collectively bargain would be one of the most respected pieces to turn around a school.”

A Perdido Street School reader worries about the outcome of such legal action:

It's clear that taking this to courts has risks that are simply beyond reasonable. The decision to take it to the courts is a reflection of the lack of creativity of ALL NYSUT LEADERSHIP, as well as their lack of knowledge and understanding about some of the most basic and essential history and thinking regarding union organizing and action.

We are, in fact, already losing. That is correct. However, at this point, we must not fully lose our ability to think clearly. If we do lose the case, and it seems fairly clear that its stacked in favor of that, we will not only have lost in Buffalo, but the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW. That's not just losing....that's escalating, magnifying, and putting your loss on steroids. That's how things happen that take generations to undo.

This thinking that the courts are where we need to be are a particular symptom of a total lack of understanding of the labor movement and labor history. Unions, organizing, and labor action exist because of the ASSUMPTION that the courts can be and in fact ARE a reflection of the power structures they exist in and offer no "unbiased" look at such cases. Unions exist to organize and take action precisely to avoid courts for the most part....BECAUSE IT IS THERE, IN COURTROOMS, THAT AWFUL ANTI-WORKER POLICIES CAN BE EMBEDDED INTO LAW WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE USUAL AND MORE PUBLIC PROCESS OF CREATING LAW IN LEGISLATURES!!

Elia and Cuomo and all the reformers would love all this to go to the courts.....its their home territory. They can get law written without all the fuss! Why do you think basically all the reformers love taking things to the courts??

Harris Lirtzman thinks a political solution might be the better course of action here but doesn't think we have the union leadership required to carry such action out:

Our "grievance" is, indeed, a political one.

Whatever one thinks of Elia she is simply doing what the amendments to State Education Law in 2014 proposed by Andrew Cuomo require her to do when there is a conflict between the receiver and the union over CBAs for receivership schools.

Because we live in a state with the Taylor Law, we cannot legally strike. Yes, of course, we can "strike" but at the cost of potentially ruinous financial penalties against NYSUT and "two days per strike day" charges against individual teachers. Yes, again, many of us might like to ruin NYSUT financially but it's hard for me to believe that NYSUT or the membership would authorize and support a strike over receivership schools--the days of "union solidarity forever" and "we shall not be moved" are long gone.

The Transit Workers Union went on a ten day strike in December 2006 which had no, nada, zip public support and it collapsed with nothing to show for it except huge penalties against the Local, loss of dues check-off for two years and fines against members--most of those eventually reduced by the judge.

Unless the "Heavy Hearters" really screwed up the drafting of the legislation for the receivership provisions it's hard to see how this case turns out well for us.

Seems to me two choices:

1. Work politically to get the legislation changed or to defeat in 2016 members of the legislature who voted for it.

2. Take action--perhaps even non-violent direct action--to bring about a crisis in the local political structure sufficient to cause elected officials to change education policy.

Either one of these approaches will have required our unions, specifically, and our members, more generally, to have done the hard, sloggy, unpleasant organizing work to mobilize the members and to educate parents and the general public about the issues involved.

What do you think will happen? I used to believe that the political system could be changed or that direct-action, creatively done, could create the sort of "crisis" that leads to change. I no longer do and I especially no longer do if any of that involves NYSUT, the UFT or the membership-at-large.

Lastly, a reader points out the abysmal rep the NYSUT legal team have:

WHAAAAAAT????????

There is a reason anybody who knows tells you to NEVER use NYSUT legal if you get jammed up...always hire someone yourself. On the micro level of dealing with teacher legal issues, they are known to suck.

On the macro level of shepherding a case of this magnitude through the courts successfully they have NO (zero, 0, none) track record of success.

NYSUT legal is a huge part of our problem. Talk about cushy jobs....NYSUT legal is made up of elite educated lawyers pretending at having a hardcore lefty union gig. They have offered no help, advice, or anything to our cause.

NYSUT legal is beyond a joke and deeply part of the problem.

So many ways a legal case here could go wrong - it's almost as if the union leadership at both BTF and NYSUT are double agents, trying to make it look like they're fighting for the rights of their members while for all practical purposes extending the power and policies of the deformers.

On second thought, check that.

There's no "as if" - as Sean Crowley noted in this comment:

I fear any direct union action will have to be taken without the support or benediction of the double retirees of NYSUT's so called leadership. They don't want to jeopardize one drop of their own precious fat by involving themselves in anything that could be construed as a job action. As noted above the legal dodge they have made into an artform will satisfy whichever box they have to check off on their rubric that proves they demonstrated interest in the rank and file. I think maybe some more phone calls to the White House, another dozen Nae Nae videos and a strongly worded letter or two will be about the most NYSUT can be expected to contribute. This one is going to have to be rank and file driven.

The best course to me here is to have the receivership law changed through the legislative process but given that NYSUT didn't fight Cuomo's imposition of the law much in the first place, I am under no illusions that they'll work very hard to do this.

Rather, they might just take the worst possible action imagined so as to, as the first reader quoted above said, make "the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW."

Indeed, with the tenure/seniority lawsuit already here in the courts here in NY coupled with the receivership suit BTF/NYSUT may take forward, you can see a point in the near future where tenure, seniority protections, and local school control are all abolished and union contracts not worth the paper they're printed on since the state and/or the district will have the power to supersede and/or circumvent them.

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.

Weingarten, Mulgrew, Magee Met Personally With Cuomo In April

Jimmy Vielkind at Politico NY:

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, several weeks before re-introducing legislation to grant financial assistance for parents whose children attend private and parochial schools.

According to newly posted schedule records, the Democratic governor huddled with the Catholic prelate as well as with James Cultrara, the Catholic Conference's top education official, and Anthony de Nicola, a fund manager and board member of the group that pushed for the tax credit, on April 13 at the cardinal's residence in midtown Manhattan. Cuomo later held events around the state to rally support for the tax credit, which lawmakers did not enact.

The schedules also show:

-- Cuomo met with a trio of teachers' union leaders, Karen Magee of NYSUT, Michael Mulgrew of the UFT and Randi Weingarten of the AFT, on April 10, and again on April 22. The unions were vociferous opponents of the tax credit plan.

No word on what was discussed at those meetings.

Was it just about the tax credit plans?

Or was the rest of Cuomo's education reform agenda devised to "break" the public school system discussed as well?

In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter because we know what the outcome was:

They weren't terribly successful at much other than holding the line on vouchers (which may have happened because voucher proponents overplayed their hands anyway.)

Cuomo got pretty much everything else on education that he wanted.

Quinnipiac Poll: Two Thirds Say Teacher Tenure, Pay Should NOT Be Based On Test Scores

Politico NY on the Quinnipiac Poll released this morning:

Voters also sided with unions on teacher pay and tenure, with 69 percent saying pay should not be based on how well the students perform on state tests and 26 percent saying it should.

Similarly, 67 percent say teacher tenure should not be based on test scores, with only 28 percent believing it should. This goes against the new teacher evaluation system pushed by Cuomo, which bases half of teachers’ scores on students’ performance on the exams.

...

The majority of voters - 65 percent - said state tests are not an accurate way to measure how well students are learning, compared to 31 percent who said they are.

69% opposed to merit pay based upon test scores, 67% opposed to tenure based upon test scores, 65% say standardized tests are no the best measurement of student learning.

The question wasn't asked, but you'd have to htink based upon these numbers that voters would not support Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system that bases 50% of a teacher's rating upon test scores.

And yet, here we have the system based upon just that and the teachers unions in the state helping Cuomo tweak it with an appeal process instead of just working to get the thing shelved outright.

The poll numbers against testing are about two to one against using them for merit pay, tenure or measurement of student learning.

Isn't it time NYSUT and the UFT ran ads touting these numbers and calling for the end of APPR as we know it and instead of helping Cuomo try and save it with some minor tweaks?

UFT, NYSUT Leaders Meet With Cuomo Aide And State Educrats To Help Save APPR From A Well-Deserved Demise

Ken Lovett in the Daily News:

Cuomo’s recent efforts to improve relations with the Democratic party’s left wing seemingly includes the powerful teacher unions with which he’s been warring.

Top Cuomo aide James Malatras recently met in Albany with city teachers union President Michael Mulgrew, officials from the state teachers union, and new state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia to discuss enacting an appeals process for a tough teacher evaluation system Cuomo pushed through earlier this year, sources said.

Two weeks after the meeting, the state Board of Regents enacted a new appeals process — a move Cuomo publicly supported.

“I think he wants to get this behind him without looking like he caved too much,” said one source familiar with the meeting.

Instead of looking to put a shiv into the whole system and kill it off, the UFT and NYSUT leadership look to assuage rank and file by joining the state educrats and Cuomo administration officials in crafting an appeals process to a fatally flawed teacher evaluation system that sees VAM scores jump from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 to 11 out of 20.

Isn't that swell?

Because why look to have APPR sent to the scrap heap and replaced with a sane system when you can try and help save it with minor tweaks instead?

NYSUT Says MaryEllen Elia Is Listening To Parents And Teachers

Twilight Zone time from NYSUT as they make a statement on the Regents voting for the Cuomo teacher evaluation system today and claim the following about NYSED Commissioner Elia:

"The changes adopted today are a necessary step toward fixing a broken system that over-weights standardized testing, diminishes teaching and learning, and uses 'junk science' to sort and rank teachers.

"More changes are still needed - as many Regents and state legislators recognize. It is also clear that new State Education Commissioner Elia is listening to parents and educators and proposing commonsense - albeit stopgap - fixes.

"NYSUT will be forging forward - with parents, educators, the Regents and lawmakers - to develop an evaluation system that is fair and meaningful, and which stresses teaching and learning and not testing."

Elia's listening?

In what world?

She says opting out is unreasonable.

She says teachers who support or encourage opting out are unethical.

She's a huge fan of the Endless Testing regime and says parents will join her in her fandom just as soon as districts use her tool kit to explain to them how swell testing is and how bad opting out is.

She's also a huge fan of Common Core and wants to "repaint" it for parents so they can see how swell that is too.

If this is MaryEllen Elia listening to parents and teachers, I'd hate to see what not listening looks like.

NYSUT Pushback On APPR Is Meaningless Without Accountability For Pols Who Vote For Cuomo Reforms

From Liz Benjamin at State of Politics:

The Regents are scheduled to meet next week (Sept. 16-17) to, among other things, vote on the emergency regulations establishing the new evaluation system, which is largely (though not entirely) based on the results of Common Core tests from which a whopping 20 percent of students opted out this year – with NYSUT’s urging and support.

NYSUT has set up an email and fax campaign so its members can bombard the Regents with letters between now and next week, urging them to “do everything in your power to stop the over-testing of students and end the insane practice of evaluating educators based on a single standardized test.”

Nick Reisman at State of Politics writes that NYSUT is also putting together a Campbell Brown protest:

The New York State United Teachers union plans to stage a formal protest of former CNN anchor Campbell Brown’s appearance at the Business Council’s annual meeting on Sept. 16.
At the same time, the statewide union is urging state lawmakers in a letter to not attend the meeting, including the opening reception and dinner that Brown, a vocal proponent of the education reform movement, is expected to attend.

“We ask that you cancel any plans to attend the opening reception and dinner of the New York State Business Council Annual meeting, and stand with public school students, parents and educators,” NYSUT wrote in a letter to state lawmakers, obtained by Capital Tonight. “Please support our great public schools, students and educators and do not cross this picket line.”

In the letter — which was signed by both NYSUT Vice President Andy Pallotta and Alliance for Quality Education Executive Director Billy Easton — Brown is billed as someone who opposes “full funding of our public schools, promote high stakes testings and supports the continued privatization of public schools.”

The letter writing campaign and protests are all well and good, but so long as there are no political prices to be paid by lawmakers who vote with "heavy hearts" for the Cuomo education reform agenda, there isn't much tangible effect to this stuff.

When Mulgrew told Assembly Heavy Hearts that there would be no price paid for voting "Aye" on the Cuomo education reform agenda in the last budget, the message was sent:

Don't worry - we don't really mean it when we say we're fighting against the Cuomo education reform agenda.

UFT Appears To Be Only Entity/Individual Fooled By Cuomo's Common Core Review Announcement

So far I haven't seen anything but cynicism and snark from people over Cuomo's announcement that he's going to convene his third education commission/panel, this time to review the Common Core standards, the tests tied to those standards and the curriculum developed by the state that goes by the misnomer EngageNY (should be called DisengagedNY.)

Here, for example was Liz Benjamin:

Haven't we done this once already? http://t.co/Qles0LSzYy

— Liz Benjamin (@CTLizB) September 3, 2015

We have indeed: 

It is not the first time Cuomo, a staunch defender of the higher Common Core standards, has criticized their implementation in New York. In February 2014, he said the state's Board of Regents and the Department of Education had "failed utterly" in the design and roll-out of the new Regents exams.

It is also not the first time he has convened a statewide commission to tackle wide-ranging problems in K-12 education. An earlier version, the New York State Education Reform Commission, issued a 92-page "action plan" in January 2014.

He also created the plainly-named Common Core Implementation Panel in 2014. It was to "undertake an immediate and comprehensive review of the rollout of the Common Core standards in New York state," and it too produced a report.

Gary Stern and Sullio put past Cuomo/commissions into perspective:

@perdidostschool @SteveMcNY Don't forget his "New Reform Education Commission." Held hearings around NYS. Quickly forgotten.

— Gary Stern (@GarySternNY) September 3, 2015

@sullio Looks about right. Last commission met once, repeated his positions, disappeared.

— Gary Stern (@GarySternNY) September 3, 2015

So why a third education panel/commission?

The political heat on Cuomo over Common Core and the Endless Testing regime was getting, well, hot:

The governor's press release, though, was noteworthy as a response to the mounting criticism and, in particular, the wave of test refusals among families with children in grades 3-8. About one of five students declined to sit for either the math or English exam in the spring.

Or, as Steve McLaughlin put it:

Cuomo hasn't seen the light on #CommonCore he's seen the polls.

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 3, 2015

When things get hot, it's "Commission time!" in Albany - Cuomo's done this with corruption (Moreland), public utilities (LIPA commission) and education - twice as Justin Murphy reported in the D&C.

So now we have a third commission, one that Cuomo hopes will allow him to put some distance between himself and his education reform agenda.

Steve McLaughlin explains:

.@NYGovCuomo now in full back-pedal/damage control mode on his prior heavy handed, bullying in pushing #CommonCore & high stakes testing.

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 3, 2015

About the only person/entity that doesn't seem to understand this is all jive is the UFT, which hailed the announcement today:

For once @UFT is pleased w/ Cuomo: Union says it's "happy to work" w/ his commission to fix "problems created by the Common Core rollout."

— Kate Taylor (@katetaylornyt) September 3, 2015

Right - because the last two education commissions/panels Cuomo put together "fixed" so much.

On the plus side, with Cuomo now officially pulling a Chris Christie on Common Core and trying to make like he never saw it, there are only a few supporters of CCSS left:

Cuomo dumps his support for Common Core leaving only @nysut @AFTunion @UFT supporting it in NY...

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) September 3, 2015

Indeed.

If anybody at the UFT/AFT/NYSUT actually thinks the Cuomo announcement today will lead to substantive changes to the reform agenda in New York, then they've fallen off a turnip truck.

But I suspect the the UFT hailed the Cuomo announcement because it gives them cover for continuing to support CCSS and Endless Testing in New York - now they can say, Hey we've got a commission coming to "fix" all the problems with them.

Sure we do...

LoHud: Teachers Union Not Behind Opt Out Movement

I keep seeing this allegation that the Opt Out movement was started, nurtured and spread by the teachers union.

The latest incarnation of that was from some woman arguing with Assemblyman Ed Ra on twitter about the wonders of Common Core and Common Core testing (Assemblyman Ra wasn't convinced of the the wonders of either) who claimed the Opt Out movement was "astroturf" created by the unions, including the UFT.

In an editorial today, The Journal-News dispenses with this myth that the union started opt out:

Many advocates and commentators continue to insist that the opt-out movement was surreptitiously created and nurtured by teachers unions, sort of like Frankenstein. This is simply not the case. At least in New York, the movement was built over several years — slowly, in stops and starts — by parent groups using social media. Local teachers unions started to publicly back the opt-out idea only in the final months before April's tests. And NYSUT, the statewide union, did not jump in until the final weeks, after it was clear that Gov. Andrew Cuomo would not allow lawmakers to topple his much-despised teacher-evaluation system.

I would add that the UFT has continued to support the state's testing regime despite NYSUT leadership showing support for the opt out movement right before the state tests were given in April.

This came after UFT President Michael Mulgrew said he'd punch anybody who took his Common Core away last year.

When it comes to Common Core and Common Core testing, the UFT is squarely on board with the program.

So, to reiterate:

The Opt Out movement was parent-created, parent-nurtured and parent-supported - a true grassroots movement.

Assemblyman Ra himself said it:

@CharmianAgain @JamesTedisco 1 of the biggest falsehoods is that this is a teacher union thing, parents started this movement and spread it

— Assemblyman Ed Ra (@EdwardRa19) August 21, 2015

Next time you see or hear some CCSS and/or Endless Testing regime supporter claiming the Opt Out movement is an astroturf thing started by the teachers unions, dispense with that jive using the LoHud editorial and Assemblyman Ra's statement that parents started opt out and spread it.

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia Says Money Not The Issue For Struggling Schools

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia continued her "I'm Not Listening To You" tour today, showing some "tough love" for administrators and officials of struggling schools: 

New state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia met with school adminstrators from around the state Wednesday who had gathered to discuss the new and controversial receivership program that raises the possibility that some of the state’s lowest-performing schools could end up being taken out of local district control and turned over to groups like non-profits or charter operators.

Her remarks to the at-times skeptical local officials were part pep talk and part tough love.

...

Responding to the oft-voiced complaint that the state’s poor performing schools need more money, she said that she didn’t devise the funding formulas and that school improvement is about more than dollars and cents.

“Money is not the whole deal here,” she said, adding that schools need to look at, tap and coordinate all of the resources in their community including volunteer groups and others not formally part of the education system.

“There have been millions of dollars put into these schools and they are still on that list,” she said of the lowest performing schools, which are dubbed ”struggling” or “persistently struggling.”

Elia may not have devised the funding formulas for school districts but that doesn't mean they're not a huge problem.

Take this 2010 study by Rutgers about school funding in New York:

New York State ranks near the bottom of the country in how fairly it funds its schools, asserts a new Rutgers University report released Tuesday.

Only four other states have a bigger gap between how much money they send to their poorest schools compared with their wealthiest ones, researchers at Rutgers and the Education Law Center in New Jersey found.

"It really gives us pause," said Geri Palast, head of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the group that filed a successful lawsuit in the 1990s to force the state to fund poor schools more equitably.
New York spends more on education overall than most other states, but researchers call its funding methods "regressive."

Wealthy districts rely on high property taxes to fund their schools - a luxury many poor districts do not have.

As a result, in 2008, a New York school district with no poor kids received about $17,000 per student in local and state aid, while one with at least 30% of the students living in poverty got about $14,000 per student.

 Or this more recent report from January 2015:

ALBANY — In the opening salvo of what promises to be a heated battle this year over education reform, a new report says funding inequities between poor and rich school districts across the state has reached record levels under Gov. Cuomo - and has soared 43% in New York City.

Overall, schools in poorer districts spent $8,733 per pupil less in 2012 than those from wealthier ones, an inequity that grew by nearly 9% from before Cuomo took office in 2011, according to the study by a coalition of education advocacy groups opposing many of the reforms pushed by Cuomo.

While the 100 wealthiest districts spent on average more than $28,000 in state and local funding per kid in 2012, the 100 poorest districts in the state spent closer to $20,000 per student, the report found.

The report, obtained by the Daily News, is set to be released Monday. The coalition includes the Alliance for Quality Education, which is backed by the powerful teachers unions, the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, Opportunity Action, and National Opportunity to Learn.

...


The inequity gaps were made worse by nearly $400 per pupil, the report says, after Cuomo won a 2% cap on local property tax increases that made it more difficult for needy districts to raise needed money, the report says.

...

The inequality has made it tougher to attack poor education results in high-need districts, where graduation rates dramatically lag behind those in richer districts, the report says.

But MaryEllen Elia says money isn't the issue with struggling schools.

You know, all the problems can be solved with a little tough love, some volunteers from the community and the firing of entire school staffs.

Hey, NYSUT, how's that collaboration and consensus thing going with MaryEllen Elia?

NYSUT Donates To State Senate Republicans

It's the political giving season:

Earlier this month records show the statewide teachers union donated $7,000 to the campaign arm of the same Senate Republicans.

....

In recent state elections, NYSUT's mission has been to flip the state Senate to Democrats. Last year, the 600,000-member organization went so far as to send out a controversial mailer charging that three Senate Republican candidates weren't protecting women from domestic violence. It drew bipartisan scorn.

Besides the $7,000 donation this year to the Senate Republican campaign arm, the union has contributed to a number of Senate GOP candidates.

NYSUT also has given $54,000 to the campaign arm of its Senate Democratic allies.
Carl Korn, a spokesman for NYSUT, said the GOP donations were to "ensure that our voices are heard in both conferences. Politics is politics and governing is governing, and it's important that teachers' voices are heard because they know best for students."

$7,000 donation to the Senate Republican campaign arm ensures "our voice" is heard in the Senate Republican conference?

Doubtful.