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

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

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

Commenters at Perdido Street School responded with scorn:

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

And:

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

And:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paid Common Core Shills At Urban League Hold Common Core Propaganda Fest

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

The group, High Achievement New York, will co-host a discussion on Common Core alongside the Urban League of Rochester on Wednesday.

The event is part of a series of discussions on Common Core, with events already held in Buffalo, New York City and Albany. Discussions are set to be held Rochester and Cortland this week.

In an email invitation to the Rochester event, William Clark of the Rochester Urban League writes the discussion is aimed at turning the temperature down on the heated debate over the standards.

“The goal of this event focuses upon sharing the experiences of the participants with New York’s transition to higher standards in education, without the charged rhetoric that so often affects discussions surrounding the Common Core Standards,” Clark wrote.

Future events will be held in Westchester County as well as the North Country region.
The Rochester event is due to include a participant from the Rochester Business Association, while the Cortland discussion will include someone from the American Association of University Women.

The Urban League is on the Gates Foundation payroll - they've been bought and paid for on the Common Core issue.

So this is less about turning down the temperature on a controversial issue and more about selling their product to the public - the Common Core.

NY Times Doesn't Get That Full Literary Works Aren't Read In English Class Anymore

There's a pro-Common Core article in the NY Times today that makes the claim that Common Core has forced English teachers to teach something other than fiction and literature in English class and by golly, it's good.

The piece sets up a straw man argument that teachers only taught literature in English class before - and often badly at that, but Common Core forces them to teach lots of much more informative non-fictional texts in concert with literature:

Some teachers have resisted the changes. At Midwood High School in Brooklyn this year, the new assistant principal for English, Suzane Thomas, made the English teachers use the Common Core lesson plans offered by New York State, and some were not happy.

“There are several teachers who accused me of destroying the English department,” Ms. Thomas said. Previously, she said, teachers had been able to choose which books they wanted to teach, and many of them taught only literature. (She also noted that some teachers had taught the same books each year, no matter which grade they were teaching, so some students were being assigned the same books over and over again.)

Ms. Thomas said she believed many students were more interested in talking about real-world issues like genetic testing than about how a character changed over the course of a novel.

“I was in a class once and the bell rang, and the kids wouldn’t leave, because they were having a strong debate about whether privacy was more important than security,” she said.

That's right - before Common Core, teachers never paired non-fiction texts with the literature their classes were reading, they just taught the same books over and over again whether the students had already read them or not.

The Times reporter notes that because students are reading much more non-fiction in English class, some fiction has been cut, but she glosses over the real problem here -  that some students are going to come through the Common Core Era having read little or no full-length literary works at all.

Many schools are closely following the EngageNY ELA curriculum to get students ready for the ELA Common Core state test next year.

EngageNY does not value reading whole works of fiction at all - it picks and chooses parts of larger works, couples these excerpts with poetry, literary non-fiction or informational non-fiction, then focuses on close reading, annotation and evidence-based discussion and writing lessons that take the life out of the literature.

Back in 2013, I posted about an EngageNY module for 9th graders that spent 17 class days on one short story, Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.”

Here is how students "engaged" with the text:

The first day, they're excited to start a new lesson and read a story that seems to be about werewolves.

By the third day, they're bored by reading and discussing the same story for three days straight and starting to get antsy.

By the sixth day, they're outwardly hostile to the lessons and the teacher for teaching the lessons.

By the ninth day, they're totally disengaged from class and talk openly about how much they hate English.

By the twelve day, they no longer give a shit about anything - not the class, not the story, not the teacher, not the "assessment" (i.e., "test" for those of you who aren't fluent in reformy geekspeak) that is coming up on Day Seventeen.

By the seventeenth day, students complete the "assessment" with little regard to how they do on it because they stopped caring about the entire process somewhere between the end of Day Four and the beginning of Day Five.

Talk about taking the life out of the art - EngageNY certainly does that.

But what's worse, students who've been taught straight up from the EngageNY curriculum haven't read a full work of literature in high school.

Here was how one high school ELA teacher described the EngageNY curriculum and its approach to full works:

As a 9th grade ELA teacher following the Engage NY Curriculum, I have seen first hand how destructive it really is. For three weeks we have been close reading one story! For the first time, my 9th grade students are completely disengaged. How many times can you annotate the same passage?

I also believe now that these units are actually lowering the rigor of my class. We are now into the second marking period and have read one story and written zero essays. At this point last year my 9th grade class had written two essays, read 5 short stories, and were halfway through their first novel, and we were having fun doing it.

The end of the opening unit has students reading (only key scenes) from Romeo and Juliet and then showing the Baz Lerhman film to supplement. How is reading 5 scenes from Romeo and Juliet, rather than the whole play, more rigorous?

That same teacher has told me he has taught that same cohort of students in 10th grade and will be following them into 11th grade.

Students have been taught one EngageNY module each semester for a total of four EngageNY modules.

They have read a full work of literature only because the teachers revolted and pointed out that if they kept following the EngageNY modules, students wouldn't be reading a full work of literature ever in high school English class.

They would have read about 20% of Romeo and Juliet, but that's not reading the full work.

They would have read part of The Joy Luck Club, but that's not reading the full work.

They would have read most of Macbeth, but not quite all, as EngageNY jumps around a bit to focus on skills-based learning like close reading and argumentative writing on different parts of the play.

Reading a whole work of literature to nourish the soul, engage the spirit, encourage thought and reflection, jar some memory of shared experienced or, God forbid, take an opinion upon that isn't "rigorously" based in a close reading of the text - that's not part of high school English class anymore.

If it's not skills-based with an eye toward work-based skills, it pretty much isn't taught.

That's because the New York State ELA Common Core test contains lots of reading, 24 difficult multiple choice questions based upon those readings, an argumentative essay based upon four difficult (often arcane) informational texts, and one literary non-fiction reading that requires students to find a "central idea" in the text and show how it's developed through some literary device.

With teachers now having their careers tied to the scores from these tests, schools slated for state takeover if the test scores are bad, and students needing a 75 or higher in order to attend a four year CUNY school, it behooves to focus only on the skills that are tested and leave everything else out.

Reading full works of literature for pleasure and wonder?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum. 

Students writing personal responses to the literature they've read so that they can make some connections between themselves and the characters?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum. 

Students writing their own creative works to express themselves?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum.

As an ELA teacher, I have no problem teaching non-fiction texts, either on their own or in concert with literature.

I do resent when a reporter for the NY Times writes a piece that is so full of pro-Common Core propaganda and PR bits that it sounds as if ELA Common Core architect David Coleman wrote it.

This Times piece makes it sound like the reason why some children and parents are finding Common Core English Language Arts dreary and soul-sucking is because schools and teachers aren't finding the right kinds of non-fiction to pair with literature to give students a broad experience with reading and writing.

The truth is, because the Common Core test in NY State assesses a certain kind of learning - close reading, mostly nonfiction reading, and argumentative writing (the argumentative essay on the CCSS test is worth a lot more than the literary analysis essay) - and because there are so many high stakes attached to the tests for students, teachers and schools, much of the wonder, excitement and allure of English class of old has been replaced by dreary, rote skills-based learning.

As an ELA teacher, I'm not opposed to teaching skills-based learning, indeed, I actually enjoy this and think it's a very important part of education, but it's also nice to have the freedom to teach a full work of literature that helps students to develop socially, emotionally and creatively too.

In the Era of the Common Core and the high stakes Common Core tests, that cannot be done anymore

Would have been nice if the NY Times reporter could have gotten into the story that we're going to have a whole generation of children come of age who haven't read much - or any - full length literature.

It will be interesting to see what the consequences of that will be in the decades to come.

Buffalo News Editorial: Parents Who Opt Kids Out Of Tests Are Being "Hoodwinked" By Teachers Unions

The opt out movement is parent-created, parent-led, has been around for a couple of years now and has been growing by the year.

For years, the teachers unions took little notice of the opt out movement and certainly never lent it any public support - until this year when NYSUT President Karen Magee changed course and suggested parents could opt their children out the state tests in order to starve the state of the data it needs for its education reform agenda.

In short, the opt out movement has existed for a long, long time without the support or acknowledgement of the teachers unions or their functionaries like Alliance For Quality Education or Working Families Party.

It is only since Governor Cuomo shoved through an unpopular education reform agenda (and the polling bears just how unpopular that agenda is - see here and here) that NYSUT, AQE, and WFP have jumped onto the opt out movement and lent it support.

Despite these facts, the Buffalo News published an editorial yesterday claiming that parents who are opting their children out of the Common Core state tests this year have been "hoodwinked" by the self-serving propaganda of the teachers unions:

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Improvement means change and New York State United Teachers are not much into that.

That’s why the unconscionable push by the state teachers union to get parents to opt their children out of state math and reading testing is so destructive. Ultimately, it hurts students, districts and the state, itself.

Parents are being hoodwinked and New York State United Teachers is the single most influential force behind the push.

As a recent News article by Denise Jewell Gee reported, an estimated 60,000 students refused to take state math and reading tests across the state last year. Now, anti-testing organizers hope to grow those numbers to 250,000 – about 20 percent of the third- through eighth-graders in the state – this month.

Ill-informed parents are being guided by groups large and small but none as powerful and well-financed as the New York State United Teachers, which has charted a roadmap to insubordination.

While not directly prodding parents until Monday, when President Karen Magee went public with her admonition that parents opt out of the exams, NYSUT has since January thinly veiled its intentions by providing detailed information to parents about their rights and potential consequences.

Those consequences can vary, as outlined in The News article. However, not taking the tests deprives state officials an accurate picture of progress. State Education Chancellor Merryl Tisch is absolutely right: “Why would you not want to know whether all students are making progress, not just the lucky few?”

Speaking of the disparities that are made clear through testing, a quick glance at a News chart showing graduation rates, English and math assessment for 2013-14 at the five Buffalo Public Schools in line to come under a new turnaround strategy speaks volumes. At Buffalo Elementary School of Technology, 4 percent of students scored proficiently on math assessments, up from 2 percent the previous year. The English Language Arts assessments logged 4 percent of students scoring proficiently, down from 5 percent the previous year. At Futures Preparatory, 1 percent of students scored proficiently, down from 2, and 0 percent of students scored proficiently in math, the same as the previous year.

Those are stark numbers but they have to be known in order to advocate for and to formulate plans for useful change. It’s not enough to clamor for more money. To be sure, adequate resources are key to education. But New York has been shoveling money into education for decades; even with cuts in recent years, New York spends more on education per student than any other state. Plainly, money is not the fundamental issue.

There is apprehension by teachers unions about having the tests linked to performance. Parents should be aware of the full measure of that concern and how they might unwittingly help in the delinking of test scores to evaluations.

In other words, this is not just about their children’s education. It is about job security for teachers. Is it fair to put that kind of pressure on a third-grader?

Students will face a myriad of challenges when they get older. Teaching them that they don’t have to do things they don’t like to do fails to serve them in the long run. Life doesn’t work that way; not for most people, anyway.

Some parents are worried about overtesting. It is fair to continue looking at the system to see if it can be made more efficient. The same is true for how the state evaluates teachers. Both should be seen as works in progress. However, it is foolish to expect predictable improvement without evaluation.

The lies and misinformation in this editorial are simply breathtaking.

Mitchell Rubenstein, a commenter on the editorial, does an excellent job of dispensing with them:

The opt-out movement began with concerned parents, NOT with the unions. The tests do NOT provide an "accurate picture of progress", as this article incorrectly states. Parents opting out of the tests are not ill-informed. I routinely argue the policy details with educators, policy wonks and politicians. The "ill-informed" people are the poor excuses for "journalists", who regurgitate Meryl Tisch's talking points without ANY critical analysis.

The assessments have been PROVEN to be an invalid measure of student or teacher progress. There is no reason that students should be wasting their time sitting for them. See the research published by the American Statistical Society, a well respected, professional, and unbiased group, which methodically proves the tests are useless measures when it comes to teacher evaluation.

The Democrat and Chronicle has an article where actual parents talk about why they're opting their children out of the state tests and none of them sound like they've been "hoodwinked" by the teachers unions.

Instead they sound like parents concerned with the damage the Endless Testing regime and the poor Common Core rollout is doing to their children.

The job of editorial boards is to spew the lies, misinformation and propaganda of the elites down to the masses.

This Buffalo News editorial certainly does that.

We see similar editorials from the Daily News, the NY Post, Newsday, the NY Times and other papers around the state that carry water for the education reform movement (only LoHud doesn't carry water for education reform) - but I haven't yet seen an editorial as breathtakingly deceptive as this one.

That the deform shills at the Buffalo News feel the need to get this shrill and deceptive tells us a couple of things:

First, the editorial board at the Buffalo News have no problem lying to the public in order to push their agenda. 

Subscribers to the newspaper should think about that the next time their subscription payment comes due.

Second, the education reformers in this state, from the politicians like Cuomo and Hochul to the political functionaries like Regents Chancellor Tisch to the water carriers like the newspaper editorial boards are scared witless that the opt out movement is going to take off like never before and put a shiv into the Endless Testing regime they so love.

In the end, the shriller they get, the more worried they are.

New Cuomo/Deformer Meme: Cuomo's Evaluation System "Reduces Testing"

Governor Cuomo and his education reform/charter school backers are working overtime to sell the public that Cuomo's new evaluation system "reduces testing."

Here, for example, is an ad released today by StudentsFirstNY that says just that:




Before the budget, an anonymous Cuomo official told reporters that the new evaluation system eliminates local assessments and replaces them with an "optional" second test.

The aim of this move is to have the public blame teachers for "overtesting":

New teacher evaluation criteria that is being proposed in the state budget would potentially put the onus on local teachers unions as to whether a second test should be added for students which would count to a performance rating, according to a Cuomo administration official.

“It’s an option and it’s a risk,” the official said on Monday night. “It is a risk to have that second test. We’ve design it in the system because we’re trying to reduce testing.”

...

"It puts the burden on them and in many ways belies the myth the state was asking for more test,” the official said. “Now, if they want the second test, they’ve going to need to ask for a second test.”

Cuomo and his deformer backers think they can fool parents into thinking there is "reduced testing" under Cuomo's new APPR evaluation system because the state eliminated the local assessment component in the system even as they ratcheted up the percentage of a teacher's rating that is based upon state tests.

Clearly they think people are stupid.

If you eliminate the local test component that used to be worth 20% of a teacher's rating and take a state test that used to be worth 20% and make it worth 40% or 50% of the rating, you are not reducing testing even though you've gotten rid of one set of tests.

What you've done is increased the stress, pressure and anxiety on the state test scores, which teachers must show growth on or risk a low rating that could lead to a loss of their job.

The problem with overtesting is not just how many tests are given in the school system - it's the high stakes that are attached to them that cause stress, pressure and anxiety for both children and educators in schools

If anything, Cuomo's APPR re-do exacerbates that problem by putting so much weight on literally one test.

Cuomo and his ed deformer backers can try and spin the new system as "reducing testing" all they want with their ads and PR.

Parents will not be fooled by their jive.

Teachers didn't create this system, Cuomo did - and they will know where to place the blame for the testing problem that is going to get worse under Cuomo's new system.

Daily News Hawks Merryl Tisch As Part "15 For 2015" List, But Carol Burris' Assessment Much More Accurate

It's so interesting to see the selective writing of the functionaries for the oligarchy at the Daily News when it comes to Merryl Tisch.

They have a "15 For 2015" fluff piece out today that promotes the usual neo-liberal claptrap you get from the Zuckerman Daily News -and Regents Chancellor Tisch is on that list:

MERRYL TISCH
Mayor de Blasio has often accused his predecessor, Mike Bloomberg, of hastily abandoning failing schools in favor and closing and reopening them as clusters of new, small schools.

Although the evidence shows that the smaller schools have well served their students, de Blasio has done his own quick abandonment — of the reform strategy.

He and schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña say they will turn around 96 struggling campuses with new money and services, firing staff only as a last resort.

But state Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is unlikely to let the experiment play out — and with good reason: The schools "have failed for generations now," she says.

She has the power to effectively order them closed if de Blasio and Fariña fail to sufficiently overhaul teaching staffs.

Meantime, Tisch will be at the center of negotiations to toughen teacher evaluations, with Gov. Cuomo breathing down her neck.

She'll continue to champion the worthy Common Core standards, which remain under siege across the state. In 2015, they will get weakened for good — or be cemented in classrooms from Brooklyn to Buffalo.

All that is after she finds a likeminded state education commissioner to replace the outgoing John King. Josh Greenman

What's missing from Josh Greenman's paean to Tisch?

Lots of stuff, including the awful Common Core implementation (which Governor Cuomo himself criticized, calling it "chaos") and Tisch's refusal to take responsibility for handing over a charter school to a con man named "Dr" Ted Morris Jr.

Carol Burris had a much more accurate assessment of Merryl Tisch at The Answer Sheet.

Here it is, in full:

The hallmark of a corporate reformer is an undying belief that numerical measures of accountability are the primary lever of school change. New York State Schools Chancellor, Merryl Tisch, is just such a reformer — a true believer in “what gets measured gets done.” From school, teacher and principal evaluation systems, measurement by the numbers distinguishes the focus of Tisch’s school reforms.

In describing her rollout of Common Core testing, Tisch said, “we jump into the deep end,” using the royal “we” to obscure the fact that kids were taking the jump. She also rejected the notion that school and educator ratings be put on hold during the rollout, stating that “we cannot have the implementation of Common Core that is isolated from an accountability system.”

Despite the repeated use of “we,” Tisch has excluded herself, her state commissioner of education and her Board of Regents from the ratings. Accountability is for students, educators and schools, who have little to no input into the commanded change.

Although I do not suggest we subject Tisch to the silly number ratings given to teachers and principals, I do think it is fair to review New York student growth under her leadership. Tisch was selected as chancellor in the spring of 2009. Since 2010, New York’s graduation rate increased only 1.5 percent, which includes two years of no growth at all. In looking at graduation data, one will note that prior to 2010, state graduation rates were climbing, even as graduation standards (meaning the required passing of Regents exams), were increasing. In addition, the earning of the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation, a consistent bar with no change in standards, has been flat since she became chancellor.

In 2009, the average New York SAT scores were 485 (reading), 502 (math), and 478 (writing). In 2014, they were nearly identical—488, 502, 478 —no improvement there to show.

Tisch “raised the bar” for Grade 3-8 proficiency in 2010, and in 2011 and 2012, there was little or no growth in student achievement. In 2013, the Common Core tests were given and proficiency rates dramatically dropped. Though the chancellor promised that scores would improve the second year of the Common Core tests, there were no improvements in English Language Arts scores and minimal improvement in math.

If teachers and principals are to be judged by score growth, what growth has the chancellor created after nearly six years at the helm? The whirling dervish of change in standards, tests, diploma requirements and accountability measures, has produced no discernible increase in student performance. Perhaps the hope is that if you change everything else, no one will notice that no progress has been made.

The fascination with holding teachers and schools accountable by the numbers has generated an endless (and expensive) stream of data from the New York State Education Department, which she oversees. One of the most recent measures was a report entitled “Where Are They Now?” described in an New York State Education Department slide show that makes claims about the percentages of New York public high school students who enroll in college.

In conjunction with this report, the state Education Department posted school by school figures, purporting to show how many graduates were attending college, with data that they claimed came directly from the National Student Clearinghouse.  The data are fraught with error and under-reporting of college enrollment, which I wrote about here. What I did not know when I wrote the blog was where the error originated. Since that time, I have received access to the database of my school’s graduates at the Clearinghouse level, and have determined that the vast majority of the under-reporting errors, (22 of 31 in a class of 261), were made in the generation of the State Education Department report. Meanwhile, Westchester and Rockland county districts are finding even greater rates of error than my school’s 12 percent, with some schools’ rates at over 20 percent.

What is remarkable is that the chancellor has yet to admit these errors, or even ask the department to take down the public reports, which can still be found here.

In the past month, other examples of serious error on the part of the New York State Education Department have come to light regarding charter school approval and regulation. Tisch has been part of a public campaign to increase charter schools, with the chancellor asserting, “I believe in opening them aggressively.”

Part of the aggressive campaign was the approval of the Greater Works Charter School by her Board of Regents. The leader of Greater Works was 22-year-old  Dr. Ted Morris, Jr. When it came to light that that his resume was a collection of lies and misrepresentations, Tisch not only deflected the blame but said that the charter school, whose board was recruited through Craig’s list, should still open. Following continued accounts in the press, New York State Education Department finally asked the charter to withdraw its application.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters provides an excellent account of that and other New York charter scandals here. She concludes her blog by asking in reference to the State Education Department and Tisch, “where is the accountability for them?”

Given the current system of appointment, Merryl Tisch, who has wealth and deep political connections, will likely remain in power. She is married to billionaire James S. Tisch, the CEO of the Loews Corporation, and has been a friend since childhood of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who controls the appointments through the votes of the Assembly. The people of New York have no direct mechanism to have her removed.

In her oversized influence on the fate of public school children, Tisch is hardly alone. Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg are but a few of the other billionaire reformers who have managed to bend public education to their will, while absolving themselves from any accountability for the damage their policies have wrought. They are socially buffered by surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals who are insulated from bad educational policies because their children and grandchildren attend private schools or sycophants who tell them only what they want to hear. Public school educators and parents are caricatured and dismissed as either self-interested or ignorant and misinformed.

Healthy democracies infuse accountability throughout the system–from the bottom to the top. We cannot afford a governance system where those who assume positions of power–whether elected or appointed–escape responsibility.

This year, six Regents are up for reappointment. Given the past year of discontent — during which the majority of New York voters have rejected the Common Core, high-stakes standardized testing and the evaluation of teachers by test scores, polls shows — it is time for the Democratic Assembly to be accountable to the public by appointing Regents who more closely reflect the views and experience of their constituents. If they are not willing to assume that responsibility, then the public should demand a direct voice either through Regent or State Commissioner election.

Amazing how Daily News editor Josh Greenman managed to ignore all of the points Burris raised + the "Dr" Ted fiasco.

Par for the course, though, at both the Daily News editorial board and in the corridors of power.

Accountability is for the little people, skirting accountability is for the powerful and the Daily News editorial pages are there to spread the neo-liberal claptrap and propaganda.

Common Core Headlines Spell Trouble For Common Core

Common Core advocates are trying to save Common Core from an untimely death but recent news headlines suggest they continue to lose that battle:

Panel starts reviewing Common Core standards in NC

Missouri leaders named in Common Core lawsuit: Foes seek to stop payments to test-making consortium

Green Bay Catholic Diocese Backs Away from Common Core

Quarrel over Common Core: A Pennsylvania Primer 

Common Core US History standards attacked in SC

Not enough play for kindergartners under Common Core?

Last week, a TV production company that had done some propaganda work for the NYSED, the Rhode Island Education Department and ENGAGENY, released a You Tube video ad meant to defend Common Core.

The story about the ad from Politico:

WHEN GRANDPA TAKES ON GATES: Common Core proponents have been saying for a while that they’re going to shake up their PR and one novel approach is about to hit social media. It’s a two-minute video that mocks Bill Gates as one of the “rich computer guys in the nerdy glasses” (who frankly is “not making the best computers any more”) and ends with the decidedly modest tagline, “Common Core. It’s Better Than You’ve Heard.” The video follows a gruff senior as he grills his grandson’s seventh-grade teacher. “You’re not going to make him read stuff just because Bill Gates said so, are you?” he asks. Smiling, the teacher reassures him.

— The ad comes from the media firm Six One Seven Studios, based in a Boston suburb. Executive Producer Bryan Roberts said the firm self-funded the video after learning about the Common Core debate through work with clients including the New York and Rhode Island state education departments and EngageNY, a website that provides curriculum resources to New York teachers. “Too many of the pro-Common Core videos were PowerPoints and talking heads,” Roberts said. “So we put out this video to help folks see the power of telling a fun but simple story with real people.” He has more planned. Watch: http://bit.ly/1Bq4mST

This video showing a "simple story with real people" that was meant to defend the Common Core was itself put on the defense when critics pointed out how ham-handed and awful it was:

The video features a Cartoon Old Guy, who's insulting on so many levels. He's dismissive of the kid. He is wrapped up in his own stupid stories. He can't remember the teacher's name (aging brain function-- hilarious). He's ethnic. He's an ignorant war vet of some war-- he looks like a stereotypical WWII vet, but that would make him ninety-ish. Could be Korea, which would make him seventy-ish. He thinks Gates runs Apple (har!) and he measures the value of his grandson's ability to "figure" in how it can calculate money. Oh, and he plays the lottery.

He's worried about the Common Core stuff he's heard about on TV, and I'm wondering where on TV he's hearing bad things about the Core, because Core proponents have that media pretty well locked up.

The message here? Common Core critics are uninformed fools. Note that the nice teacher lady does not actually offer a single piece of fact-based data about the Core to contradict Old Bat-brained Granddad. She doesn't have to (though she might have mention that Hector will have to put a stop to figuring out math problems in his head). He's so obviously a dope that we are meant to simply discount his complaints because, well, he's a dope. He is truly the most wondrous animatronic straw grampaw ever.

I'd like to save the video for posterity's sake, but it was pulled from the Internet and the "Common Core" account that posted the video on You Tube was deleted.

So much for that defense of Common Core.

Earlier in the month, former Secretary of Education William Bennett wrote a pro-Common Core defense in the Wall Street Journal that was widely rebutted by Common Core critics and skeptics for doing exactly what Bennett claimed Common Core critics do in their criticism of Common Core - misleading people:

This morning, former Reagan administration education secretary Bill Bennett took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to make the “conservative” case for the Common Core. In that effort, he actually made a great case for Core opponents, illustrating the contradictions of the Core while furnishing several examples of all-too-frequent Core spin. And he did it, ironically, while implying that Core opponents have “badly and sometimes mischievously muddled” the Core story.

Read the rest of Neil McCluskey's piece, which takes apart every point in Bennett's WSJ column.

Rick Hess also did a good job of refuting the Bennett piece.

Bennett was further put on the defensive when he it was revealed he was paid to "write" the piece:

While in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday, former Reagan Secretary of Education Bill Bennett put out what was described as the “Conservative Case for Common Core,” he admitted he is paid by a lobbying firm for his continued work in support of the controversial standards.

 Bennett’s admission, reported by Politico, that the public relations, lobbying, and business consulting firm DCI Group paid him to write the op-ed perhaps explains why it doesn’t sound much like the writing of the Reagan appointee who agreed with his president that there was no real necessity for a federal Department of Education. 

So we have two "defenses" of Common Core that were themselves put on the defensive this past week and a half and a whole host of headlines that show more trouble's 'a-coming for Common Core.

Given the inept pushback Core advocates, proponents and supporters have engaged in so far, I can't imagine the trajectory for the Core is going to turn around any time soon.

We keep hearing about how the pro-Core side is going to get serious in their defense of the Core, with serious dollars in pro-Core ads and other propaganda.

We keep hearing how the pro-Core side is going to stop talking down to people, stop mocking Core opponents, critics and skeptics.

We keep hearing how the pro-Core side is going to try and connect emotionally with parents and students to win them over to the Core.

But so far what we see are ham-handed attempts by Core proponents to defend the Core like the You Tube ad that's been pulled and the column Bennett got paid to put his name to.

We see continued obfuscation of the issues around the Core, particularly in the "the Core isn't a curriculum" defense, which is false since the testing that comes with the Core and the Obama administration NCLB waivers absolutely prescribes what must be taught in schools.

And we see continued mocking of critics from the pro-Core side, as best embodied in the grandpa in the pulled pro-Core You Tube video.

Good times if you are a Core skeptic, critic or opponent.

Eva Moskowitz Public Relations Department In Overdrive These Days

An overall positive piece in the NY Times Magazine, now a shill piece from ed deform fanboy Jonathan Chait.

Last week she was on NY1, talking how she might run for mayor in 2017.

State of Politics tonight says "The charter school network CEO is getting a lot of media attention these days."

But it's never an accident when Success Academies or Eva herself gets attention.

With the amount of money she has to spend on p.r., you can bet the the "media attention" this past week is spurred on by Moskowitz's p.r. office.

What's her game here?

Why the sudden Eva Media Blitz?

Common Core Proponents Mount - Yet Again - A Public Relations Offensive

Politico's Stephanie Simon writes that Common Core Federal Standards proponents are putting together a new P.R. offensive:

Supporters of the Common Core academic standards have spent big this past year to persuade wavering state legislators to stick with the new guidelines for math and language arts instruction. Given the firestorm of opposition that took them by surprise, they consider it a victory that just five states, so far, have taken steps to back out.

...

But in a series of strategy sessions in recent months, top promoters of the standards have concluded they’re losing the broader public debate — and need to devise better PR.

...

So, backed with fresh funding from philanthropic supporters, including a $10.3 million grant awarded in May from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supporters are gearing up for a major reboot of the Common Core campaign.

“We’ve been fighting emotion with talking points, and it doesn’t work,” said Mike Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute, a leading supporter of the standards. “There’s got to be a way to get more emotional with our arguments if we want to win this thing. That means we have a lot more work to do.”

Step one: Get Americans angry about the current state of public education.

To that end, expect to start hearing from frustrated college students who ended up in remedial classes even though they passed all their state tests and earned good grades in high school. “These kids should be as mad as hell” that the system failed them, Petrilli said.

Expect poignant testimonials, too, from business owners who have tried to hire kids from the local high school only to find they can’t do tasks involving basic math, such as separating out two-thirds of a pile of lumber.

Step two: Get voters excited about the prospects of change. Teachers who like the standards are going to be sharing more concrete examples of benefits they see in their classrooms. Groups representing minority students will likely be more vocal, too. The National Council of La Raza, for instance, is promoting a new video featuring a little girl who credits the standards with teaching her the word “whimsical.”

And there will be a whole lot more from the pro-Common Core side on social media, including Pinterest pages full of student work. A coming Twitter blitz will aim to stir up buzz for a new video that tracks a debate between four people who at first seem to want very different things from their schools — but end up discovering they all support the standards. The video, produced by an Arizona coalition, doesn’t once mention the well-worn talking points “academic rigor” or “international benchmarks.”

“The Common Core message so far has been a head message. We’ve done a good job talking about facts and figures. But we need to move 18 inches south and start talking about a heart message,” said Wes Farno, executive director of the Higher State Standards Partnership, a coalition supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

In short, expect lots of emotional manipulation in the coming wave of corporate-funded pro-CCSS ads and social media blitz.

The ironic thing is, we just heard two months back about how Common Core proponents were sick of losing the message war over Common Core and were devising a corporate-funded pro-CCSS ad campaign to change the trajectory of the war:

ALBANY—Critics of the Common Core in New York have been winning the debate about the controversial education standards, but now they'll face a counterattack backed by a considerable investment.

High Achievement New York, a nonprofit coalition of mostly business groups, plans to launch a roughly $500,000 phone and digital advertising campaign over the next several weeks in an attempt to promote the controversial curriculum standards.

...

While most of the coalition members are business groups, including several chambers of commerce, the membership also includes advocacy groups that have been vocal in supporting the Common Core and other education reforms, including Educators4Excellence and StudentsFirstNY. The latter has been a major supporter of charter schools.

A spokesman for High Achievement New York would not disclose information about the nonprofit's finances. The spokesman said the bulk of the funding will be grants from philanthropic organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Helmsley Charitable Trust. The group has applied for grants and expects to receive them.

 
Guess the localized ad offensive in New York didn't take, eh?

Judging by the latest Siena poll released last week in which 49% of New Yorkers said they want to see Common Core implementation ended, that pro-CCSS ad blitz did not take.
 

So now it's on to a national ad campaign and social media blitz, one aimed at the "heart" and not the "head" (i.e., one meant to manipulate heart strings.)

I dunno, pro-CCSS groups have a lot of corporate backing and thus a lot of money to throw around.

But I think the messaging war has already been lost long ago.

CCSS proponents were arrogant from the start, they imposed the standards with little input or say from the public, they tried to marginalize critics as "kooks" and "tinfoil hatters" rather than admit to any problems with the Core or the ancillary reforms that came with it, and they never responded well to charges that a coterie of wealthy business interests and individuals were the primary backers and proponents of the CCSS reforms.

Now Common Core supporters think they can win back the hearts, if not the minds, of Americans through an ad campaign and social media blitz funded by the very coterie of wealthy business interests critics and opponents have pointed out were behind the CCSS reform agenda in the first place?

Good luck with that.

I'm not saying manipulation and propaganda can't win a message war.

But they have to be deployed early enough, often enough and skillfully enough, and to be honest, Common Core proponents and supporters didn't do any of those things.

War's over, folks.

You could see that clearly in the response to Glenn Beck's anti-CCSS national townhall last week as well as how quickly even blue states like New York have turned against the Core.

NY Post Starts The Attacks On Teacher Tenure In New York In Earnest

I'm not going to link to the story because it deserves as few hits as possible.

But here's the gist - the Post has a prominent story attacking teacher tenure today that complains about the following:

State law requires that an independent hearing officer decide whether a tenured teacher is guilty of charges and, if so, set the punishment.

Each termination case, including witness testimony, cross-examination and arguments, can drag on for months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of 133 educators taken to trial since 2013, the city Department of Education has gotten just 50, or 37.6 percent, fired, it said. In 77 cases, hearing officers found the employees guilty of poor performance or wrongdoing, but imposed lesser penalties. Six cases were dismissed.

The Post wants a system where there is no due process for teachers, but even the Postie article acknowledges that when there are bad teachers on the payroll:

Michael Mazzariello, a former chief prosecutor of DOE teachers, faults administrators.

“The principals say we need to get rid of these teachers, but it’s the principals who gave them tenure and rated them ‘satisfactory’ year after year,” he said.

Clearly the attack on teacher tenure in New York is beginning its earnest propaganda phase.

You can bet the Daily News won't be too far behind with another in their series of PERV TEACHER stories and Campbell Brown and some of the other professional teacher concern troll class will be out in full force using a handful of examples of teachers engaging in unethical and/or criminal behavior to push the idea that all teachers are unethical and criminal and therefore not worthy of any due process protections at work.

After the propaganda phase, they'll put pressure on the politicians to gut teacher protections at the state level.

Given that Sheriff Andy Cuomo is engaged in what is turning out to be a real political race for re-election, I am doubtful he'll take the tenure battle up this year, not publicly in statements and certainly not politically since the legislative season ends in a few days.

But you can bet after he's re-elected that he'll be more amenable to the reformers' desires and I can envision a movement here in New York State where some in the political class start talking about gutting teacher due process protections, using both the California teacher tenure case and the propaganda that's coming from the Post and Daily News as cover.

Get Ready For Some More Gates- And Helmsley-Funded Common Core Propaganda

Here's some "grassroots" support for the Common Core:

ALBANY—Critics of the Common Core in New York have been winning the debate about the controversial education standards, but now they'll face a counterattack backed by a considerable investment.

High Achievement New York, a nonprofit coalition of mostly business groups, plans to launch a roughly $500,000 phone and digital advertising campaign over the next several weeks in an attempt to promote the controversial curriculum standards.

...

While most of the coalition members are business groups, including several chambers of commerce, the membership also includes advocacy groups that have been vocal in supporting the Common Core and other education reforms, including Educators4Excellence and StudentsFirstNY. The latter has been a major supporter of charter schools.

A spokesman for High Achievement New York would not disclose information about the nonprofit's finances. The spokesman said the bulk of the funding will be grants from philanthropic organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Helmsley Charitable Trust. The group has applied for grants and expects to receive them.

Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Gates Foundation and some astroturf education reform groups funded by Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Gates Foundation - you just can't get more grassroots than that, can you?

 Bakeman calls the $500,000 for the pro-CCSS campaign a "considerable investment,"  but given how much money these groups have and given how much they have spent in the past on other education reform efforts, I think that they're only spending $500K on this campaign is quite telling.

In the end, I don't think a half million dollars for pro-CCSS robocalls and a digital ad campaign is going to move the needle much on the opposition to Common Core.

If they really wanted to try and persuade people to their cause, they'd go up with a coordinated TV ad blitz the way Moskowitz did over the charter co-locations and put millions behind it.

Even then, I don't think they'd move too many people over to their side, given that the CCSS issue doesn't give ad makers the built-in melodrama the co-location issue gave the Moskowitz ad makers ("Why does Mayor de Blasio hate our children?")

That they're only ponying up $500,000 for the pro-CCSS phone and digital ad campaign tells you that even Gates and Helmsley are starting to lose faith in winning the CCSS propaganda battle.

They're making the effort, sure, but if they really wanted to win, they'd be throwing Moskowitz money into this propaganda war.

Rahm Emanuel's Political Team Coordinated Parts of CNN Documentary Chicagoland

Just another example of how the mainstream media is simply an extension of the ruling class:

"If it seemed as though some scenes of CNN's documentary series Chicagoland were coordinated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and the show's producers, that's because they were," the Chicago Tribune reports.

"More than 700 emails reviewed by the Tribune reveal that the production team worked hand in hand with the mayor's advisers to develop storylines, arrange specific camera shots and review news releases officially announcing the show."

"Producers asked the mayor's office to help them set up key interactions in what the cable network has billed as a nonscripted eight-part series, including Emanuel's visits with the school principal who emerged as a star of the show, emails show."

Everything you see on TV these days is propaganda.

Everything.

The Phony "War On Charters"

That's the frame that Eva's getting on the stories today - de Blasio is waging a "war on charters."

Saw that frame in the Post.

Heard it on WCBS 880 too.

NYC Educator says WNBC 4 ran with the same frame.

It's Eva's frame, plain and simple.

That's called stenography, not journalism, and that's what you're seeing around a lot of the Eva stories today.

Let me know when de Blasio starts closing charters by the dozens and then we can talk about a "war on charters."

Shelving three of Eva's eight charters slated to open next year sure ain't it.

Andrew Cuomo's Common Core Panel Shills For The Common Core

Governor Andrew Cuomo may have tried to distance himself from the state education reform agenda yesterday when faced with parents protesting the Common Core outside a budget hearing, but the panel he named to look into Common Core implementation in NY State sure sounds like it's still fully on board with the state reform agenda:

ALBANY—At the top of the agenda for Andrew Cuomo's expert panel on Common Core standards was the question of how to improve public opinion.

Led at its opening meeting on Wednesday by chair Stanley Litow, an IBM executive and former deputy chancellor of New York City schools, the panel interviewed several representatives from advocacy and education stakeholder groups regarding their proposals for how to improve Common Core implementation.

The expert presenters stressed during the two-and-a-half hour meeting that the success of the standards relies heavily on support from parents and the general public.

...

Timothy Kremer, executive director of the New York State School Boards Association, said it was “refreshing” to participate in a positive discussion about the Common Core standards. Most presenters at the panel's meeting spoke in support of the standards and went easy on the state regarding implementation problems. When a panelist asked the presenters to rate the state's rollout of the standards, some offered a six or seven out of 10, which represented a near-perfect implementation.

“I believe personally that many of the people who live in these communities have been misled,” Kremer said, responding to a question about school board members' outlook on implementation of the standards. “There are so many political moving parts out there that are trying to blame each other. Some of the detractors of Common Core and education reform have won the battle in the court of public opinion."

Kevin Kelly from Stop Common Core responded in the comments section of the Capital NY article on the Common Core panel meeting:

Is this an investigatory panel or aa ad agency? How about instead of cheerleading the CCLS, study how they stack up against the standards we had before? How about having early learning professionals look into how inappropriate the standards are? How about investigating the privacy issues raised by the longitudinal data bases collecting P-20 on our children?

Another commenter writes:

What a joke. This commission that Cuomo has set up is more akin to a kangaroo court than an impartial panel. A week and a half ago, the Board of Regents finally budged under the weight of public opinion, reason, and common sense. I don't think they did it out of some idealistic notion of what is best for our schools-- in my humble opinion, they were simply tired of taking heat for what Cuomo helped to usher in. Heads are going to roll anyway (John King's, for starters), so what's the sense of continuing on a state tour taking one black eye after another? Approaching an election year, Cuomo has tried to hide behind the State Ed. Dept. and to distance himself from this mess (remember when he rushed the implementation of APPR, CCSS, etc., only to later say that "State Ed. doesn't answer to the governor" when pressed for comment?). 

...

At least this "commission" has one thing right: in terms of public relations and 'selling' the CCSS, there has been no involvement by New York's executive branch. That might mean that our Governor might actually have to sit down and examine the Common Core. He might have to listen to teachers, administrators, parents and students. He might be expected to generate an informed opinion rather than playing the Fed's hand maiden and passing the buck of responsibility, implementation, and accountability to others. Let it be known that this is Cuomo's M.O.: ride the polls and capitalize on those hot button issues that are relatively safe bets in a liberal leaning state (same sex marriage, gun control, etc.). But when the noise gets loud (Common Core, hydrofracking,etc.), Cuomo hides behind curtains.

I think that's exactly right - this Common Core panel convened by Governor Cuomo, stacked with Common Core supporters and proponents (as demonstrated here) is meant to keep the Common Core status quo moving forward but give Governor Cuomo some political cover and distance from that status quo.

The first meeting of the panel shows just how rigged the process is - the takeaway from the meeting was "Common Core is great, messaging around Common Core not so great!"

And so, they decided that the p.r. around the Common Core has to get better, that they have to "sell it" more effectively to the public, specifically parents.

This isn't the first time that we've heard this complaint around messaging - NYSED Commissioner John King complained last spring that the news media wasn't adequately explaining the "complexities" of Common Core to the public.

But the truth is, this has nothing to do with the "messaging" or the media - this has to do with the Core itself.

As more and more parents become familiar with the Common Core, see their kids struggle with the homework and fail the age-inappropriate tests, see the quality of the Common Core lesson plans or modules, they're turning against Common Core.

The same is happening for teachers all across the country, a message echoed by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel to Politico yesterday.

The Cuomo Common Core panel has already decided that the Common Core is swell, it's just the propaganda selling it that needs to be improved.

In short, they're shilling for the Common Core (which is pretty much what I expected we would get from this panel), but they're going to be surprised (as will the governor) when they discover that no amount of improved messaging or heavy doses of propaganda can sell the Common Core to the public.

You see, you can't sell garbage as gold when people see their kids living with the garbage every day in school and at home while they're doing their homework.

And therein lies the problem for the Common Core proponents and ed reformers - Common Core and the testing/data collection/teacher evaluation reforms that go along with it are half-baked at best and everybody who comes in contact with them can see that for themselves.

Maybe if the reformers had fully developed curricula around CCSS, maybe if they had delayed the CCSS tests or the high stakes for students, teachers and schools, they could have sold the CCSS to the public.

But they chose to go "all-in" and push all the reforms at once and as even Andrew Cuomo noted in his statement about Common Core yesterday, it has caused major problems:

“I think the way they have implemented Common Core has failed utterly,” he said. “There is massive confusion, massive anxiety and massive chaos all across the state. It may have been a good idea, but it has to be a good idea that is done properly. And this was not done properly.” 

You won't see me write this too often, but Governor Cuomo is absolutely right in part - there has been massive chaos, confusion and anxiety all across the state as a result of the CCSS and the state's education reform agenda.

The SED and the Regents have no idea how to fix any of this, so they pretty much tinker at the edges and pay lip service to critics and opponents.

Given that the deformers who pushed this agenda through have no idea how to fix the mess, how to clean up the confusion and alleviate the anxiety, I don't think all the improved messaging in the world is going to work to sell the CCSS to the public.

But as usually happens in 21st century America, our political elites figure they can sell garbage as gold if they just go heavier with the propaganda.

Gothamist Still Mocking Upper East Side

By saying they're right in their allegations, Bill de Blasio has given the Murdoch Street Post a victory in the "Socialist Mayor Plays PayBack With God-Fearing Upper East Side Capitalists" meme that emerged yesterday after the Murdoch outlets decided to manufacture a news story to make de Blasio look incompetent and inept with the snow removal on the Upper East Side

This was the not first time a Murdoch outlet tried to make de Blasio look inept over snow removal.

The Wall Street Journal tried it last time with a front cover photo purporting to show unplowed Manhattan streets as the press covered de Blasio shoveling the side walk outside his own house - again looking to get the meme out that Socialist de Blasio just couldn't handle the snow removal effectively.

As I posted in the afternoon, the Daily News, New York Magazine and Gothamist all mocked the Post and the Upper East Side whiners yesterday before de Blasio made the whole thing moot by agreeing with the Post that more could have been done with the UES snow removal.

But that hasn't stopped Gothamist from continuing to mock the UES:

The mewls from the tiny, snowed-in Stradevariuses emanating from the Upper East Side have reached the sensitive ears of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has just released a statement acknowledging his abject failure to properly plow the streets frequented by the city's precious Tax Base. "While the overall storm response across the city was well-executed, after inspecting the area and listening to concerns from residents earlier today," de Blasio says, removing David Koch's right sock and slowly, yet firmly, massaging his foot with tea tree oil, "I determined more could have been done to serve the Upper East Side."

"More could have been done to serve the Upper East Side." Feel better, Muffie?

A commenter adds:

Come on Bill, don't give these fucks the time of day. You did fine. Some streets were plowed before others, but by all accounts the city is pretty much up and running as normal.

As a dad you should know, NEVER give in to a toddler when he whines. He'll just do it louder next time.

That's exactly right - now that the Murdoch people got what they wanted out of yesterday's stories, they'll continue to manufacture and disseminate various stories that will all add up to one meme - de Blasio is incompetent, inept and over his head as mayor.

That was the point with the WSJ photo during the last snow storm.

That was the point with yesterday's Post stories.

The Murdoch papers have an agenda and de Blasio, foolishly, just helped them propagate it.

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.