Play Governor Cuomo's High Stakes Testing Three Card Monte Game

Commenters in this post point out how, if Governor Cuomo gets his way on teacher evaluation reform and makes test scores 40% of a teacher's evaluation, teachers who teach subjects without state tests will have to figure out whether they should use math or ELA scores for their test component.

Here's how that string went:

How do Art, Music, Dance, and Theatre teachers play into the 40%? How about the Physical a Education teachers? Other non regents teachers? How does the 40% state effect these several thousand teachers?

...

Anon 10:25pm. I am a phys ed HS teacher. I was given the choice of which subject to link to last year. Of course I looked at the overall scores for my school for the past several years and going that the English Regents was highest at around 84% passing. I linked to them and scored very high. Research your schools history on all regents subjects and link to that subject, which is part of the rules for non regents teachers. It's probably English. Do not allow your administration to make the decision for you. You are allowed to link to any subject You choose.

...

I am an elementary PE teacher and the poster above is correct. I was able to link my evaluation score to the overall math scores of my school. (The students in my school do better in math than language arts due to the high ELA population)

There will be plenty of games that will be played in order for teachers who teach subjects without annual state tests to be evaluated on their 40% component (if Cuomo gets his way on that, at any rate.)

Will it be like roulette, spin the wheel, see if it's ELA or math this time around?

Or will it be like three card monte - follow the positive VAM, here it is, here it is, oh, no sorry, that's a negative VAM...

These will be high stakes games, of course.

Because if a teacher chooses wrong and she/he comes up "ineffective" on the 40% test component, she/he will be rated "ineffective" overall for the year.

And if Cuomo gets his way on streamlining the dismissal process, two consecutive "ineffective" ratings will trigger automatic incompetency charges and firing.

So choose well, folks.

The wrong choice and you can lose your profession and your livelihood.

Cuomo The Campaign Finance Crook

WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has done a masterful job of putting together the ways Andrew Cuomo has skirted campaign finance law - all while claiming to uphold campaign finance law and "clean up Albany."

Here's a taste:

In May 2013, the housekeeping committee wrote a $900,000 check to Buying Time. A day later, an ad began appearing, featuring Cuomo looking straight into the camera. “I am proposing a clean-up Albany plan to fight corruption," he said. "It empowers our district attorneys, it increases criminal penalties. It decreases the influence of money in politics.”

Yes, that’s right. To pay for an ad about decreasing the influence of money and politics, Cuomo used an account with no contribution limits whatsoever. One of the main goals of ethics reformers has been to curtail housekeeping contributions.

Just a couple of months after that not-a-campaign ad ran, Cuomo’s own campaign committee paid Buying Time another $430,000 to run a virtually identical ad, with the same bright piano music underneath – even using the same font in the “paid for by” message.

“I am appointing a new independent commission led by top law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing," Cuomo said in the ad. "The politicians in Albany won’t like it, but I work for the people.”

But then things started to go off-track for the governor. Because the “new independent commission,” known in Albany shorthand as the “Moreland Commission,” smelled something fishy when it noticed that the housekeeping account was buying ads. So it issued a subpoena for information on – yes –Buying Time.

One of the governor’s closest aides, Larry Schwartz, immediately had it quashed, according to three knowledgeable sources. The circumstances are now under investigation by federal prosecutors. Neither Schwartz nor Buying Time would comment for this story.

Bernstein recounts Cuomo's shenanigans with the Committee To Save New York, a shadowy PAC that surfaced to promote his agenda, spending millions on pro-Cuomo ads without ever revealing who the donors were (though news accounts later found gambling interests gave a couple of million in return for expanded legalized gambling in the state.)

She also notes how Cuomo's using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for pro-Cuomo ads as part of an ad blitz paid for by the Economic Development Corporation.

The ads are ostensibly about how New York is "open for business," but of course the message is, "Cuomo is great!"

Bernstein concludes that all of Cuomo's campaign finance shenanigans, while certainly hypocritical and ethically challenged, may not be illegal:

Last spring, after the Moreland Commission was shut down, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, seized its papers and vowed to continue its investigations. But speaking in Manhattan last week, he was rueful. “The scandal is not necessarily what’s illegal but what is legal." he told an audience. "And we have limited powers and we can only go after things that are illegal.”

So far, there’s no evidence Cuomo has done anything illegal. But the evidence does show that he stretched New York’s campaign finance limits so far they’ve become meaningless. And he did it to tell people he is cleaning up Albany.

Bharara has been very quiet about Cuomo since the summer.

That doesn't mean he's not working on something spectacular to be revealed after the election.

Alas, the statements Bharara made last week concern me that he's warning us that Cuomo the Campaign Finance Crook will get away with his criminality.

Governor Cuomo Will Fund After School Programs Through Gambling Losses

Come on seven, mamma needs junior to get that after school SAT prep class!

Buried in the Daily News article reporting that Governor Cuomo is funding universal full-day pre-K across the state for the year, attempting to cut off Bill de Blasio's campaign pledge that NYC will fund its own universal full-day pre-K by raising taxes on individuals who make more than $500,000, is this:

In addition, officials say, Cuomo will propose another $720 million over five years in revenues generated by new casinos to fully fund after-school programs statewide.

So, hey, all you grandmas with your cups full of slot machine coins and all you degenerate gamblers who have a habit of spending the rent money at the blackjack table, you're doing the right thing by New York State's children.

It's your gambling losses that will fund their after school programs for the next five years (so long as you lose big, of course - Cuomo has calculated he needs $720 million in "gambling revenue" to pay for this.)

Another regressive tax from Governor 1% forever screwing the working people and middle class of this state so he can cut taxes on rich people.

Cuomo Pressures Unions To Support His Gambling Initiative

From Fred Dicker at the Post:

Cuomo and other supporters of Proposition 1 on Tuesday’s ballot fear that Bill de Blasio’s expected landslide in the mayoral race will hold down city turnout, costing the controversial plan to legalize casino gambling potentially crucial votes.

Many of the city’s biggest unions, under pressure from Cuomo and other gambling supporters, mounted a major effort in recent days to persuade their members to support Prop 1.

But “since everyone expects de Blasio to win easily, the fear is that a lot of voters won’t even bother going to the polls,’’ said a source working to help get the controversial measure approved.

Two questions here:

After all the union bashing Cuomo has done these first three years, why would the unions care what Cuomo wanted?

Second, what exactly do the unions, or more specifically, the leadership of the various unions, get out of supporting the gambling initiatives?

We know the unions, including the UFT, have supported the gambling initiative with campaign donations.

Has any money or other largesse rolled into the pockets of the leadership from the gambling consortia as payback for supporting the gambling initiative?

UFT To Open Casino In NYC

Via Jeff Kaufman at ICE UFT, we learn that the UFT gave $250,000 to help Sheriff Andy Cuomo get his casino referendum passed.

Some people may be wondering why the UFT would give money to support gambling, but if you think closely about it, it makes total sense that the organized crime interests who run the teachers union would give a quarter of a million of your hard-earned dues money to the organized crime interests that run the casinos.

It's like Gambino's doing a side deal with the Bonanno's that benefits both crime families.

And Perdido Street School can now reveal what the UFT is getting in return for supporting the casino referendum.

A source at 52 Broadway tells us that the UFT will be granted a license to run one Sheriff Andy Cuomo-approved casino in NYC in return for the UFT support of the gambling referendum.

The casino will be co-located with the UFT charter school, which will be relocated to the former Aqueduct Race Track, now Aqueduct Racino, in Queens, New York.

Our source at 52 Broadway tells us that the UFT leadership knows most teachers in the NYC school system are already gambling with their careers, livelihoods, and reputations by working under the Mike Mulgrew-approved ADVANCE teacher evaluation system, so they figured why not just make some money off all of this.

Teachers at the UFT charter school, where the Advance teacher evaluation system will not be in place, will not be gambling with their careers, livelihoods, and reputations under the Danielson rubric, the state VAM or the city performance assessment "growth model," but the rest of us who are being evaluated under these three components will be subject to the whimsy of Lady Luck.

Here's how the gambling works:

Does the DOE get the class list right or will you be rated using data from the school down the street?

Roll the dice at the UFT Casino and find out!

Did your MOSL committee make a bad choice by deciding to use the state test growth for the lowest third of students?

Pull the one-armed bandit and find out!

Is the VAM rigged by the SED in NYC to come up 22 at the blackjack table?

Take one more card and find out!

There will be a free food buffet of leftovers from the UFT Executive Board meeting and of course the music of Mike Mulgrew's Unity/New Action chorus line of yes men will play over the loud speakers night and day at the UFT casino.

Some come on down to the UFT Poker Palace casino, ring-a-ding-ding, and take a gamble on your career, livelihood, and reputation.

You might roll snake eyes, but let's be honest, if you're a member of the UFT rank and file living under the Advance evaluation system and Common Core, you've got nothing to lose by betting some more.

Andrew Cuomo Shuts Down Committee To Save New York PAC So That He Doesn't Have To Reveal His Donors

The NY Times reported yesterday that Andrew Cuomo's PAC, the Committee To Save New York, is shutting down:

The Committee to Save New York, a coalition of business leaders that spent millions of dollars supporting the agenda of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and that seemed, overnight, to become the biggest lobbying force in Albany, said on Friday that it was shutting down. 

“From our perspective, we believe our mission was largely successful,” said Michael McKeon, a spokesman for the group. He added that the decision to shut down was motivated by the election calendar, as the group did not want to be seen as interfering with next year’s state elections. 

“We decided that to avoid any suggestion that we would play in electoral politics, the time had come for us to close up shop,” Mr. McKeon said. 

The committee was formed near the end of 2010, as Mr. Cuomo was preparing to assume office, and proved to be a critical ally for him. Over the next two years, it reported spending more than $16 million to support his agenda, financing television commercials advocating his positions. The group spent more money on lobbying than any other organization in New York State in 2011 and 2012.

While it was active, the committee was not required to reveal where it was getting its money from. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, came under scrutiny last year after a report that the committee had received $2 million from gambling interests at the same time the governor was developing a proposal to expand casino gambling in the state. 

Under a state ethics law approved by Mr. Cuomo in 2011, nonprofit lobbying groups are now required to disclose the sources of their funds. The Committee to Save New York has been dormant since the disclosure requirement took effect, and Mr. Cuomo has instead used the State Democratic Party to finance commercials promoting his agenda. 

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment on Friday.

If you read the article carefully, you see the Times buried the lede in the fourth and sixth paragrpahs:

The committee was formed near the end of 2010, as Mr. Cuomo was preparing to assume office, and proved to be a critical ally for him. Over the next two years, it reported spending more than $16 million to support his agenda, financing television commercials advocating his positions. The group spent more money on lobbying than any other organization in New York State in 2011 and 2012

 ...

Under a state ethics law approved by Mr. Cuomo in 2011, nonprofit lobbying groups are now required to disclose the sources of their funds. The Committee to Save New York has been dormant since the disclosure requirement took effect, and Mr. Cuomo has instead used the State Democratic Party to finance commercials promoting his agenda.

Cuomo never revealed who the Committee raised money from and never revealed the level of coordination between his administration and the Committee.

We do know that that the Committee took in a couple of million in donations from overseas gambling interests right before Cuomo expanded gambling in the state.

But the rest of the money raised - millions and millions of dollars that they threw into ads hawking Cuomo's anti-union, pro-corporate agenda - we have no idea where that money came from.

And now, with CSNY closing, they'll never disclose it.

But you can bet Cuomo, who put not one Wall Street criminal in jail while he was attorney general during the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression, and his PAC took money from some pretty crooked people.

And we can assume the quid pro quo we have seen with Cuomo and the gambling industry and Cuomo and the real estate industry was a pattern followed closely with the CSNY donors.

Andrew Cuomo likes to position himself as the sheriff of Albany but in point of fact, he is one of the most corrupt politicians up there.

So far, his power and his willingness to use it to crush opposition and critics has saved him from disclosure.

But if and when he runs for president in 2016, this stuff will come out.

Andrew Cuomo will not be able to stand the scrutiny of a presidential campaign anymore than Joe Bruno or Alan Hevei could have if they'd chosen to run for president.

Mulgrew Likes Cuomo's Call To Extend School Time By 25%

Andrew Cuomo called for increasing time in school for children by 25% during his State of the State speech yesterday.

The increased time will be funded by money from upstate casinos.

Because is there any better way to fund programs than by taking money from the truly desperate and hopeless in society and using it to make society better?

Of course not!

And what's even better, Gotham Charter Schools reports that Mulgrew loved the idea:

Officials from the state education department did not respond to requests for comment. New York State United Teachers President Dick Ianuzzu and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew praised the proposals.

“We … applaud Gov. Cuomo for proposing a way for school districts to increase learning time for students through a creative grant program, one that districts could use to restore their enrichment programs in music and the arts,” Mulgrew said in an emailed statement.

Oh goodie - let's add two hours to the school day, we'll still do seven hours of test prep and test drills, but now kids can have two extra hours of school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities.

At least until we decide two extra hours of school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities isn't allowing for enough test prep and test drills and we cut back on the school time for music and art and PE and enrichment activities and just go with nine straight hours of test prep and test drills.

And all of this can be funded off the backs of people with gambling problems.

Yeah, sure seems like great policy - the kind of thing you would expect from some arrogant, elitist short-sighted fool like Andrew Cuomo.

It's a shame Mike Mulgrew isn't any wiser than Cuomo.

Hey Mikey, hey Andrew - you want to add music and art and PE and enrichment activities back to the school day?

Cut back on the state and local tests all the year through in every subject in every grade as mandated by your new APPR teacher evaluation system.

And certainly don't add to the problems our society already faces by funding these programs with money from casinos.