Cuomo Sounds Like Mulgrew On Community Schools

Tom Precious in the Buffalo News:

In his speech Sunday, Cuomo also appeared to soften his rhetoric substantially from last year on the causes of public schools that are deemed to be “failing” as learning centers for their students. A year ago, Cuomo released a report showing 109,000 children across the state go to school in 178 persistently failing schools – marked by high dropout rates, low test scores and other factors. At the time, he was pushing a plan to allow for outside takeover of failing schools and making it harder for teachers to get tenure.

On Sunday, he criticized “the bureaucracy” that resists change in the education system, but he talked of “community” school-type settings as the solution. “We want to take those failing schools and say, ‘Look, the problem isn’t just education,’ ” he said.

Cuomo said that if people think that the problems in such failing schools are teachers and the education system, “then you’re missing the point, because the kids in those schools need a lot more than a teacher and normal education.”

The Cuomo budget plan to be released Wednesday will call for $100 million to expand an array of services offered at failing schools. A precise breakdown by school was not available Sunday, but he suggested it will offer more money for nutrition, mentoring, afterschool, counseling and other programs in the failing schools. “Don’t call it a school. Call it a community school,” he said.

A Cuomo spokesman noted that community schools were added “as an eventual product of the process” involving failing schools. “This is consistent with that,” the spokesman said.

What to make of all this?

Why is Cuomo "softening" his tone on so-called "failing" schools and calling for the community school model to solve the problems.

Well, I have a theory:

Remember all those meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo (he's # 4 on the all-time meeting list) and the July lunch date he had with the governor and his secretary, Bill Mulrow, in New York?

Remember when Mulgrew told the DA that there's not much they expect to get done this legislative session?

Looks like some kind of deal was worked out between Mulgrew and Cuomo.

Here's what I bet happened:

Cuomo wants the law to remain on the books so he doesn't look like a complete schmuck, having the thing dismantled one year after spending so much time, energy and political capital getting it through.

The unions want community schools to be the model for fixing "failing" schools.

I bet Mulgrew and the unions agreed they wouldn't push against Cuomo's odious 2015 education reform law that imposed receivership and 50% test scores in teacher evaluations in return for Cuomo supporting Mugrew (and Randi"s) beloved community school model.

I've seen a lot of teachers on social media wondering why the unions aren't pushing to have the 2015 education law changed.

It makes no sense, what with the governor under 40% in job approval and running scared that he's going to be charged by the US attorney for corruption, that the unions wouldn't seek to dismantle last year's law.

In addition, it's an election year - when would you ever have more leverage on pols in Albany than in an election year?

But they're not working to dismantle Cuomo's education reform law at all - instead they're tamping down expectations, saying nothing can get done this year because the politicians are busy and don't want to talk to them.

Seems odd but look no further than the way Cuomo's talking about community schools to get an indication for why.

A deal appears to have been worked out, with the unions selling teachers down the river on test scores/APPR and schools on receivership in return for Cuomo pushing community schools.

Just theorizing, of course, but given the history of UFT/NYSUT sellouts and given all the meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo,idle theorizing it isn't.

It makes no sense that the unions wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to have that 2015 law dismantled unless they got something back from Cuomo in order to sit on their hands and do nothing.

And you know how Mulgrew (and Randi) love community schools.

There we have it - another vaunted UFT sellout.

Your union leadership at work, selling you out, one meeting at a time.

AFT Invests Teachers Pension Fund In Cuomo's LaGuardia Airport Renovation Project

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

The American Federation of Teachers is touting in a digital and print advertising campaign the pension fund investment in the plan overhaul of LaGuardia Airport — a pet project of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

LaGuardia Gateway Partners, the entity formed as one of the main vehicles for the project to renovate the sagging airport, includes the California State Teachers’ Retirement System as an investory.

The overhaul, as announced by Cuomo and Vice President Joe Biden this summer, is expected to cost $3.6 billion at Terminal B at the airport. The partners consortium is expected to finance $2 billion of the project, with $1 billion coming from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“We wanted America to know that nurses, teachers and public workers across the country are investing in America—they are creating tens of thousands of good jobs by leveraging their pension assets and rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure—in addition to treating patients, teaching our kids and protecting our communities,” said AFT President Randi Weigarten. “This is solution-driven unionism. It proves what can happen when creative and innovative thinking is applied to America’s most pressing challenges, such as our crumbling infrastructure.”

The ad campaign will be conducted through terminals A, B, C and D at the airport.

Cuomo's pet project getting jump-started with pension money from teachers after Cuomo promised to "break" public schools.

You just can't make this up.

The next time you see some jive from the AFT, NYSUT or UFT about fighting Cuomo, remember how they're helping him out with the pension fund.

AFT Throws Away L:everage By Endorsing Hillary Clinton 16 Months Out

I'm on the road, so blogging is light, but I cannot let the news that the AFT endorsed the pro-Common Core, pro-charter school Hillary Clinton for president go by without a post.

First, the official news:

The American Federation of Teachers is endorsing Hillary Clinton.

The endorsement was expected from the 1.6 million-member union, which represents workers including teachers, nurses and college and university employees.

On Twitter, Weingarten addressed the early endorsement. “Members want to shape the debate, not chase it. 79% of primary voters want us to endorse in the primary,” she tweeted.

AFT said it conducted a long, thoughtful process before making its decision. Members had multiple opportunities to weigh in on the decision. Some 79 percent who vote in Democratic primaries said the union should endorse a candidate, and Clinton was the favorite by a three-to-one margin.
The National Education Association, the nation’s larger teachers’ union with nearly 3 million members, hasn’t made a decision about its endorsement, and one isn’t expected until the fall. It did not endorse either Clinton or Barack Obama in 2008.

Jeb Bush raised over a hundred million dollars for the primary campaign so far - you can bet he'll raise a ton more as the campaign goes on.

Given the fundraising, Bush remains a good shot to be the eventual GOP nominee for 2016.

By endorsing Hillary Clinton this early, the AFT can be taken for granted by the Clinton campaign for the rest of the campaign cycle.

God forbid Randi Weingarten and the sellouts at the AFT would say, "You know, Hillary talked a good game when we were met with her, but so did Barack Obama when we met with him and so did Bill Clinton when we met with him and in each of those instances we remember that actions did not match the words.  So we're withholding an endorsement and will NOT work for Hillary Clinton UNTIL we are assured she will NOT continue her husband's, George Bush's and Barack Obama's pro-privatization, anti-public education policies.  If we are not assured of this, we will NOT work for Hillary Clinton and will work to make sure that other labor groups do not as well."

Instead of playing some hardball and showing Clinton why the AFT shouldn't be taken for granted, the AFT announced an endorsement 16 months before the election, six months before the first caucus/primary.

Nobody I know is surprised by the AFT endorsement - Weingarten's closeness to the Clintons all but assured that.

But to announce the endorsement this early, to do so without any assurances from Clinton that she will support public schools except for some meaningless campaign rhetoric in a statement throws away leverage the union could have used against Clinton as things tighten in the campaign.

This is a pattern for the AFT/UFT/NYSUT - throwing away leverage and giving the neoliberal politicians what they want.

We saw this with the UFT when they endorsed Merryl Tisch's pal Bill Thompson in the NYC mayoral primary and we saw it with NYSUT and the UFT when they refused to endorse Zephyr Teachout against Andrew Cuomo in last year's gubernatorial election and threatened the Working Families Party with dissolution if Teachout was given the party nod.  We saw it too when Weingarten helped out the Cuomo campaign buy calling for Cuomo's troubled running mate, Kathy Hochul.

There is never a moment in time when the AFT/UFT/NYSUT leadership doesn't go out of their way to throw out their political leverage, to take political actions that make the unions inconsequential, to sell out the rank and file for their own political expediency.

Weingarten loves access and she loves media attention - the Clinton endorsement gives her both.

But it doesn't give the AFT rank-and-file any political benefit as whatever political leverage we had gets thrown away 16 months early.

As such, it is a just another example of why the AFT is an inconsequential union that may go the way of the dinosaurs when the Supreme Court weighs in on the Friedrichs case.

NYSUT President Magee Claims MaryEllen Elia Appointment Is A Victory For NYSUT

Boy the Vichy, er, I mean victories just keep coming from the NYSUT braintrust:

NYSUT President Karen Magee counts the scuttling of the education tax credit as well as changes in the Board of Regents and installation of a new education commissioner as victories for the statewide teachers union.

...

NYSUT didn’t get everything it wanted this year. Gov. Andrew Cuomo successfully pushed through changes to the state’s teacher evaluation law that link the performance reviews to testing and in-classroom observation as well as a stronger tie to tenure, which is now harder to obtain.

Teachers deemed to be poor performing over several years can be fired, regardless of tenure, under the changes.

...

At the same time, Magee touted “shifts” in the membership of the Board of Regents – ostensibly appointed by the Democratic-led Assembly – as well as the state’s education commissioner. Mary Ellen Elia this month officially took over for John King, a charter school supporter who went to work for the Obama administration. Yesterday was her first day on the job.

“Those are positives, because we look forward to having real conversations about education,” Magee said.

Ah, yes - the Elia appointment to replace John King is a victory despite Elia's rep as a thin-skinned, vindictive boss who set up a "culture of fear" in her last position, developed a teacher evaluation system that looked to fire 5% of teachers every year, and refused to take responsibility for the deaths of students under watch is a positive

God help us.

New York's Assembly Line Teaching

A serious of tweets with Arthur Goldstein, Tim Farley and Randi Weingarten on the state of teaching in New York today:

@rweingarten @JudithMalys #CommonCore is a big part of why they don't feel respected. Teacher autonomy is gone in this country.

— Tim Farley (@tfarley1969) June 28, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Top-down imposed curriculum comes w/ it in many schools.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Coupled w/ constant Danielson eval, like Lucy on assembly line.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @tfarley1969 @rweingarten @JudithMalys Or the Little Tramp in Modern Times - https://t.co/IqThFflvm9

— rbe (@perdidostschool) June 29, 2015

Truth is, teaching in many New York schools these days is EXACTLY like the Little Tramp on the assembly line in Modern Times, especially when the EngageNY curriculum is used:

Close read incomprehensible piece, ask text-based questions about excerpt, close read same incomprehensible piece (sometimes same incomprehensible excerpt!), ask text-based questions about it, repeat ad nauseam until final assessment that tests retention of said material.

Have a lesson plan printed out with EVERY step, EVERY activity timed to the second, EVERY question asked of students with expected (and necessary) responses under them, EVERY activity ending in an assessment, EVERY do now activity text-based and "rigorous" (drill-and-kill starts from the very beginning of class and goes right to the end) - this is the daily experience of many teachers in New York's schools.

And God help you if you're slated for a Danielson drive-by observation on the day when you decide to deviate from the above assembly line teaching - you're almost guaranteed a "developing" or "ineffective" evaluation for the lesson in many schools.

Randi Weingarten says teachers feel disrespected and need to be respected?

Respect starts and ends with the autonomy to write curriculum, teach that curriculum as one sees fit, assess students as one sees fit, have the freedom to deviate from teaching methods and lesson plans imposed from above, and not be forced to teach from a lesson plan so completely controlled and rote that it sucks the life and soul out of the learning and the classroom.

Alas, Randi Weingarten and union leaders, through their collaboration with education reformers, have brought us the current assembly line teaching mess.

Randi Weingarten thinks teachers need to be respected?

Great - she should start respecting teachers herself by ceasing to "collaborate" with reformers on reforms that strip teachers of autonomy, creativity, and professionalism.

End the assembly line teaching and evaluations.

Working Families Party Sellouts Serve Up Some Self-Serving Jive

From the "Oh, please!" file:

At the time of its annual gala last year, the Working Families Party was agonizing over whether to deny Governor Andrew Cuomo its ballot line.

Ultimately the party endorsed him. But at this year's gala, members sounded regretful.

"This unsavory alliance between our governor and a Senate Republican conference propped up by real estate and hedge fund billionaires must be broken," said W.F.P. president Bill Lipton during his remarks. "We will hold the governor accountable for the promises he made last year. We have not forgotten those hard-won commitments."

"We made a decision [to endorse him] at the time because we believed that it was more important to flip the State Senate," he elaborated later to a few reporters. "We fell short, the governor did not do what we hoped—what he said—he was going to do to help us. He's admitted that. Obviously we're deeply disappointed and frustrated with that. I think us going forward, we don't forget these things. We're committed next year to actually flipping the Senate and picking up that agenda right where it left and pressuring the governor to work with us."

One of the "promises" WFP extracted from Cuomo in return for the WFP ballot nod was that Cuomo would work toward flipping the state Senate to Democrats.

It was clear even as Cuomo was making that promise that he had no intention of keeping it and did not want Republicans to lose control of the state Senate.

Cuomo worked closely with Senate Republicans during his first term on many of his proposals, including the SAFE Act, the property tax cap, and education reforms.

There was little doubt he wanted the Senate to remain in the hands of the GOP and would do little or nothing to fulfill his promise to WFP and de Blasio (who helped seal the deal between Cuomo and WFP.)

And of course that is exactly how things played out - Cuomo did nothing to help Dems, the GOP won the Senate outright (though the sellout Dems in the IDC continued to caucus with the GOP) and Cuomo continued to work very closely with Senate Republicans this legislative session - especially on rent regulation and education reform.

Lipton and the rest of the WFP elders (and their union funders who pushed for the Cuomo nod) are full of shit when they criticize Cuomo for selling out their interests.

It was clear this would happen last year when WFP was agonizing over whether to endorse Cuomo or not and their union funders were threatening the party with dissolution if they didn't.

If they wanted to stop Cuomo from screwing them, they should have done damage to him last May by putting Zephyr Teachout on their ballot and forcing Cuomo to take on both a GOP challenger and a challenger from the left in the general election in November.

So spare me when I hear the WFP sellouts talk about holding Cuomo accountable for the promises he made to them and broke.

It's self-serving bullshit from the WFP sellouts, nothing more, and Cuomo's laughing at it and them.

With Heavy Hearts, Assembly Dems Sell Out Once Again

With heavy hearts and forked tongues, most Assembly Dems voted yes on the end-of-session legislation that sold out tenants, NYC schools, and teachers, but Assemblyman Charles Barron had some choice comments on the floor:

ALBANY—There so much in the bill it was hard to debate. So after Republicans in the Assembly highlighted some of the more unseemly aspects of the omnibus “big ugly” bill that tied up the loose ends of the state legislative session late Thursday night, members of the Democrat-dominated chamber approved it by a 122-13 vote.

...

Despite reservations and private grumbling—and the denunciation of tenant advocacy groups—most Democratic members of the chamber kept their complaints out of the floor debate. Only a few, including Assemblyman Charles Barron of Brooklyn, rose to outline concerns.

“There's too much of the protection for the tenants that was watered down,” he said. “I am disappointed. I know you feel in negotiations that you go as far as you think you can go. You can talk about the Republican Senate, the Republican governor. For me, the governor is a disgrace, what he's allowed to get away with.”

Indeed the governor is a disgrace, both as a human being and in what he is allowed to get away with, but frankly, some of that second category could be mitigated if the Heavy Hearts Club in the Assembly stood up to him.

Alas, they are cowards and sellouts and so, once again, in the end, Cuomo gets his way on legislation and policy.

Same old story, over and over and over again...

Tenant Advocates Say Cuomo Will Pay For His Sellout

From Politics on the Hudson:

Tenant groups are irate over the four-year tenant control extension agreed to be Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders yesterday, saying up to 100,000 rent-regulated apartments could be at risk.
Alliance for Tenant Power, a community group, ripped Cuomo in particular for not pushing for a law that would protect tenants in rent-stabilized apartments.

“Cuomo made empty promises and lied repeatedly while helping the Senate Republicans advance a bill that is a massive giveaway to landlords,” Katie Goldstein, a leader of the Alliance for Tenant Power, said in a statement.

The group and others said the new changes would not provide enough protections from landlord harassment and higher rents.

“Cuomo will suffer big political consequences for his betrayal of tenants and Democrats and for solidifying his status as a Republican Governor,” Goldstein continued.

...

“This is a bad deal for tenants engineered by Gov. Cuomo and his billionaire-friendly Senate Republicans. We will lose up to 100,000 affordable apartments to deregulation, while the Governor and the Senate Republicans can go back to collecting large campaign checks from billionaire landlords like Leonard Litwin,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change.

Count me as skeptical that “Cuomo will suffer big political consequences for his betrayal of tenants and Democrats and for solidifying his status as a Republican Governor," as Katie Goldstein said yesterday in her statement.

NYC Democrats and liberals have a co-dependent relationship with Cuomo - no matter how badly he screws them, they always seem to come back and cozy up to him one more time.

See the Working Families Party sellout from last year for the textbook example of that.

Gale Brewer Is Fine With Linking Rent Regulations To The Cuomo Education Tax Credit

Wall Street Journal article on de Blasio's opposition to linking rent regulations to Cuomo's education tax credit contains this:

On Monday, Mr. Heastie said he wasn’t interested in linking the tax credit and the rent-regulation issue.

“Big bills that have things the Assembly doesn’t want is not something we’re looking to even consider,” he said. “Any deal—anything we vote on—is going to be because that’s what the conference wants, not some convoluted package where people have to vote for things they don’t want.”

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer expressed more openness to the potential compromise than Mr. de Blasio.

Ms. Brewer, a Democrat and former City Council member, is pushing for state legislators to eliminate a provision that deregulates some apartments when they become vacant, and to eliminate a bonus-increase in an apartment’s rent that landlords can levy when regulated apartments become vacant.

“Those two issues I don’t want attached to anything,” she said in an interview. “That would be my priority. But I’m not in Albany. I know what it’s like to be in a legislative body. I’ve had to make compromises to get something through.”

Brewer doesn't want the education tax credit linked to rent regulations but if it is, oh well, what can you do?

Politics is the art of compromise, after all.

Let Brewer know what you think about her sell-out:

Phone: 212-669-8300

and 

Phone: 212-531-1609

info@manhattanbp.nyc.gov

UFT Runs Ad Attacking Cuomo After Months Of Helping Him Out

The UFT's kidding with this ad, right?

“For months Andrew Cuomo attacked teachers and public schools. Now, with his support at record lows, so-called education reformers and their billionaire backers are running TV ads trying to rewrite history. But we know the truth.

“Cuomo wants to pile on high stakes testing, privatize classrooms, and divert money away from public schools by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy.”

“Governor, New Yorkers agree: Put politics aside and put our kids first.”

First off, UFT President Mulgrew already declared victory after the budget:

The United Federation of Teachers on Sunday night declared victory in an email to its members, writing that most of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Draconian agenda” had been turned back by state lawmakers.

“Now all of our hard work is paying dividends,” the teachers union that represents mostly New York City teachers wrote in the email to members. “The governor’s Draconian agenda has, in large part, been turned back. We want to thank the Assembly and the Senate for standing up for our schools and school communities.”

It turned out that the governor's draconian agenda had not been turned back, that he had, in fact, gotten almost everything he wanted in the budget (including higher weight of test scores in evaluations, merit pay, school receivership for the state, tenure changes and certification changes), but that didn't stop Mulgrew and the UFT leadership from doing what they always do and declaring everything a victory.

This came after Mulgrew and the UFT gave Assembly Dems the okay to vote for the budget while NYSUT leadership told legislators not support the education provisions:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

Then came the opt out movement, which the NYSUT leadership supported but Mulgrew and the UFT leadership criticized.

And we got UFT functionary Peter Goodman blogging how the new Cuomo APPR evaluation isn't so bad and Randi Weingarten, Mulgrew's mentor, retweeting that post.

This is not to mention that when the time to really fight Cuomo was at hand - during the election - Mulgrew and the UFT did all it could to help him out without looking like they were helping him.

When the Working Families Party was fighting over whether to put Cuomo on its ballot or give the nod to Zephyr Teachout, Mulgrew and the UFT ensured that Cuomo got the nod by threatening WFP with financial dissolution if Teachout were nominated by WFP.

When Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, had a really good shot to knock off Cuomo's running mate, bank lobbyist Kathy Hochul, Randi Weingarten took to the air with robocalls for Hochul, helping her beat back Wu's challenge.

Now, after all the help Weingarten, Mulgrew, and the UFT have given to Cuomo, both before his re-election and since by barely fighting against his agenda, they send out an ad that's hard-hitting and calls Cuomo on his attacks.

It's too little, too late and useless for anything other PR for people not paying close attention - which is emblematic of nearly everything the UFT and AFT do.

Norm at Ed Notes called them a company union yesterday in a post.

Looking at how this re-election season and budget process unfolded, I think you can make a very good argument that is the case.

First the AFT and UFT ensured Cuomo would not have to face a third party challenger in November by threatening WFP with financial ruin if Teachout were given the nod, then helped ensure Cuomo would have his running mate, the bank lobbyist, instead of Teachout's running mate, the law professor, win in the primary.

When it came time to fight Cuomo's education reform agenda, they did just enough to make it look like they were fighting it without effectively fighting it.

Then they gave the okay to Assembly Dems to vote for it even as NYSUT leaders were saying not to.

The time for the tough ads attacking Cuomo, the really tough ones, was before the budget was passed, not after.

Alas, now that the battle is over and Cuomo won big time, the UFT trots out the attack ad.

Maybe that will fool a few rank-and-file that the UFT is fighting Cuomo.

But it doesn't fool those of us who have paid attention to this fight and have seen with our own eyes how they helped Cuomo out at critical junctures to ensure he got everything he wanted.

Mulgrew And The UFT To Blame For The Cuomo Deform Budget

A lot of teachers are waking up to the news that they have been stripped of their permanent certification and tenure protections and are subject to a odious new evaluation system that will be designed by the same incompetent bureaucrats who rolled out the mess that is Common Core and gave a liar named "Dr" Ted J. Morris Jr., MA, Ph.D, MSW a charter school.

A lot of teachers are wondering just who to blame for the shiv that got stuck into them last night.

Fingers are pointing at Cuomo, of course, because he pushed these reforms and ensured they would be in the budget.

Fingers are also pointing at Assembly Dems who, with "heavy hearts," passed this budget laden with education reforms into law, all the while claiming it was the best they could do:

@DeborahJGlick Your betrayal will not be forgotten.
— rbe (@perdidostschool) April 1, 2015

And while it's useful to let pols like Glick know that her sellout will live long in the memory of individual teachers, the truth is, she doesn't care about individual teachers any more than Cathy Nolan, Assembly Education Committee chair, or Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie care about us.

That's because Mike Mulgrew and the UFT gave Assembly Dems the okay to sell us out:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

Make no mistake, had the UFT joined with NYSUT and opposed passage of this budget because of the odious education reform provisions in it, many of the Dems who voted "yes" on the budget last night with "heavy hearts" would have had to think twice before casting an "aye" vote.

But Mulgrew told these sellout Dems not to worry about their betrayal, that the UFT understood and it was okay.

I suggest you vent your frustration at sellouts like Heastie, Nolan and Glick today by calling them at all their offices, emailing them and countering their self-serving jive on Twitter the way I did with Glick.

But you need to call the UFT and let them know that you hold Mulgrew and the UFT leadership ultimately responsible for this disaster.

It was reported that Mulgrew took the lead over Magee and NYSUT in "negotiating" the reforms that would end up in the budget.

Mulgrew declared "victory" on Sunday claiming the lack of merit pay and the hold on the charter cap were "wins" for teachers.

Alas, merit pay actually is in the budget, along with the loss of tenure, permanent certification and an insane new evaluation system developed by the hostile teacher-haters at SED, and the charter cap will be raised later in the legislative session.

Finally, Mulgrew refused to oppose the budget and the reforms in it in any meaningful way, giving Assembly Dems all the cover they needed to stick the shivs into teachers and public schools.

To be sure, this is Cuomo's "reformy" budget - but it couldn't have been done so easily had Mike Mulgrew and the UFT not helped him.

Ultimately, teachers need to blame the UFT for selling them out.

Back In The Day: Cuomo, Mulgrew, Iannuzzi, King Announce APPR Deal

As we await news of the latest teacher evaluation reform in New York State, let's revisit February 2012 for another big announcement on teacher evaluations by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, former NYSED Commissioner John King, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi:

ALBANY — Student test scores and classroom observations will be used to assess New York educators under a new evaluation system announced Thursday that Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded as a national model.

The agreement between state officials and union leaders ended two years of tense negotiations and put a court battle on hold.

With the clock ticking on a tight deadline, Cuomo and educational leaders on Thursday said they had broken through the major logjams standing in the way of the new teacher evaluation system — which would also bring in approximately $1 billion in federal funding over the next few years.

The move also strengthens the role of the state Education Department, which must approve the evaluation agreements developed by each of the state's 700 school districts.

"Today is a great day for the schools in the state of New York. Government works today," Cuomo said, as he was joined by Education Commissioner John King Jr. as well as Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzzi, heads of the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers.

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

To get the federal funding, the new evaluation system must be completed and implemented by year-end. Unions and management of local school districts, including the vast New York City system, had been at loggerheads over the weight to give student performance on standardized tests and the appeals process for teachers who receive the lowest rating.

With that in mind, Cuomo said he would impose his own system in his budget plan if unions and department officials couldn't agree by Thursday — which marks the deadline for the governor's 30-day amendments, or final touches, to his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The announcement followed an all-night bargaining session in which the warring sides appeared to compromise on two key issues. The New York City-based UFT and State Education Department agreed on a plan for appealing evaluations in which teachers scored poorly and might face firing; and NYSUT and the state resolved differences over the so-called local test portion of the evaluation.

Under the plan, teachers are evaluated on a 100-point scale: 60 points are based on classroom observations and student portfolios; 20 points come from scores that students get on a standardized state test; and another 20 points come from tests developed by the district or a third party.

Much of the fighting between the labor leaders and state officials was sparked by Cuomo's last-minute push to allow student test scores to count for up to 40 percent of an evaluation. Districts have the option to use state tests for up to 40 percent of an evaluation, but it must be bargained with the union. NYSUT's Iannuzzi said the union would likely end the lawsuit it filed last spring over the increased weight given to state tests once the new evaluation system is finalized.

Additionally, the State Education Department will now have veto power over evaluations that are deemed insufficient. Unions and school districts will also develop a "curve" for the point system by which teachers and principals are rated. Educators will fall in one of four categories: ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective.

Those rated "ineffective" could be fired if they do not improve.

King down played the concerns of some school administrators that the evaluation system would add significant new work to the strained staffing at many schools. He said the new evaluation system will also "dramatically change" the jobs of many principals for the better, by putting them in the classrooms where they can offer constructive feedback to their staff.

"The role of the principal is to provide their teams with instructional leadership," he said. "Principals should be spending significant time in the classroom."

So far, about 100 school districts statewide have agreed on evaluation plans and another 250 are close.

Still, questions remain about how the State Education Department will regulate this new system and whether it has the capacity to review and approve them all by year's end.

"Whether they are going to be able to approve these new evaluations as efficiently as it was described here today, I'm a little bit suspicious," said Tim Kremer, executive director of the state School Boards Association.

And Iannuzzi stressed that the relationships between school districts and their unions will still be a key factor in whether the evaluation plans go smoothly.

"The ingredient you can't write in law is the ingredient of collaboration and trust" between unions and management, he said.

It's interesting to see how much has changed in three years.

Where three years ago they were touting principals as the drivers of observations and fonts of educational wisdom, in the latest iteration of New York State teacher evaluations as pushed by Governor Cuomo, the principal has been superseded by outside evaluators.

Back in February 2012, they said principals would be in classrooms "where they belong", offering "feedback" to their staffs.

In the latest iteration, outside observers will drive by on some unknown timetable to observe teachers they don't know in schools they've never been to in order to provide meaningful evaluations of teachers.

Yeah, that'll work great.

Want to bet we'll be re-doing APPR teacher evaluations in a year or two again when the plan they're working on now turns out to be a miserable failure.

The one constant you'll notice in all the iterations of evaluations in New York State is that the union leadership is always there on stage next to Cuomo for the sell-out announcement.

Bet whatever comes in the next day or so that some teacher union head will offer some variation on the Iannuzzi prouncement from back in the day:

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

Because rhetoric about how good the sell-outs they negotiate never gets old or stale in the mouths of teachers union heads.

Report: Mulgrew Is Negotiating With Cuomo On His Own, Going Around NYSUT

Okay, I missed this extraordinary NT2 blog post from a few days ago.

I wish I hadn't - it's that extraordinary.

Read the whole piece, in its entirety over at NT2.

But the gist is this:

Cuomo's approval numbers have tanked because of his attacks on teachers.

People are conflating Common Core, the CCSS tests and Cuomo's push for teacher evaluations all into one and are blaming Cuomo for all three.

NT2 says the numbers would be even worse if NYSUT hadn't pulled their TV ads:

And think of what the drop might have been had NYSUT not pulled its TV ads a month ago. They were good ads. They featured women teachers speaking directly to Cuomo saying in effect: “How dare you say that I’m the problem.”

Nonetheless, Cuomo's getting hurt bad in this battle, even with the ads down.

But it doesn't matter, because no matter how weak Cuomo is at this moment, the UFT leadership is looking to help him out:

This post is actually about NYSUT, once the state’s most powerful union, but now a shell of itself due to internal conflict within its own ranks and with other teacher unions.  One would have thought that Cuomo’s unprecedented attack would have unified the teacher reps, but no.  They are still fragmented, still paralyzed, still seemingly unable to capitalize on this moment in which Cuomo seems so vulnerable on education policy.

(Even as we are writing this, the UFT’s Mike Mulgrew is negotiating with Cuomo’s office on his own, going around NYSUT.)

NT2 blog ends the post with this:

The entity that may capitalize on Cuomo’s vulnerability, however, is the Assembly.  Now that the Assembly has taken ethics off the table, it’s free to do what it wants to do – a wholesale re-write of Cuomo education policies.

Cuomo, stung by the poll, and wanting mainly and perhaps only an ethics victory, might go along. NYSUT would benefit, although not as a result of its own efforts. It will simply luck out.

I've been pointing out for weeks now how the union leadership has been fighting a half-assed battle against Cuomo instead of going for his throat.

Now we know why.

The sellout is being negotiated by Mike Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

Cuomo Says Sheldon Silver And Teachers Union Are Running The Assembly

Coming just a couple of days after newly-minted Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie gave Governor Cuomo everything he wanted on ethics reform (i.e., reform for legislature, not for executive or girlfriend of said executive) comes this report from Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo is telling his political backers he believes that indicted ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is still calling the shots in the chamber, the Daily News has learned.

Cuomo made the comments at a closed-door breakfast with members of his campaign finance committee, according to a source with direct knowledge of the statements.

Cuomo was bemoaning the fact that nothing has changed since Silver was forced to resign his leadership post in early February after being hit with federal corruption charges, the source said.

Cuomo, the source said, described new Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie as Silver's "instrumentality" in keeping power.

The governor claimed that Silver, who remains in the Assembly, is still ruling through his team that Heastie has left in place, notably counsel James Yates and Program and Policy Secretary Lou Ann Ciccone.

The source said that Cuomo added that Silver also has his imprint at City Hall through de Blasio's budget director Dean Fuleihan, a former longtime Silver aide.

"Shelly and the teachers union run everything through Fuleihan, Yates and Lou Ann," the source quoted Cuomo as saying.

And just in case you think the anonymous report might be b.s., here was Cuomo's reaction to the report:

A Cuomo spokeswoman didn't confirm or deny that the governor made the comments. Instead, she declined comment.

The Assembly looks like they won't give Cuomo everything he wants on education reform - it appears the power he wants to take over "failing" schools and districts won't be part of the budget, though changes to the evaluation system, a lift to the charter cap, more money for charters and tenure changes do seem like they are on tap.

This despite the fact that the public backs teachers over Cuomo 55%-28% and Cuomo has a 63% disapproval rating for his handling of education.

So dunno why Cuomo is grousing - given how low he's fallen in polls (below water in the Siena poll, at the waterline in the Quinnipiac poll) and given how much protest his ed agenda has engendered around the state, that he's going to get as much of his agenda as he is is a major freaking victory.

As always, hope to be wrong believing that the Assembly, backed by the unions, will cave to him on evals, tenure, and charters.

But all indication is, that's what's coming.

Working Families Party Takes On Cuomo's Education Proposals With The Help Of Some Legislators

From State of Politics:

Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and three Democratic assemblywomen – Addie Russell (North Country), Michelle Schimel (Long Island) and Latrice Walker (NYC) – are featured in a Working Families Party video speaking out against Cuomo’s education proposals.

And the video:



The arguments the legislators make are excellent and I'm glad to see them make them.

Two points of criticism:

It's a shame Stewart-Cousins looks like she was videotaped using a camera from the 1970's.

It's also a shame Working Families Party didn't fight Cuomo BEFORE the election, when they REALLY could have done some damage.

In Case You Think Assembly Dems Are Going To Stand Up To Cuomo On Education Policy (Or Anything Else)

See this photo from 3/18/2015:

The so called Cuomo - Heastie 'ethics reform' is more embarassing than this picture. pic.twitter.com/T1FikJsCTB
— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) March 18, 2015

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows the public backs teachers over Cuomo on education issues 55%-28%.

Cuomo has a 63% disapproval rating on his handling of education.

71%-25% oppose tying teacher pay to test scores.

65%-30% oppose tying teacher tenure to test scores.

Those are two of Cuomo's signature education reforms.

They're not very popular, are they?

Neither is Cuomo.

His approval has dropped eight percentage points to his lowest score for a Q poll - 50% approval overall

In Siena polls, Cuomo's been underwater on job approval for months.

In the last one, he was at 47% approval.

There is no reason for Assembly Dems to be embracing Cuomo on anything.

So why is newly-minted speaker Carl Heastie bailing Cuomo out on ethics reform and jumping into his lap at the press conference announcing the deal?

I warned yesterday that a sell-out is coming.

Assembly Dems sent a letter to Heastie saying they should fight Cuomo on state takeover of failing schools and districts but they made no mention of any of the rest of his agenda - including teacher evaluation reform, tenure reform and raising the charter cap.

Today's Quinnipiac poll gives Dems plenty of cover to fight Cuomo on his education reform agenda.

But it's awfully hard to fight Cuomo when you're embracing him.

And that's what Heastie's doing right now.

53 Assembly Dems Push For Carl Heastie To Back De Blasio Over Cuomo On School Reform

From Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

ALBANY — Dozens of Assembly Democrats are pressing Speaker Carl Heastie to side with Mayor de Blasio over Gov. Cuomo on the issue of school reform, the Daily News has learned.

Fifty three Democrats, led by Assembly Education Committee Chairman Catherine Nolan (D-Queens) and Speaker Pro Tempore Jeffrion Aubry (D-Queens), have signed onto a letter to Heastie urging him to reject Cuomo's push for the state to be able to take over failing schools during the ongoing budget negotiations.

"This proposal would wrest struggling schools away from local control and subject them to oversight by outside individuals or organizations, thereby interfering with the reforms municipalities are already implementing at the local level to strengthen schools and boost classroom achievement," the letter states.

The Democrats say putting the worst schools into state receivership has had a "mixed record at best" in other states.

"As we confront the challenges of providing our children with a great education, it is important that we keep in mind what works when it comes to supporting our public schools," the Assembly members say.

The letter does not specifically reference other Cuomo initiatives that would reform the teacher evaluation and tenure systems and increase the number of charter schools — all issues typically opposed by the Assembly Democrats.

The 53 Dems did write they support the reform agenda of de Blasio and his Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. They specifically referenced the mayor's call to increase community school services that deliver mental health, extended day learning for failing schools, expanded summer school, and greater access to math and technology programs.

Cuomo's state receivership plan is simply a privatization plan - declare individual schools and whole districts failing, then hand them over to the charter operators.

I'm glad to see that Assembly Dems are pushing back against that.

That these same Dems didn't push for Heastie to fight Cuomo on other Cuomo initiatives on teacher evaluations, tenure changes or the charter cap should worry you if you're opposed to them.

That's a sign that there will be a compromise on all three coming.

UFT Continues To Put On Dog And Pony Show Against Cuomo, But Signals They Expect Defeat

Despite the widespread opposition to Cuomo's ed reform agenda, the UFT is getting the message out that this fight against the Cuomo reform budget is essentially lost because he can stick whatever he wants into budget extenders and force the Legislature to take it wholesale or shut the government down.

A colleague at the UFT dog/pony show against the Cuomo reforms that was held in Brooklyn last night said that was the takeaway from the forum.

Mulgrew has issued the same message at the DA.

That's the voice of surrender.

I'll have more on this later, but for now, let's just say, if a governor with 47% job approval rating and the fewest votes of any reelected governor since FDR in 1930 says take my agenda 100% or I'll force a shutdown, he is vulnerable politically to charges of authoritarianism and overreach.

This is especially so since the heavy-handed tactics aren't sitting well with members of either party in either the Assembly or the Senate.

Alas, it does not seem the UFT wants to take Cuomo on at that level in this fight.

Instead they keep reminding members about the budget extender tactics Cuomo can push, saying that, in the end, it's pretty much a done deal.

One might almost wonder if the real deal was done last Friday when Mulgrew and Magee secretly met Cuomo's people for "discussions" and now they're just playing out the string to make things look right for the rank and file.

But a guy who wants to punch anyone who takes his Common Core away and says the union can't fight against standardized tests because parents wants tests would never sell us out in private while putting on a dog/pony show in public, would he?

I mean, they wouldn't just be putting on a show for us, right?

Of course they are.

If they really meant business, they'd be running ads saying

"Governor Cuomo says he wants the Legislature to accept his unpopular education reform agenda wholesale or he'll force a government shutdown.  When did we elect a king in New York State?  This governor has a 47% job approval rating and was reelected with the fewest votes since FDR in 1930 - he doesn't get to dictate to the people of this state and their elected representatives like he's the Sun King."

But they're not running ads like that.

Instead they're telling the rank and file at these UFT forums and the DA how hard the fight is going to be, how much power the governor has through the budget extender, signaling that defeat is coming.

Of course the fight against Cuomo is hard - the UFT and NYSUT are barely fighting it, running lame ads, doing all they can to avoid REALLY taking Cuomo on.

Try running the ad I just wrote above across the state and see how the governor reacts.

Even better, run it for a few weeks and see what happens to his poll numbers.

I'm going to tell you, folks, the more I hear out of Mulgrew and the UFT, the more I think the "compromise" with Cuomo has either already been done or is close to being done and the forums and the rhetoric are just part of the show to fool the R&F into thinking the war's still on.

The fact is, the war between the unions and Cuomo was NEVER on because these people running the unions don't want a war.

They like testing, they like Common Core and they like reform.

They're simply negotiating the terms of exploitation and surrender while sucking up their double pensions and other union perks and putting on a show for the rest of us.

Caught Meeting With Cuomo's Aides, UFT And NYSUT Say "Nothing To See Here"

From the NY Post:

Leaders of New York’s teachers unions huddled with Gov. Cuomo’s aides just days after launching a hard-hitting media and grass-roots campaign opposing his education reforms.

United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew and his state counterpart, Karen Magee of New York State United Teachers, met with the aides in Albany last Friday. Cuomo did not attend.

The union leaders said the talks were not unusual and insisted they were not pulling back on their TV ads and social-media outreach attacking the governor’s proposals to strengthen teacher evaluations, streamline disciplinary hearings and expand charter schools.

“We talk to elected officials all the time,” said UFT spokeswoman Alison Gendar. “We . . . are engaged in the largest grass-roots campaign in recent memory to empower teachers and to protect our students.”

NYSUT rep Carl Korn added its campaign is “accelerating.”

Cuomo’s office declined to comment.

I don't buy it.

Union functionaries say the ads haven't been pulled - fine.

The bigger problem is the "secret meetings" between Mulgrew, Magee and Cuomo's aides.

The kind of thing that comes out of these "meetings" between Cuomo's aides and the union leadership is surrender.

That's what happened in February 2012 when Cuomo, Mulgrew and former NYSUT President Iannuzzi announced the APPR deal.

That's what happened in June when Cuomo, Mulgrew and Magee agreed to the CCSS test safety net deal that Cuomo later reneged on.

If the unions were really "accelerating" the war against Cuomo, they would be running better ads than they are, ones that go to the core of the problems with Cuomo's reform agenda (like this one) and they wouldn't be having secret meetings this early in the budget negotiation with Cuomo's aides.

Cuomo's under assault from all sides over his education agenda (see here and here.)

He has a job approval rating of 47%.

He CAN be beaten totally and utterly in this fight.

But surely the unions are not looking for total victory if Mulgrew and Magee are already sneaking in to have talks with Cuomo aides.

Why Would NYSUT And The UFT Agree To Pull Down Attack Ads On Cuomo When He Has Promised To Destroy Public Education?

Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

Shortly after unveiling ads last week attacking Gov. Cuomo's education plans, the heads of the city and state teacher unions met with aides to the governor, the Daily News has learned.

City teachers union President Michael Mulgrew and New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee attended the meeting on Friday at the state Capitol.

Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads, leaving some insiders to question whether the sides are trying to hammer out some type of agreement on how to move forward.

...

 “We talk to elected officials all the time," said Mulgrew spokeswoman Alison Gendar. "We use strategically-placed ads to move the education discussion in the right direction. At this moment, the UFT and NYSUT, our parent organization, are engaged in the largest grass-roots campaign in recent memory to empower teachers and to protect our students.”

Norm Scott reads this as a sell-out:

Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads...

This goes into the category of Mulgrew "threatening" to go to court to enforce the CFE lawsuit over state funding that was "won" 10 years ago. Threatening. Why not wait another 10 years to go to court? 

Cuomo puts outrageous demands on the table and the unions put nothing on the table. So they negotiate from where Cuomo started and even if they split the baby -- 4 year tenure instead of 5? 35% based on eval instead of 50%? It is  - as Fearless Forecaster often says -- a LOSS.

I agree - this is the union leadership at NYSUT and the UFT putting up the white flag of surrender just as the battle has gotten started.

Why would NYSUT and the UFT agree to pull down their attack ads on Cuomo when he has threatened to destroy public education?

We know what his agenda is because he told us publicly back before the election:

ALBANY — Vowing to break “one of the only remaining public monopolies,” Gov. Cuomo on Monday said he’ll push for a new round of teacher evaluation standards if re-elected.

Cuomo, during a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, said better teachers and competition from charter schools are the best ways to revamp an underachieving and entrenched public education system.

“I believe these kinds of changes are probably the single best thing that I can do as governor that’s going to matter long-term,” he said, “to break what is in essence one of the only remaining public monopolies — and that’s what this is, it’s a public monopoly.”

This wasn't the first time Cuomo had publicly vowed to break public education - he had said pretty much the same thing at a Forbes forum attended by AFT President Randi Weingarten in June 2014:

CUOMO ON TEACHER EVALUATIONS AT FORBES SUMMIT -- At a private Forbes magazine-sponsored discussion forum in June, Governor Andrew Cuomo told an audience of wealthy philanthropists that state-mandated performance evaluations should be the basis for hiring, firing and tenure decisions. Forbes published video clips and a transcript from the panel on Monday, with excerpts set to appear in its December 15 issue. Capital reported in October that Cuomo and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten participated in the discussion at the Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit.

“As a general rule, I am against public monopolies,” Cuomo said at the event, a sentiment that he repeated later during a pre-election interview with the Daily Newseditorial board. “I am in favor of competition and incentives in any system. ... The teacher evaluations system, I think, is the bedrock of this issue. ... There will be incentives. You can promote the stronger. You can help the weaker, and that’s the way markets work and systems work that will break down the ‘public monopoly.’” Watch this clip for more: http://onforb.es/1yaTglY

When Cuomo proposed his budget for the year, the promise to "break" the public school system was at the core.

In fact, the Daily News declared that Cuomo had "declared war" on it:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo on Wednesday declared war on the state’s educational establishment.
“Our education system needs dramatic reform and it has for years,” Cuomo said. “I believe this is the year to do it.”

In painting a picture where 250,000 mostly minority and poor kids have been trapped in failing schools the past decade, Cuomo threw down the gauntlet with the teachers unions as he unveiled an ambitious education reform plan that would make it easier to fire bad or lecherous instructors, revamp the much-maligned teacher tenure and evaluation systems, and increase the cap on charter schools by 100.

Cuomo, in his combined State of the State and budget address, also proposed:

• Giving the state more power in trying to fix failing schools.
• Developing new standards that teachers must meet to enter the profession. The governor noted that nearly a third of incoming teachers were not reading at the level of a high school senior.
• Having the state cover the full SUNY or CUNY tuition for “top” graduates who commit to teaching in New York schools for five years.
• Rewarding high-performing teachers with a $20,000 bonus incentive and offering improvement plans to help those who score poorly.

He’s also pushing for a controversial education tax credit for those who donate money to private and public schools. But, as first reported by the Daily News on Wednesday, he linked it in the budget to the adoption of a state DREAM Act that would provide state tuition assistance to the college kids of undocumented immigrants.

Cuomo’s aggressive education agenda comes after months of heated rhetoric from the governor, who has vowed to break what he called the public school monopoly.

Hoping to provide lawmakers enough incentive to buck the unions and act, Cuomo pitched two different potential state education aid increases for the coming year — one for $1.1 billion if his reforms are enacted, and one for $377 million if they are not.

“Education, the great equalizer,” Cuomo said. “This is the area, my friends, where I think we need to do the most reform, and, frankly, where reform is going to be difficult given the situation in the way education is funded in this state.”

So Cuomo has declared on public schools and public school teachers, the unions launch an ad blitz (which I didn't think was very good, btw) and that ad blitz, along with the grassroots campaign the unions started to make sure legislators know Cuomo's reforms cannot be accepted wholesale, begins to do some damage to the governor.

We know the ads and the grassroots campaign must be doing some damage, otherwise Cuomo wouldn't be asking the unions to pull the ads down and pow wow over the education budget.

And what does the union leadership at NYSUT and the UFT do in response to Cuomo's crying "Uncle" over the ads?

They acquiesce!

They agree to pull the ads down while the two sides talk.

Are they kidding me?

Cuomo has declared war on public schools and public school teachers, he has promised to "break" the public education system, his agenda is not very popular around the state and the unions have gotten a little momentum going in the counterattack and now they agree to a ceasefire?

What they ought to be doing is doubling down on ads, run one like I devised that gets at the core of the problem of Cuomo's evaluation reform, and hammer him over and over and over until the war is won.

There is no compromise here - Cuomo has vowed to destroy teachers and public schools.

How does the union leadership rationalize compromising with a guy who has promised to destroy us?