Cuomo's Lieutenant Governor Pick Says Common Core Standards Are "Sound," Doesn't Understand Why They're So "Divisive"

For a while there, nobody could find Representative Kathy Hochul, the gun-loving lieutenant governor nominee Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to run with him for re-election this year.

Today she surfaced to back the Common Core publicly, claiming the principles behind the standards are "sound," though noting there have been problems with the "roll-out."

Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul says she supports the Common Core education standards, but also backs a slower implementation as approved by the state Legislature this year.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers in March agreed to slow the implementation of the standards for student examinations. The Legislature last month agreed to a Cuomo-backed bill that delayed Common Core implementation for teacher evaluations.

“It’s smart to just step back and make sure that we all end up in the same place,” Hochul said.
Cuomo has criticized the roll out of Common Core by the state Department of Education, but said he backs the standards overall.

Hochul largely agreed, saying the standards themselves are “sound.”

“Sometimes it comes down to the roll out,” she said. “I believe the principles are sound, but the governor and the Legislature decided to have a reprieve.”

Hochul also had a Rodney King moment in which she implored us all to just get along over the Common Core:

“I don’t know why it should be a divisive issue,” she said. “We all want our kids to be able to do the best they can.”

If you don't know why the Common Core Federal Standards are so divisive, Rep. Hochul, then you don't deserve to be lieutenant governor.

Parents don't like it when their children are subjected to nonsensical math standards.

Parents don't like it when the literature their children used to read in class is replaced with meeting minutes from the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco.

Parents don't like it when their children cry because the homework they have been given doesn't make any sense.

Parents don't like it when their children are subjected to an Endless Testing regime that sees their children taking both state tests and local assessments so that their teachers so-called performances can be evaluated by the NYSED via the Cuomo APPR teacher evaluation system.

Parents don't like it when the Regents and the NYSED set the cut scores for their vaunted new Common Core tests high enough to ensure 70% of the children around the state "fail" those tests, thus giving the edu-functionaries in Albany P.R. opportunities to call for even more radical education reforms because the current system is "failing".

And parents don't like it when the tests themselves are kept as secret as an NSA call tracking list because the NYSED and the Regents don't want anybody to get a look at how bad the tests are or how rigged the cut scoring is.

None of this stuff can be fixed by a better implementation or roll-out of the standards, Rep. Hochul.

That's why the Common Core Federal Standards and the ancillary reforms that have come with them are so "divisive."

It was great to finally see you on the campaign trail after all that hiding out.

But now you can go back under the rock you crawled out from under to issue your CCSS suppport, Rep. Hochul.

That's clearly where you belong.

Here's hoping come November, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo will join you there.

Best Present NY State Could Get - Losing Its Race To The Top Money

In mid-June, the bureaucrats at the USDOE warned any changes to teacher evaluations in NY State would result in NY losing its Race to the Top money:

New York state could lose nearly $300 million in Race to the Top funds if the state follows through on a proposal to put off incorporating test scores from common-core-aligned exams in teacher evaluation.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and policymakers in the state are mulling plans to put off using scores on new common core tests as a factor in teacher evaluations, after widespread complaints about the rollout of the standards in the Empire State, according to published reports. Adding to the pressure: State test scores fell sharply last year when the new common core tests were in place.

But delaying the use of the tests in evaluations would run afoul of the state's plan for improving teacher effectiveness, as outlined in its Race to the Top proposal, and could result in a loss of coveted federal funding, said Ann Whalen, the director of the department's implementation and support unit in a statement first provided to the online news site Chalkbeat New York.

The state eventually put into place a compromise that keeps test scores as part of evaluations but allows teachers who are tied to the CCSS test scores an opportunity to appeal bad ratings.

The sad thing is, this was a perfect opportunity to make progress on two fronts - canning the use of test scores in teacher evaluations (known as Voodoo VAM in these parts) and forcing the USDOE to take back what's left of the RttT money, thus saving the state's children, teachers and schools future Race to the Top reforminess.

We know that in NYC, almost 78% of the RttT money was spent on nothing more than the NYCDOE central office and consultants - in other words, very little of the RttT money made it to individual schools, let alone classrooms, students or teachers.

On top of that, think about all the other changes NY State had to put into place to "win" the RttT money - the evaluation changes, the state standards changes, the changes to the state tests, the data tracking programs (most famously inBloom Inc.) - how much money, in the end, did "winning" the Race to the Top contest actually cost NY State taxpayers and just what return on that investment are they getting?

What they got is a whole heap of upheaval, a lot of changes to the school system, many more tests for their children to take (many of which are given simply to grade and evaluate teachers, not students) and a ton of money spent on consultants, bureaucrats, test development, and computer programs to track all of the changes.

Back in June when the USDOE was threatening to pull NY's RttT money away, I thought "Great! Couldn't be a better way to end the school year than have Arne Duncan take away NY's test development/evaluation money in a fit of pique!"

And now, nearly a month later when we get the data to show that NYC wasted its RttT money on bullshit, I maintain the same stance on the issue.

Nothing could be better than instituting changes to the system that forces the hacks at the Obama USDOE to pull the RttT money away.

No Wonder The Parcc Consortium Has Lost So Many States

A comment left at the Worcester Telegram and Gazette:

Why it may not be a great idea to take PARCC this year:

41% of students who took the pilot reported it was hard to type their answers.
46% of students reported technology problems when taking the math test

teachers reported that 72% of students needed more time than the test recommended (suggesting a gross misjudgment of the time requirement)

72% of schools need more devices to administer the PARCC, so paper and pencil tests an option (but they cost 9 dollars more per test)
(source: Massachusetts DESE, except info in parentheses)

Also:

Paper/pencil test cost estimates(not including technology and maintenance! Billions of our tax money will take care of that.) increased from costing $3-$4 more than computer test to $9 per test more.

Essays written by students who took the pilot will be used to train an automated essay scoring (AES) tool. No humans will be needed to read your child's writing.

MCAS data is owned by the state, but ownership of PARCC data is unclear. (Who will have access to your child's test scores?)

Now is the time to stand up for what little remains of local control before we give away the rest of our children's futures.

Jim Horn at Schools Matter writes that with Tennessee's withdrawal from PARCC, there are now 15 states left in the consortium.

Unless something changes soon, PARCCis going to go the way of inBloom.

Winning A Big Battle, Still Focused On The War

Great news that Gates Foundation-funded inBloom will shut down - here's the letter sent from the CEO:

Friends and colleagues:

 In 2011, an alliance of educators and state leaders, non-profit foundations, and instructional content and tool providers formed the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC). The vision of that group was simple: create a resource that allows teachers to get a more complete picture of student progress so they can individualize instruction while saving time, effort and precious resources.

I signed on to the project in November 2012 to lead inBloom, the non-profit corporation that is the SLC’s successor. I joined because I passionately believe that technology has the potential to dramatically improve education. My belief in that mission is as strong today as it ever was. Students, teachers and parents deserve the best tools and resources available, and we cannot afford to wait.

Over the last year, the incredibly talented team at inBloom has developed and launched a technical solution that addresses the complex challenges that teachers, educators and parents face when trying to best utilize the student data available to them. That solution can provide a high impact and cost-effective service to every school district across the country, enabling teachers to more easily tailor education to students' individual learning needs. It is a shame that the progress of this important innovation has been stalled because of generalized public concerns about data misuse, even though inBloom has world-class security and privacy protections that have raised the bar for school districts and the industry as a whole.

The use of technology to tailor instruction for individual students is still an emerging concept and inBloom provides a technical solution that has never been seen before. As a result, it has been the subject of mischaracterizations and a lightning rod for misdirected criticism. In New York, these misunderstandings led to the recent passage of legislation severely restricting the education department from contracting with outside companies like inBloom for storing, organizing, or aggregating student data, even where those companies provide demonstrably more protection for privacy and security than the systems currently in use.

We stepped up to the occasion and supported our partners with passion, but we have realized that this concept is still new, and building public acceptance for the solution will require more time and resources than anyone could have anticipated. Therefore, in full alignment with the inBloom Board of Directors and funders, I have made the decision to wind down the organization over the coming months. It wasn’t an easy decision, and the unavailability of this technology is a real missed opportunity for teachers and school districts seeking to improve student learning. I want to thank you for your partnership in our endeavors and look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming months.

 Kind regards,
 Iwan Streichenberger
 Chief Executive Officer

As has been noted around the Internet today, this is a huge win for parent activism and grassroots protest.

For that alone, a big thank you to all the activists who fought against inBloom, educating the public about the privacy issues, fighting the politicians when they were so jejune about handing over sensitive student information and data to inBloom.

But of course as always happens in the battle against the corporatization of human life in America, inBloom will morph into something else (perhaps something else Gates Foundation-funded too) and that will bring more battles to be fought.

As Leonie Haimson noted at NYC Public School Parents blog:

The statement issued by inBloom’s CEO reeks of arrogance and condescension, and makes it clear that those in charge still have not learned any lessons from this debacle.  The fervent opposition to inBloom among parents throughout the country did not result from “misunderstandings”,  but inBloom‘s utter inability to provide a convincing rationale that would supercede the huge risks to student security and privacy involved.

Contrary to the claims of Iwan Streichenberger and others, InBloom was  not designed to protect student privacy but the opposite: to facilitate the sharing of children’s personal and very sensitive information with data-mining vendors,  with no attention paid to the need for parental notification or consent, and this is something that parents will not stand for.  In New York, the last state to pull out of inBloom and the only one in which legislation was needed to do so, parents were joined by superintendents and teachers in pointing out that the risks to children’s privacy and safety far outweighed any educational benefits.

At the same time, we realize that the fight for student privacy is just beginning. There are more and more data-mining vendors who, with the help of government officials, foundations, and think-tanks, are eager to make money off of student information in the name of “big data” and “personalized” learning, and in the process see parents, if they recognize our existence at all, as ignorant obstacles to their Orwellian plans.  This is despite the fact that the educational value of putting kids on computers and subjecting them to canned software programs is not supported by evidence, and is yet another way in which children’s education is being mechanized, depersonalized, and outsourced to corporate hands. 

As a consequence to inBloom’s overreach, parents throughout the country have also become painfully aware of the way in which the federal government has actively encouraged data-sharing and data-mining of personal student information by eviscerating FERPA.  We will continue to work with parents and advocates to see that the federal government returns to its original role as protecting  student privacy, and recognizing the parental right to notification and consent,  rather than furthering the ability of for-profit vendors and other third parties to commercialize this data without regard to its potential harm.

You know the plutocrats want every child tracked from birth to to college (death actually, but that's a post for another time), they want all that information available to be sold to whomever wants to buy it, and they don't care if parents in this state want nothing of this plan.

So a big battle won today, but the war against the commodification of children and education will go on.

Still, a day to savor a hard fought victory.

Who Benefits From The Race To The Top "Powergrab"?

When New York State was up for the Race to the Top money a few years ago, the editorial boards across the state admonished the legislature and the unions to make sure the changes necessary to win RttT came to be because New York's kids needed that extra money for their schools and education.

Given all the changes needed to "win" that Race to the Top dough - including changing the state's standards, tying teacher evaluations to test scores, creating a statewide database for sharing student information - New York was going to spend much more money on the changes needed to get the RttT cash than the state was going to "win" if Arne Duncan made them a RttT winner.

A letter to the Times-Union puts this into perspective

Recent Times Union reports made available two valuable facts related to education in New York. The first is: $22 billion, the amount of this year’s state education aid. The second is: $700 million, the amount over four years provided to New York from the federal Race to the Top grant.

Here’s a problem that is unlikely to be on any of the 2014 math assessments. Yet, it is a problem that, if our Board of Regents, chancellor, legislators and governor had been able to answer, the condition of public education in New York would be far better today.

Perform a cost-benefit analysis of New York’s participation in the Race to the Top dividing $175 million (year four of the grant) by $22 billion to answer the following: “Consider these points: The abandonment of the New York State Learning Standards in favor of the new, untested Common Core Learning Standards written by non-educators paid for by the Gates Foundation; the requirement that junk science utilizing student scores on new assessments be used to evaluate teachers (even for those teachers that don’t provide direct student instruction); the result that teachers teach to a test for fear of losing their jobs; the release of family privacy data to for-profit companies; and the massive new unfunded school mandates. Now, answer this question: Is the financial benefit from this grant worth the true costs?”

Is the short term .795 percent of aid from the federal Department of Education — less than 1 percent of New York’s education budget — worth throwing students, families, teachers, school districts and taxpayers under the bus? Exactly who is benefiting from this power grab?

Ted Smith, Ph.D.
Delmar

The RttT cash was a small carrot dangled out to ram through such radical changes to the education system that the post-Obama public education system looks nothing like it did before "Change We Can Believe In" won the election.

The entities that benefit from all these changes - the edu-entrepreneurs, the tech companies, the testing regime, "non-profits" who front for corporate education reform, and the charter school industry - are eating away much more than the $700 million NY "won" for RttT.

The lie that the RttT changes needed to be made so the money could be used "for the kids" was egregious even when it was first being made back in 2009 - it was obvious the massive change RttT was requiring was going to cost way more than the $700 million NY could "win."

You rarely here the reform functionaries make this argument anymore because it's so obvious that RttT reforms cost way more than what the state got from the Obama administration (and yeah, I know the NYSED claims a lot of the money is still around and unspent, but that doesn't account for all the money districts around the state have had to spend on APPR, testing, PD, and other expenses required by the RtttT mandates.)

But in the end it was never about the money - it was always about using the money to shove through radical change to the system.

That, my friends, is what the "Change We Can Believe In" president, backed by Gates and Broad money, has brought us.

And make no mistake, these are Obama reforms, not Duncan reforms.

I still see people blaming Arne Duncan for the education policies pursued by the Obama administration.

But the buck stops with Obama - these policies are in place because Obama wants them in place.

The damage Obama has done to public education, the teaching profession schools is the kind that President Goerge W. Bush and his education reformers only could have dreamed of back in the day.

Randy Credico To Challenge Andrew Cuomo In Democratic Primary

Not sure this is the best Cuomo challenger around, but nonetheless here is the story:

Comedian and activist Randy Credico, a “Tonight Show” veteran and subject of the Laura Kightlinger documentary “Sixty Spins Around the Sun,’’ says he’s “definitely” going to challenge Cuomo in the Democratic primary this year.

“I’ve got the financial backers to do it, and we’ll get the votes of the progressives in the city on the left, who are all angry with Andrew because he’s covering for the rich and opposing Mayor de Blasio. And I’ll get conservative votes upstate because I’m pro-Second Amendment,’’ said Credico, who managed to get over 13,000 votes on the Democratic primary ballot in last year’s race for mayor.

No word on where Credico stands on Common Core, APPR, inBloom and the rest of the Cuomo education reform agenda.

Common Core, CCSS Tests, APPR, And InBloom Are A Package Deal

The Cuomo administration yesterday:

“Common Core is an issue about which there has been a lot of dialogue,” Cuomo spokeswoman Melissa DeRosa said in a statement Tuesday that both affirms the standards and distances the administration from its rocky rollout.

The proposed moratorium on its implementation is “premature,” DeRosa said, adding that the governor would wait for recommendations from a panel he has yet to assemble and that critics have called unnecessary and untimely.

“The Governor believes there are two issues—Common Core and teacher evaluations—and they must be analyzed separately,” she concluded.

Common Core, the Common Core Tests, teacher evaluations tied to test scores and the inBloom data project are not separate issues.

All four of these were designed to go together as a package deal.

The CCSS tests and the teacher evaluations tied to the tests ensure that the CCSS is taught in schools and individual classrooms and the inBloom data project is used to track all the stats (which can then be used as carrots or sticks for students, teachers, administrators, schools and school districts.)

I have seen a few journalists repeat the Cuomo line that CCSS and APPR are being "conflated" but the truth is, they were conflated by the designers of these reforms who wanted to push through all of these changes together at the same time.

The reformers feared if all four components to the overall reform package were not pushed through at the same time, the whole reform agenda would fall apart.

In short, why teach CCSS if the tests are not high stakes, teachers are not compelled to teach CCSS because they are being rated on these scores?

Cuomo can try and separate CCSS from APPR all he wants - the reality is, they're part of the same reform agenda and they were meant to be part of a package deal, along with the CCSS tests and the data collection program.

Shelly Silver, Cathy Nolan Call For At Least Two Year Delay On Common Core, Pause On InBloom

This is not going to make the functionaries at SED or Shelly Silver's pal, Merryl Tisch, happy at all:

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his education committee chief said Tuesday that high-stakes testing associated with the new Common Core curriculum should be delayed for two years -- at least.

...

In a statement, Silver and Education Committee Chairwoman Cathy Nolan (D-Queens) said while "New Yorkers share the same goal – to improve our schools and help prepare our students to be successful and college and career ready upon graduation," the process is moving too fast.

"The use of Common Core aligned tests for high-stakes decisions for teachers, principals and students should be delayed, at a minimum, for two years," they said, while the state Education Department works with local districts to develop a game plan.

...

Silver and Nolan also reiterated their concerns about the safety of giving an outside vendor access to student information, which could include not only grades and test scores, but data on disabilities and discipline.

No data should be handed over, they said, until questions are answered about protection against security breaches "as well as the highly inappropriate potential for commercialization."

Obviously just saying these things isn't going to bring about any change - King already told the Legislature they have no power over him or the Common Core implementation.

But passing legislation to bring about a delay of CCSS and a pause in inBloom will do the trick.

Common Core Criticism Rises To A Crescendo Across The State

Newsday reported that Cuomo's call for a Common Core commission to look at the CCSS roll-out isn't going over so well with critics:

Long Island educators and parents Wednesday denounced Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's proposed panel to review the rollout of the Common Core academic standards, repeating calls for an immediate moratorium and saying the state's schoolchildren are being harmed by a hasty, flawed process.

"Maybe you just have to bite the bullet and stop it for a period of time," said Roberta Gerold, president of the Suffolk County School Superintendents Association and superintendent of the Middle Country school district.

Jeanette Deutermann of Bellmore -- who has taken an activist role among the Island's parents on education reforms, especially regarding state tests -- said: "It's a little too late. Meanwhile, all these kids are being hurt and the testing is coming up. Why not pause?"

 The fresh calls for a halt were a reiteration of a chorus that has reverberated for months across the Island and the state, coming from parents, teachers, superintendents and school administrators, the New York State PTA and New York State United Teachers, the state's largest teacher union. Some key lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), have weighed in similarly.

Meanwhile SED Commissioner King got beaten up badly before the State Senate Education Committee:

If state Education Commissioner John King doesn't slow or delay the state's rollout of Common Core standard tests, lawmakers will do it for him, members of the Senate Education Committee said Thursday at a hearing that suggested a showdown and power struggle between the commissioner, who reports to the appointed Board of Regents, and the Legislature.

"Hit the delay button — hit it," said Sen. George Latimer, a Westchester Democrat, who, like his counterparts in both parties urged King to delay some of the testing that is part of the new curriculum standard and which is also being used to help evaluate teachers.

"Please do not force this body... to have to come up with a legislative solution," said Sen. Jack Martins, a Long Island Republican.

King said while there may be some "flexibility" to the SED reform agenda, the core of that agenda will remain in place - including the implementation scheduling and the tests.

It's starting to look like King, Tisch, SED, the Regents and their cadre of edu-entrepreneurs and education reformers vs. everybody else in the state.

And yet, King, Tisch, et al. are still getting their way on this - with an assist from the governor, of course, who is backing them despite some slight public statements to the contrary.

Despite all the rising opposition, we have a long way to go yet until we can put the CCSS and its ancillary reforms into the dustbin of education history.

But the trajectory is clearly no longer in the education reform movement's favor.

What More Evidence Is Needed To See The Regents And SED Plan No Changes To Their Education Reform Agenda?

NYSED Commissioner King told a panel of state senators in Albany today that everything is going swimmingly with Common Core:

Testifying in front of the Senate Education Committee, Education Commissioner John King questioned the need for a delay of the Common Core or using the results to evaluate teachers. Some lawmakers have called for a delay in the program’s implementation.

“The question is to delay what, exactly?” King said. “Because the Common Core as a set of standards is something that is widely agreed upon. And in fact, in classrooms across the state … good things are happening in terms of Common Core instruction

King got some pushback from one state senator:

Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, Niagara County, said school officials within his district are unified in their criticism of the Common Core.

“School superintendents, principals, school administrators, parents, PTA groups, classroom teachers -- they all seem to be united in their opinion of the Common Core,” Maziarz said. “To me, those are experts that we are hearing from. Now, commissioner, to be frank with you, the people who seem to be supporting this are yourself and the members of the Board of Regents.”

Ah, but it doesn't matter what anybody other than John King, Merryl Tisch and their cadre of Regents Fellows and education reformers thinks when it comes to Common Core, testing, etc.

Haven't the members of the Assemby and the State Senate seen enough evidence that King, Tisch, et al. feel that way and unless the Legislature steps in and forces meaningful changes to the SED/Regents reform agenda, nothing is going to change?

Certianly the education panel Cuomo vowed to put together on Tuesday to look into the Common Core implementation isn't going to do anything meaningful about these problems - it's just another jive committee/commission from a governor who specializes in jive committees/commissions when he has already decided on a policy but wants cover to impose it.

This is exactly what he did with the Moreland Commission and the earlier education reform commission chaired by the ex-Citibank guy.

Policies first, commissions to rubber-stamp policies and give cover after - that's Cuomo's motto.

And that's why King had the gall to go to the State Senate today and tell these politicians that everything is going swimmingly with the state's education reform agenda and he's not changing a thing no matter what parents, teachers or even the Legislators say.

Indeed, Regents Chancellor Tisch said this very thing:

"You can reopen pieces of the legislation to help reduce anxiety. That, I think, is public policy," she said on "The Capitol Pressroom," a public radio show. "But we need to understand that we need to get this right for students, parents, teachers and principals. We cannot walk away from the basic tenets of this reform."

In short, Tisch says it's okay to tinker at the margins, but the core of the reforms - Common Core, Endless Testing, inBloom data collection, APPR that forces CCSS to be taught - must stay.

So what will the Assembly and the State Senate do about all of this?

Will they surrender to what Tisch and King want, even though Tisch and the rest of the Regents are accountable to the Legislature?

At least some in Albany sound like they have had enough:

Sen. George Latimer, D-Rye, Westchester County, echoed calls to table the implementation of the Common Core, smacking a table as he urged King to “hit the delay button.”

In a statement, Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said the testimony Tuesday made clear the need for a “moratorium on the consequences for Common Core.”

“There is overwhelming evidence that we are moving at too fast a pace and not giving our teachers and students proper training in these new principles,” she said.

Now it remains to be seen if the Legislature as a whole can make Tisch and King - and the guy in the governor's office who is backing them up 100% - understand that they do not get impose education policies that have caused a growing rebellion across the state without accountability to the people of this state.

The Legislature is directly accountable to the people, so they're feeling the pressure in the way that Tisch and King certainly aren't, and Cuomo - well, he only claims ownership of education policy when it suits him.

But we'll make sure everybody knows that the education reforma genda that King and Tisch are imposing on the children, teachers and schools of this state is Cuomo's agenda too.

And we'll make note of the Legislators who are doing the right thing by their constituents here and  standing up to the authoritarianism from SED and the Regents on these issues.

Sheriff Andy Cuomo Is Dubbed The "Education Governor"

Capital Tonight reports that an NYSUT analysis shows 69% of school districts will be receiving less aid in Cuomo's proposed budget than they got in 2009.

The Cuomo administration defended the budget proposal thusly:

On WCNY’s The Capitol Pressroom this morning, Cuomo’s top aide Larry Schwartz defended Cuomo’s education plan, saying the focus should be on the students. He called Cuomo “an education governor” multiple times.

“Everyone is focused on the wrong thing,” Schwartz said. “Everyone should be focused on the kids of New York state.”

Have you got that?

So what if Cuomo, the Regents and the State Education Department have imposed many more mandates since the 2009-2010 - including the very expensive APPR teacher evaluation mandate that imposes so much extra testing and extra compliance work and is running districts a pretty penny.

So what if the tax cap has hindered most districts around the state from raising funds to meet the new mandates.

So what about those things, because only Sheriff Andy Cuomo, the state's official "student lobbyist," is focused on the needs of the students, as opposed to the needs of those greedy, selfish adults who want silly things like money to pay for Cuomo's APPR evaluation system components.

More arrogance from the Cuomo administration, more jive proposals, more jive overall.

Cuomo is the "education governor" of the state?

In what bizarro world does that state exist?

Right now, Andrew Cuomo presides over an education establishment that is facing a growing statewide rebellion over the Common Core implementation, the overtesting imposed by the SED and the Regents, the APPR teacher evaluation system that mandates so much of that extra testing, and the inBloom data project which Cuomo and his state minions refuse to allow parents to opt out of.

All of those firefights going on in NY State, parents and teachers up in arms over all of these issues, students complaining at the Common Core townhalls how much they hate school in the Common Core Era, and Cuomo has the audacity to have one of his functionaries dub him repeatedly the "education governor"?

How's that for unmitigated gall?

Andrew Cuomo - the "Governor of Gall."

Cuomo Fears Loss Of Progressive Votes

Sheriff Andy's got some fear that his re-election numbers won't be all that impressive:

Democratic insiders say a key reason Cuomo is seeking Republican “moderate’’ support is the erosion of support from his own Democratic Party’s “progressive’’ or left wing, with his estrangement from Mayor Bill de Blasio being the best example.

Cuomo has also been clashing for months with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — as outlined most recently in a New York Times story last week — as well as state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the insiders say.

“Cuomo is trying to backfill his Democratic loses with Republicans from Long Island and the suburbs,’’ was how a leading Democratic strategist put it.

Cuomo is also on the outs with the leaders of the state’s influential Black and Puerto Rican legislative caucus — who opposed his proposed election-year tax cuts — as well as many of the state’s most powerful public-sector unions. “What struck me most in Albany is that people no longer seem to be afraid of the governor, as they once were,’’ said an influential Democrat.

Cuomo's worried on two fronts:

First, he needs to win his re-election bid by a large enough number so that he can tout his victory to the national political pundits as proof positive he is a viable candidate for 2016.

He doesn't care if those numbers come from moderate Republicans or progressive Democrats - he just needs the numbers that give him a fairly impressive vote total in November.

What this tells me is that if parents and teachers continue to hit him over his education reform agenda over and over and over at every campaign stop he makes this year, he will take notice.

So far, he's managed to avoid a political hit from the Common Core/APPR/inBloom fall-out, but that won't go on forever.

The anger and frustration that Tisch and King got at their Gospel of the Common Core tour events can and should be aimed at Cuomo too - particularly as he starts to make campaign event appearances and the like.

Believe me, if parents and teachers show up at every event and protest Cuomo's reform agenda, you'll get a reaction out of him.

Second, that people in Albany no longer seem afraid of the governor as they once were should tell you that if enough political pressure is put on other pols in the Legislature and they see there is a political price to be paid for continuing to support the CCSS, APPR, inBloom, et al., they will break with Cuomo and his ed deform agenda.

This is a key year to make the case that the Cuomo/SED/Regents reform agenda is harmful to students, teachers and schools and must be stopped.

Election years give you leverage that you won't have next year after Cuomo gets re-elected and sets his sights on the White House in 2016.

It's important to make the most of this opportunity this year.

Cuomo "Sitting Pretty" For Re-Election - Time To Make That Re-Election A Little Less "Pretty"

From the Daily Politics blog at the Daily News:

Democratic Gov. Cuomo is viewed favorably by 66% of New York voters and 57% are ready to give him a second term, a Siena poll released Monday finds. But Bridgegate has eroded the Garden State gov's image among his neighbors -- including when it comes to his presidential prospects.

Republican Christie's favorability rating stands at 49% -- a precipitous drop from the 63% approval he enjoyed among New Yorkers in November, before the George Washington Bridge stew really boiled over.

“As he enters his re-election year, Cuomo is sitting pretty," said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. "His favorability rating is the strongest it’s been since February. His job performance rating is the best it’s been since March. And more voters are prepared to re-elect him than at any time since last January.”

Let's start with the premise that Cuomo gets re-elected no matter what - his campaign donation war chest, his approval numbers and the relative weakness of the Republican Party in NY State guarantee that.

Let's also start with the premise that simply getting re-elected does not make Sheriff Andy happy - he wants to run up the score as much as possible to claim viability for his 2016 presidential run (assuming Hillary Clinton doesn't run, of course.)

Now Cuomo is helped by Chris Christie's implosion next door in Jersey - Christie won re-election by 22.5%, which was going to be one measure Cuomo was going to have to vault in order to say he was as viable a candidate for president as Christie was.

With Christie's presidential ambitions pretty much down the drain post-BridgeGate and the Hoboken/Sandy allegations, Cuomo doesn't necessarily have to beat Christie's 2013 re-election numbers or even worry about Christie as a potential 2016 rival anymore.

Nonetheless he still wants a smooth re-election campaign, a big re-election number and the opportunity to tout himself as a governor with bipartisan appeal and high approval and popularity.

This is where parents and teachers around the state opposed to the Cuomo education reform agenda come into play.

Cuomo has said he will brook no changes to his APPR teacher evaluation system - the one that mandates all those extra high stakes tests given to students across the state - and while he has said the Legislature will look into changes to the Common Core implementation, those changes will amount to nothing if the teacher evaluation system continues to mandate all that extra testing.

In addition, Cuomo has stayed mum on the inBloom data project that has so many parents up in arms around the state, as SED plans to give confidential student information to Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch as part of a state-wide education database.

Parents and teachers opposed to these Cuomo policies - and they are Cuomo policies - can throw a monkey wrench into Cuomo's smooth re-election plans by showing up at every Cuomo campaign affair and appearance and protesting his policies.

Make no mistake, you will not stop Cuomo's re-election by protesting him and his policies at every campaign stop and appearance, but you will make an impression on both Cuomo and the press corps covering him and you can take some percentage points off his re-election totals by

a) not voting for him

b) raising awareness for why other parents around the state should not vote for him and

c) garnering coverage of the rising parent and teacher rebellion over the state's education reform agenda around the state and making sure people know this is Andrew Cuomo's agenda.

The point here is to hurt Cuomo enough to harm his presidential ambitions for 2016.

He wants to run as a bipartisan governor who brings almost all New Yorkers together.

The truth is, Cuomo is a divisive governor, an autocratic governor, who says "I am the government" and anybody who is "too extreme" doesn't belong in the state.

It's time to expose him to the nation as that divisive figure, that autocrat who imposes unpopular policies like inBloom and APPR and says "If you don't like it, you can move to Connecticut."

Do not think inevitability is every baked into the cake in politics.

Just three months ago, Christie looked to be the strongest candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.

Now he's going to be fortunate if he avoids impeachment and jail.

State Senate Greg Ball Calls For State To Get Rid Of Common Core

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday passed the four bills introduced by its chair, State Senator John Flanagan, a Long Island Republican. The measures would ban testing in early grades, require the state to redesign exams so they're more closely aligned with what students are learning, eliminate excess testing from teacher evaluation plans and increase penalties for misuse of student data.

Flanagan's data bill also calls for a one-year moratorium on uploading student information into an online database and allows school districts to opt out.

...

Other senators in his conference are looking for the bills to go further in slowing the implementation of the rigorous Common Core standards.

State Senator Greg Ball, from Putnam County, sponsored a bill that would ditch the Common Core altogether and introduced another that would implement a three-year moratorium on using test scores for teacher and principal evaluations. Long Island state senator Lee Zeldin released a statement Wednesday announcing his opposition to the speed of Common Core implementation.

The Flanagan bills do nothing but give more power to SED - state bureaucrats get to decide what "excessive testing" is, get to make the other decisions around testing, etc.

These bills are an attempt to make it look like there will be some changes to the SED reform agenda when there really will be no changes.

That's why King and Tisch support these bills.

The Ball bill, however, that "ditches" the CCSS and implements a three year moratorium on evaluations tied to high stakes standardized tests really does make changes to the state's reform agenda.

Which of these sets of bills is likely to pass?

You got it - the Flanagan bills that make it look like meaningful change is coming but provide little meaningful change at all.

National Review: Common Core Rebellion Gaining Steam

Good piece at NRO from Lance T. Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, on the Common Core rebellion:

When federal and state-government elites quietly combined to enact the Common Core national education standards, they thought that the train had left the station and that this radical reordering of American public education was an over-and-done deal. They thought wrong. Parents and teachers from across the political spectrum are joining together in a nationwide grassroots rebellion to protest the lack of transparency in the Common Core adoption process, the exclusion of public input, and the disempowerment of local educators and the public.

Izumi mentions the CCSS rebellion in New York and Florida, hits on the data collection revolt, notes how the rebellion is coming from people on both the right and left and concludes:

The broad-based grassroots rebellion against Common Core is ultimately not about academic rigor, costs, or job skills, as important as those issues are, but about transparency, democracy, and the ability of local people to control what goes on in their children’s classrooms — an ability the nation’s founders envisioned when they left education to states and localities through the Tenth Amendment. To the chagrin of establishment elites, the rebellion is gaining momentum and may end up toppling Common Core, which would be a victory both for the people and for the principles on which our republic was founded.

The arrogance of ramming all of these reforms through with little to no debate, using the 2008 recession as cover (a la Race to the Top), and then attacking critics of the reforms as yokels or fringers will ultimately be the undoing of this reform agenda.

Top-down imposition of education policy can work in urban districts, but it wasn't going to work across the whole country.

Scarsdale, Great Neck and Garden City and places like that were going to be the test cases for whether CCSS and the ancillary reforms associated with it were going to work.

Those communities, like many others around the state, have not been accepting of this reform agenda.

And as Izumi writes, the rebellion continues to gain momentum from both right and left.

Perhaps the reformers realized a reasoned discourse over why the country needed CCSS, Endless Testing and inBloom wasn't going to convince too many people, so that's why they went ahead with the top-down, don't blink cuz' you'll miss it imposition.

But in the end, that strategy isn't going to be successful either.

Shelly Silver Backs John King, Says He "Has Confidence" In Merryl Tisch

So much for relying on the Legislature to put a stop to the ravages being caused by the SED/Regents reform agenda:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told reporters in Albany on Tuesday there should be a slower implementation of the Common Core standards, but declined to say if there should be a legislative fix to its issues.

Rather, the speaker said he is waiting to see the implementation recommendations from the state Board of Regents.

“At first blush we’d like to see a sensible implementation plan from the Board of Regents,” Silver said, adding: “I await their determination. I think it’s something that belongs in the purview of the Regents.”

Asked if he backed Education Commissioner John King, Silver said he did, adding he also “has confidence” in Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch.

In other words, Silver doesn't want to do anything if he can help it, he still backs his childhood friend, Merryl Tisch, and nothing of substance is going to change in NY State education policy until some of these Legislators are made to pay a political price for their support of the reforms.

Clearly, the political establishment is not worried enough beyond feeling the need to pay lip service to the concerns of parents and teachers around the state over CCSS, APPR, testing and inBloom.

More work to do to make these politicians realize if they support the reforms, they pay a stark political price.

We'll get there - the longer the reform agenda goes on, the more people who join the anti-reform side.

Times Unions Calls Cuomo On His State Of The State Speech

Nice editorial yesterday in the Times-Union, calling Cuomo on his funding for public education, his refusal to either increase funding or reduce state mandates that tax districts to stretching point, and his failure to acknowledge the problems with the state's CCSS implementation and the Endless Testing regime that is in part required by his APPR teacher evaluation system.

The editorial writer notes how "demoralized" students are over being tested on material they have yet to be taught, how all the excess testing is an outgrowth of Cuomo's vauned "accountability" measures for teachers and schools.

Here's how the editorial sums everything up:

What we heard from Mr. Cuomo was a short list of ideas, not a comprehensive vision for public education at a time when students, parents, and educators need leadership of a kind that they can’t get from an education commissioner or a Board of Regents. It takes a governor who, with poetry, paints an inspiring picture of the future, and, with prose, assures them that it isn’t just about pretty words.

In effect, Cuomo is painting over the vast problems in the school system, making believe the APPR teacher evaluation system is workable (when it's pretty clear that the excess testing and compliance work is detracting from the real job of educating students), making believe the CCSS implementation is fine and swell and non-controversial, making believe the Endless Testing regime isn't spurring revolts all over the state and making believe the top-down reform agenda from the SED/Regents isn't undercutting their own reforms.

It's arrogance from Governor Cuomo, pure and simple - he thinks he can just continue to shove this reform agenda down the throats of NY State students, parents and teachers regardless of the pushback and eventually they'll get tired of complaining and protesting and back down.

He is wrong about that.

He is simply throwing more kindling on the anti-CCSS, anti-APPR, anti-inBloom fire that is going to eventually come back and burn him.

Ignoring the growing protests over the SED/Regents reform agenda around the state is not going to make these protests and the protesters going away.

Even the press, outside of the corporate press in NYC, is starting to see through the SED/Regents/Cuomo reform agenda mess and calling them on it.

The more Sheriff Andy shoves this stuff down people's throats, the more students, parents and teachers he angers and brings to the rebellion.

Cuomo's Silence On Common Core Speaks Volumes

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—Governor Andrew Cuomo featured education initiatives prominently at his State of the State address Wednesday, but never mentioned the controversial Common Core curriculum standards and the growing unrest among teachers and parents over how the state rolled them out.

“The biggest education issue that concerns parents and teachers and students is the Common Core, and the failed implementation of Common Core,” said Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, after the speech. “The absence of a comment about that is almost deafening for me.”
...


Several lawmakers also pointed to the governor's silence on the Common Core in statements they released after the speech Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the Governor failed to propose a fix for the botched Common Core implementation or to protect students’ data privacy,” Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti, a Westchester County Democrat, said in a statement.

Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, a Democrat from Rockland County, said he shares Cuomo's hope to boost technology in schools, but “we also need to address concerns surrounding the Common Core implementation. I will work with my Assembly colleagues to ensure this is a priority.”

Opposition to the Common Core is bipartisan. Assemblymen Brian Curran and Chad Luppinacci, Long Island Republicans, also blasted the governor for failing to introduce a plan to improve Common Core implementation.

“We must also take steps to address and refocus the Common Core curriculum,” Lupinacci said, “so that our children continue to receive an education which sets them on a course to be leaders in our nation and the world.”

Cuomo's response to all the criticism over Common Core and his failure to even acknowledge the problems in his State of the State address?

A spokesman for Cuomo declined to comment.

That says everything you need to know.

Cuomo is going full speed ahead with the ed deform agenda, regardless of opposition and criticism.

NYSED Commissioner King Is Right About This

Hold onto your hats - I'm going to agree with NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King about something:

In an interview that will air on Capital Tonight this evening, state Education Commissioner John King shrugged off the news that NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi plans to ask his Board of Directors for a no confidence vote on King’s leadership, saying that in his opinion, the teachers union’s real beef appears to be with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature.

King argued that what NYUST is really after is a renegotiation of the teacher performance evaluation deal struck in 2012, and not a delay of the implementation of the Common Core curriculum.

“I understand Mr. Iannuzzi is under a lot of internal pressure; I understand that may lead to attacking me,” King told me earlier today. “But it strikes me that that the real dispute he has is the with the governor and the Legislature.”

“I know he expressed his disappointment with the governor’s State of the State for not backing down on the evaluation law on which we all agreed,” the commissioner continued. “So, the question really for NYSUT is: They’re committed to the Common Core, they’re committed to the evaluation system; they have to explain why they think we should change the evaluation that we all agreed to that we all believed is in the interest of students.”

King's right, of course - NYSUT, along with the AFT, the UFT and the NEA, have all expressed support and continue to express support for the Common Core.

King's right that the NYSUT, along with the AFT and UFT, have also all expressed approval for the APPR teacher evaluation system - in fact, Iannuzzi stood on stage along with Mike Mulgrew to announce in February 2012 that they were dropping the lawsuit against the Regents for increasing the testing component in the APPR eval system and had come to an agreement with SED, the Regents and the governor that the system as devised by Tisch, King and Cuomo should go forward.

Finally King is right when he alludes to the fact that he real power behind him is Cuomo and the legislature (or more specifically, the campaign donors who buy Cuomo and the legislature, but you get the point) - NYSUT calling for a "no confidence" vote on King does nothing so long as the Regents Board remains constituted with a pro-reform power base, and it does nothing so long as the governor continues to support the reform agenda (as he clearly does) and the legislature takes no meaningful action to change the reform agenda in the law.

In short, John King called "bullshit" on Dick Iannuzzi and John King is right to do so.

The union leadership continues to support CCSS and attacks members who question or criticize it, the union leadership continues to support APPR and attacks anybody who questions or criticizes it.

By calling for a "no confidence" vote on King, Iannuzzi, like Randi Weingarten's "VAM is SHAM" sham this week, is simply trying to make it look like he's taking meaningful action to stem the harm done by the SED/Regents/Cuomo reform agenda while really doing nothing much at all to mitigate the damage or change the trajectory of the agenda.

If Ianuzzi were really taking meaningful action here, he would be calling for King's ouster, and Tisch's ouster, and telling Cuomo in no uncertain terms that if APPR remains as it is, if CCSS is not changed, if inBloom continues to go forward, the unions will cut 5% or more from his 2014 re-election totals by sitting out election day.

The same message should be sent to Legislators - unions work against Legislators who continue to promote or support the reform agenda.

But the union leadership does not send those messages out to the politicians of this state because they are still on the take from the Gates Foundation and the other ed deform "non profits" that hand out the cash in return for CCSS support and other reforminess backing.

You won't see this too often, but I agree with John King here.

Iannuzzi, like Weingarten at the AFT, is talking tough in public, but the action remains very, very reformy-friendly in reality.

If Iannuzzi really wanted to short-circuit the reforms, he would be aiming at Cuomo and the Legislature.

State Senate Minority Leader Wants To Look At CCSS, APPR, And InBloom Issues

From Capital Tonight:

Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in a radio interview said she remains concerned over the speed of the roll out of Common Core evaluation standards as well as a plan to collect student data by the state Department of Education.

“I am absolutely in favor of looking at what we’re doing, how fast we’re doing it and really evaluating what we’re looking at putting on the broad agenda to reach extremely important goals,” she said.

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his State of the State address on Wednesday called for new capital school improvements through a bond act, he didn’t mention the ongoing controversy over the Common Core implementation by the state Department of Education.

State lawmakers in both chambers have said they plan to address the implementation issues, as well as concerns over the data sharing program through contractor inBloom, in the coming legislative session.

“The amount of testing is an issue for a lot of constituents and the way the evaluation is being implemented is a real concern,” Stewart-Cousins said on the Capitol Pressroom with Susan Arbetter. “Also this data sharing is a real concern as well. To be able to talk about letting districts opt out and not let parents opt out is something I know parents are concerned about as well.”

Testing, the evaluation system, inBloom - all concerns Cuomo never mentioned yesterday.