Oldie But Goodie: Mulgrew "Frightened" By Opposition To Common Core

There's some debate back and forth on both the Twitter and here at Perdido Street School over why a Mike Mulgrew/UFT-controlled NYSUT might turn the clock back on yesterday's NYSUT declaration of no confidence in NYSED Commissioner John King and withdrawal of support of the Common Core State Standards.

Past actions and policies of groups and individuals are often pretty good indications of future actions and policies, so I think it's a good idea to take a look at just how recently UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership were showing support for Common Core, APPR and NYSED Commissioner John King.

Let's start with Common Core.

Here's a post I wrote back on August 22, 2013 -a little more than five months ago:

Mulgrew "Frightened" By Opposition To Common Core

From Gotham Schools:

The opposition has alarmed many who say they continue to support the idea behind the standards, which is to teach students to think more deeply and critically, even as they have criticized the state’s implementation.

“This debate about whether Common Core is good or bad … is what frightens me,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, another panelist, said this morning.

Why should a debate over Common Core frighten you, Mike?

Oh, right - I remember now.

You head the UFT, an organization which eschews debate, shuts down opposition within the ranks and otherwise works to quell anything and anybody that isn't AFT- and UFT-leadership approved.

Well, get ready for a frightful year, Mikey.

Because as teachers start to deal with Common Core lessons on top of the Danielson framework on top of 4-6 observations a year on top of evals tied to state test scores on top of evals tied to city tests and/or other locally-selected measures of teacher effectiveness, there's going to be a lot of debate within the UFT rank-and-file over the Common Core, the new Common Core tests, Danielson, APPR and all the other reforms you and your boss, Randi Weingarten, helped bring about for NYC teachers.

There is a lot of anger out there already.

Wait until the ---- hits the fan this year for many teachers in many schools and see how much more anger there is.

And a lot of that is going to get directed at you, Mikey.

After all, APPR and Common Core are your babies.

You were, God help us all, in at the conception of both. 

Mulgrew was following the lead of many in the education reform movement in dealing with CCSS critics and opponents, marginalizing them as something to be "feared" and disdained.

It's that sort of statement - made just a little over five months ago - that led me to ask if a Mulgrew-controlled NYSUY would look to turn the clock back on yesterday's withdrawal of support for CCSS by the NYSUT.

Later, we'll revisit two other oldies but goodies regarding Mulgrew and his reforminess - his continued support for APPR and his happiness over John King getting tapped as the "independent arbitrator" to negotiate the APPR impasse between the UFT and the DOE back during Bloomberg's last year.

The truth is, Iannuzzi and the NYSUT leadership were involved in a lot of collaboration over the years too, but with the state union finally taking some hard stands that many rank-and-file members have been calling for, at least we're seeing a change at the state level.

Here in NYC, Mulgrew and the UFT continue to blame every problem on Bloomberg and rarely if ever mention the contributions from the SED and John King, the Regents and Merryl Tisch or Governor Cuomo in the CCSS/APPR/Endless Testing mess.

If Mulgrew and the UFT take control of NYSUT, it's reasonable to ask if they'll bring the same "moderation" in policy back to the state union.

Rick Hess: Ed Reformers Overreached, Reform Backlash Resulted

Rick Hess in the Daily News today:

Those who follow New York City schools have been witnessing a time-honored ritual — pro-testing school reformers have mightily overreached, inviting pushback that’s now poised to dismantle much of their useful handiwork.

Mayor de Blasio has said that he and his new chancellor, Carmen Fariña, will “do everything in our power to reduce focus on high-stakes testing.” At the press conference where he introduced Fariña, de Blasio said, “[Testing] has taken us down the wrong road and, within limits of state and federal law, we will do all we can to roll back that focus.”

This strident stance is misguided and likely to yield unfortunate results. There’s good reason to regularly test students in reading and math, and to use those results to inform judgments about how well schools and teachers are doing. When it comes to key skills, such tests can illuminate important truths and make it clear if some schools or classrooms are failing certain students.

 ...

All that said, de Blasio and Fariña have tapped into real concerns and raised valid criticisms. However well-intentioned, testing advocates have managed to take a common-sense intuition and pushed it with such reflexive enthusiasm that they’ve created a caricature.

Instead of using reading and math tests as one useful tool, many reformers have made these results the defining measure of school quality. That stance alienates parents and educators who see such an emphasis as narrowing the curriculum and providing a distorted view of school quality.

Last year, Gallup’s annual national survey on education reported that 22% of respondents thought the increased use of testing over the past decade has helped school performance and 36% thought it had hurt. In 2007, the same survey found the public split, 28%-28%.

Meanwhile, reformers have long been hampered by a tendency to overpromise. After suggesting that accountability, charter schooling or now the Common Core standards will spur rapid, profound improvement in schools, they’ve been stuck trying to put a happy face — at best — on much more modest, gradual gains.

All of this has been complicated by reformers’ habit of leaning heavily on federal pressure, first through the No Child Left Behind Act and more recently on the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, to force states and cities to move — even if that meant that policies were pushed forward while still half-baked.

These forces have all combined to transform a promising approach to heightened transparency and accountability into a self-parody that was ripe for blowback. How bad have things gotten? When she accepted the chancellorship, Fariña said, “There are things that need to happen, but they need to happen with people — not to people.”

This unexceptional sentiment was widely regarded as a break with the Bloomberg reforms. Meaning, reformers have seemingly convinced a large swath of the public that they think change happens outside the classroom, and that they believe in doing things “to” people rather than with them.

That’s a clear sign that they’ve driven what was a sensible agenda right off the rails.

Alas, reformers at the New York State level - on the Board of Regents, at the State Education Department, and in the governor's office - continue to do things "to" people rather than with them.

That sentiment was crystallized last week when SED Commissioner John King told the State Senate Education Committee that the the New York State Assembly and Senate have no power to pull the state out of the Common Core State Standards - that's completely in the "purview" of the SED and Regents.

King's arrogance - whether it's talking smack to the Senate Education Committee, calling parents who oppose his reform agenda "special interests" or refusing to do anything with the rising opposition to his reforms other than pay lip service to "flexibility" - is another emblem of the arrogance of the education reform movement and another example of why there is so much growing "blowback" to the reform movement.

Governor Cuomo Looks To Impose Casinos On Any Community He Wants - Without Their Input

Just as the governor imposes an education policy without regard for what the public in the state wants, he is going to force communities to accept casinos in their midst whether they want his "generosity" or not.

The Times-Union has an interesting editorial on this issue - see how many analogues to the education reform issues we have been dealing with these past years you find in this casino issue:

THE ISSUE:

The governor brushes off legislation to let localities accept or reject a casino.

THE STAKES:

What he calls mere politics is people wanting a say in their hometown's destiny.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo may see gambling as the salvation of upstate, but not all of upstate agrees. And perhaps the most conspicuous place where the governor's view conflicts with local opinion is Saratoga Springs.

Last fall, Saratoga County was among the areas where more people voted against casino legalization than for it. The question now is whether the governor gets to impose a casino on any community he and gambling interests choose, whether citizens like it or not.

Here's Mr. Cuomo's office, suggesting that a bill to allow communities to reject a casino would "politicize the selection process." So the will of city councils, town boards, and ordinary citizens is now just politics? They're the special interests, not the gambling corporations with their lobbyists and generous campaign checks?

Surely Mr. Cuomo appreciates that New York is a "home rule" state, requiring, for some matters, both state and local approval. The city of Albany, for example, couldn't create a neighborhood parking permit system without the consent of both the Common Council and the state Legislature. Nor can New York City raise income taxes on rich residents without both state and local approval.

It's a cumbersome system, perhaps, but it also reflects how sometimes the interests and concerns of local residents and the state are equally important, and demand consensus.

At the moment, however, that's not how the law views siting of casinos. With approval last year by state voters of a constitutional amendment to allow Las Vegas-style casinos in New York, the decision on where to place them will rest with a siting board. That board will be appointed by the New York Gaming Commission — another new body, this one dominated by the governor's appointees. This process was set up in legislation months before voters approved the casino amendment.

The legislation also lays out how applications by casino interests will be weighed — 70 percent on economic development, 20 percent on local impacts, and 10 percent on labor matters. So local objections are, at best, secondary to the dollar signs. And in practice, they could mean nothing; If the siting board decides that all the traffic worries and other logistical local concerns are addressed, how people feel about what a casino would do to the character of their community might well be deemed moot.

Some lawmakers don't think that's right. A bill sponsored by Sens. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, and Cecilia Tkaczyk, D-Duanesburg, would apply home rule to casino siting decisions, requiring consent by the local government.

But a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo says the governor isn't going to let politics be injected into the selection process with such unnecessary legislation. The governor shrugs off a vital home rule issue as if it's no more serious than choosing a state muffin.

There will be plenty of communities eager for the construction cranes that Mr. Cuomo waxed on about in his State of the State address. What nobody likes is a steamroller. 

A policy imposed by the governor, with little regard for how people in the municipalities or regions are affected by that policy - that's our Governor Cuomo in action.

And anything Cuomo doesn't like becomes "politics" - even though he engages in those same "politics" by imposing policies onto parts of the state without their input or okay.

We have an autocrat in the governor's mansion who has decided he knows best on everything and anybody who stands in his way is going to get steamrolled or told to get the hell out of the state.

Isn't it time somebody clips Governor Cuomo's ego sails and lets him know that he's not the autocrat of the state?

Someone in the comments writes:

Cuomo is acting more like a king than a governor. Does he see this as a winning election strategy? All that war chest money does not guarantee a win.

Let Saratoga decide their own fate.

Indeed.

Will NYSUT Re-Announce Support For John King & Common Core After Mike Mulgrew And The UFT Oust Iannuzzi?

The NYSUT board of directors announced a vote of no confidence has been issued against SED Commissioner King and support for the Common Core State Standards has been withdrawn until a set of demands around the implementation, testing and budgeting of the CCSS are met by the state.

This sounds all well and good, but there is a civil war going on within the NYSUT between the Dick Iannuzzi wing of the state union and the wing run by the UFT and as Brian from the PJSTA noted in a comment here at Perdido Street School, with the Mulgrew faction expected to win an April vote and wrest control of the NYSUT from Iannuzzi and his faction, official NYSUT policy will change back to pro-John King/pro-CCSS:

Many believe Mulgrew to be behind the insurgency slate challenging Iannuzzi for NYSUT presidency. That slate, dubbed "Revive NYSUT" and being billed as "grassroots" (even though an incumbent exec vp is on the slate) just received an endorsement from Mulgrew this week (shocking!). Because of the split with Mulgrew and the UFT/Unity crew, many believe Iannuzzi is now moving further away from what had been the party line of support for CCSS. The belief is that without being beholden to Mulgrew and UFT leadership, a new term for Iannuzzi would look drastically different. Of course we likely won't find out, as UFT/Unity holds 40% of the NYSUT delegates and the other 60% is largely unorganized. So Mulgrew's slate of Andy Pallotta, Martin Messner, Paul Pecorale, and Catalina Fortino will likely win. That is the crew who seems to want to endorse Cuomo. It's a very nuanced situation for those unfamiliar with NYSUT inner-politics. Norm Scott has done a great job at Ed Notes Online keeping track of the story.

The State of Politics blog covered this story yesterday, so you can go there or to Ed Notes Online for more background.

But as Brian wrote, the NYSUT vote of no confidence and withdrawal of support for CCSS is meaningless if and when Mulgrew and Company - supporters of CCSS, APPR, Cuomo and all things reformy, including NYSED Commissioner John King - take over complete control of the NYSUT in the spring and change the NYSUT party line back to the pro-reform, pro-CCSS, pro-APPR one they pursue here in NYC.

NYSUT Issues "No Confidence" Vote On SED Commissioner King, Withdraws Support For Common Core Until "Course Corrections" Are Made

From the Times Union:

The state’s largest and most powerful teacher’s union on Saturday issued a declaration of “no confidence” in state Education Commissioner John King, a symbolic but unprecedented gesture calling for King’s removal from his post by the state Board of Regents.

New York State United Teachers’  80-member board of directors unanimously approved the resolution Saturday during the board’s regular meeting.

The resolution states that the board declares “no confidence in the policies of the Commissioner of Education.” Earlier this month, NYSUT president Richard Iannuzzi announced that he would seek the action  in an interview on Time Warner’s “Capital Tonight” program.

NYSUT’s  board also withdrew its support for the state’s new Common Core learning standards “as implemented and interpreted in New York” until the State Education Department “makes major course corrections” and “supports a three-year moratorium on high-stakes consequences from standardized testing.”

“SED’s implementation plan in New York state has failed,” said Iannuzzi in a statement. “The commissioner has pursued policies that repeatedly ignore the voices of parents and educators who have identified problems and called on him to move more thoughtfully.”

While these moves will not make the Andy Cuomo contingent of the state union happy - namely Mike Mulgrew and the UFT leadership - they surely will make many in the rank-and-file around the state happy.

Frankly, I wish the NYSUT had withdrawn support from the CCSS for good, but I understand why they're taking the tack that they will withdraw support from the CCSS until SED "makes major course corrections” and “supports a three-year moratorium on high-stakes consequences from standardized testing.”

Given how SED is not going to do either of those, the NYSUT pretty much just withdrew support for Common Core today.

Here is what NYSUT wants done in order for support for the CCSS and the SED Commissioner to return:

• Completion of all modules, or lessons, aligned with the Common Core and time for educators to review them to ensure they are grade-level appropriate and aligned with classroom practice;
• Better engagement with parents, including listening to their concerns about their children’s needs;
• Additional tools, professional development and resources for teachers to address the needs of diverse learners, including students with disabilities and English language learners;
• Full transparency in state testing, including the release of all test questions, so teachers can use them in improving instruction;
• Postponement of Common Core Regents exams as a graduation requirement;
•  The funding necessary to ensure all students have an equal opportunity to achieve the Common Core standards.  The proposed Executive Budget would leave nearly 70 percent of the state’s school districts with less state aid in 2014-15 than they had in 2009-10; and
• A moratorium, or delay, in the high-stakes consequences for students and teachers from standardized testing to give the State Education Department – and school districts – more time to correctly implement the Common Core.

The Times Union reported SED had no comment on today's events.

One Final Bloomberg Boondoggle

From the Daily News:

In one of its final acts, the Bloomberg administration pushed through a costly contract to modernize the city's 311 call system — hiring the same company fired by the feds for the botched rollout of the Obamacare website.

The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, known as DoITT, awarded the contract to the Montreal-based company CGI on Dec. 31, hours before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.

Bloomberg administration officials were keen on approving the deal because the former mayor sees the 311 hotline as one his legacies, sources said.

But rival companies are up in arms, saying CGI has little if any experience managing call centers. A website, Dont911nyc311.com, has popped up to protest the contract.

CGI has never overhauled “a 311-type system,” said a source in the information technology industry.

“We’re transferring a service New York City provided to its people to a service New York City is contracting to outside parties to do. It’s a serious situation.”

The contract will cost taxpayers $10 million this year — and potentially tens of millions more in future years.

This is the same kind of Bloomberg behavior that brought us the 911 system overhaul - the one that cost over $2 billion dollars, is years behind schedule and still doesn't work right.

Same as the CityTime boondoggle as well.

How the press never went after Bloomberg on the 911 system, the CityTime mess and the other contract boondoggles is beyond me.

You can bet they'll go after de Blasio if he does the same.

But Bloomberg essentially gets a pass - no meme about what an incompetent steward of city contracts he was.

Who Made The NYSED Commissioner King?

As I posted yesterday, NYSED Commissioner John King told members of the New York State Senate Education Committee that the Legislature does not have the power to pull the state out of the Common Core.

The exchange showed up in a Capital NY piece by Jessica Bakeman:

Some legislators have suggested ditching the Common Core standards altogether. King defended their educational value, describing that they push students to improve in writing, comprehensive reading and mathematical problem solving.

But, ultimately, it wasn't the Legislature's decision to adopt the Common Core, and it won't be in their power to scrap it, King said.

“To the extent that we're talking about the standards and teaching and learning, that's obviously in the purview of the Board of Regents and the State Education Department,” he said.

This really is an amazing piece of hubris by King wherein he essentially says he is unaccountable to the elected representatives of the people of the State of New York.

Now it is true that King as SED Commissioner is appointed by the Board of Regents, not the Legislature itself.

And it is true too that the Legislature may not be directly making education policy decisions about standards, teaching and learning.

As King told them, that's in the "purview" of the Board of Regents and, by extension, the SED.

He left one thing out, though - this is true so long as the education policies pursued by the Regents are in compliance with state law.

The law regarding the power of the Board of Regents says this:

Subject and in conformity to the constitution and laws of the state, the regents shall exercise legislative functions concerning the educational system of the state, determine its educational policies, and, except, as to the judicial functions of the commissioner of education, establish rules for carrying into effect the laws and policies of the state, relating to education, and the functions, powers, duties and trusts conferred or charged upon the university and the education department.

I put Subject and in conformity to the constitution and laws of the state into italics myself to point out that the Legislature still makes the laws, no matter what NYSED Commissioner King thinks and if the Legislature decides to pass a bill saying the Common Core State Standards are no longer the state standards of New York State and Governor Cuomo decides to sign that bill into law, King cannot continue to impose his CCSS agenda onto the public schools of New York just because he thinks he knows better.

Now the key thing there is if the Legislature passes such a bill and if Governor Cuomo signs it.

Those are pretty big if's right now, especially that second one.

Cuomo has been oily around CCSS, supporting it with words and deeds for a while, then growing silent with the words while still supporting it with the deeds, now saying he supports the idea of CCSS but not the roll-out of the standards and putting together yet another Cuomo Commission to look into the matter.

The truth is, the hedge fundies and education reformers putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign coffers want CCSS to remain the state standards for New York and unless maintaining CCSS as the state standards becomes completely politically untenable, Cuomo is going to hold out and try and keep them in place.

The same goes for his APPR teacher evaluation system that mandates so much of the testing that has so many students, parents, and educators up in arms around the state.

So King knows that even as the Legislature makes noise about clipping the CCSS and the ancillary reforms built around them, he's got an ally in the governor.

It's true that the governor doesn't appoint the SED Commissioner or the Regents, but the governor does have quite a say in what happens in education policy through his budget.

As we have seen with the recent budget, Cuomo continues to back up CCSS by providing money for CCSS PD and the like.

King also knows that the funders behind Cuomo want CCSS to remain and so, even as the politics around the policy get tough, Cuomo will stick it out so long as he can to make his DFER buddies happy.

In the end, to answer who made the SED Commissioner King...

The answer is the moneyed interests who have bought and paid for the education policy of this state, the one's who put "Regent Fellows" in prominent positions at the SED, the one's who put hundreds of thousands of dollars into Cuomo's campaign coffers, the one's who put lots of money into the coffers of the Legislators as well.

It will not be until the groundswell around the CCSS and the ancillary reforms that come with it, like APPR and inBloom, becomes so thunderous that Cuomo and the Legislature can longer jive the people with Education Commissions and other meaningless acts of "change" that the King/Tisch education reform agenda will finally die.

King can be disabused of his arrogant belief that he is the "King of NY Education" - but we've got a way to go in the melodrama before we get to that point.

In the end we will get there - the opposition to CCSS and the ancillary reforms is growing to a crescendo.

In fact, it may not be that long.

But we're not there just yet and King's arrogant performance before the State Senate Education Committee showed exactly that.

Cuomo Takes Home $600,000 In Cash Bribes From Hollywood

From the Hollywood Reporter:

A high-wattage gathering of Hollywood moguls feted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Brentwood on Thursday night, raising nearly $600,000 for his reelection campaign and quietly discussing their hope that Cuomo will seek presidency, if Hillary Clinton decides not to run.

Behind Hillary, he's the second pick," said one attendee at the evening gathering, held at the Spanish-style manse of Fox Film chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos and his wife Ann.

Cuomo addressed the crowd -- which included Jeffrey Katzenberg, MPAA chief Chris Dodd and NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt -- from a podium set up in Gianopulos' backyard. About 150 people -- who paid between $5,000 and $25,000 to attend the event -- stood under heaters as Cuomo boasted about his state's tax credit program for movie and TV production, saying he hopes to lure more filming to New York. He also surprised some members of the audience by "trash talking" Eliot Spitzer, saying his predecessor created a mess at the statehouse.

His straight talk delighted the crowd. "It was like we were listening to Mario," said one insider. "He was great," said Katzenberg, whose political consultant, Andy Spahn, helped organize the event.

Co-hosts include a selection of entertainment industry A-listers. Among them: Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, Paramount’s Brad Grey, Sony CEO, Michael Lynton, Disney chairman Alan Horn, CBS CEO Les Moonves, NBC Universal’s Jeff Shell and Ron Meyer, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara and Dodd.

Cuomo hands out the Hollywood tax credit to studios wherein NY State essentially pays them to film in New York and they pay him back by feting him in Hollywood, handing him $600,000 in cash and talking him up for president in 2016.

How is this not quid pro quo?

If Common Core "Roll-Out" Flawed, Why Are CCSS Tests Still Scheduled This Year?

Chris Cerrone on the Twitter:

If the Common Core roll out in NYS is flawed, why are we giving the CC aligned state assessments this year? @senatormaziarz @AlGrafNY
— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) January 24, 2014

That's a good question.

NYSED Commissioner King heard from many State Senators yesterday who told him that the state's implementation of the new Common Core State Standards has been horrendous.

They have heard this from students, parents, teachers, administrators and district superintendents  - as Sen. George Maziarz told King, the only "people who seem to be supporting this are yourself and the members of the Board of Regents.”

Even Governor Cuomo, who disappeared on the education issue over the summer and fall as opposition to the CCSS, APPR, inBloom and the state's Endless Testing regime gained steam, came out publicly to say he thinks the CCSS implementation has been "problematic."

So we have students, parents, teachers, administrators, district superintendents, members of the Legislature and even Governor Cuomo saying there are problems with how the state has implemented Common Core, and yet the CCSS tests are still scheduled for the year, students will still be penalized if their score falls below a certain threshold and teachers, principals and schools will still be held accountable for the scores.

It seems the only places where there will be no accountability measures for the CCSS is at the NYSED and the Board of Regents.

NYSED Commissioner John King Says New York Legislature Doesn't Have Power To Pull State Out Of Common Core

I know, sounds crazy, but he said it:

Some legislators have suggested ditching the Common Core standards altogether. King defended their educational value, descibring that they push students to improve in writing, comprehensive reading and mathematical problem solving.

But, ultimately, it wasn't the Legislature's decision to adopt the Common Core, and it won't be in their power to scrap it, King said.

“To the extent that we're talking about the standards and teaching and learning, that's obviously in the purview of the Board of Regents and the State Education Department,” he said.

King, perhaps buoyed by his education reform allies in the private sector backing him up and telling him they'll go to the mattresses for him, really thinks he shares unlimited power, along with the Regents, to do what he wants in education policy.

Can there be any stronger evidence to suggest we have transitioned from a representative democracy in the State of New York to a plutocracy in which wealthy business interests put functionaries like King into place and impose their own agenda regardless of how the rest of the people in this state feels about that agenda than this statement?

The Legislature had better disabuse this little autocrat king of his arrogant conviction that he is unaccountable to the people of this state or their elected representatives in the Legislature for the education policies he imposes with the aid of the Board of Regents.

Simply an outrageous statement by NYSED Commissioner King and, I believe, one that is worthy of his dismissal.

Because if he is not stripped of his power and sent packing, he simply is going to continue unimpeded with his education reform agenda.

Common Core Criticism Rises To A Crescendo Across The State

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rob Astorino Does Not Seem To Understand The Problems With Common Core

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the closest thing there is to a plausible Republican challenger to New York's Democratic governor this year, took the opportunity at an impromptu press conference Wednesday to blast what he called "Cuomo's Common Core."

And in fact Governor Andrew Cuomo beat him to the punch Tuesday, criticizing the state's rollout of the Common Core curriculum standards in his budget address and announcing his plans to appoint an expert panel to look into changing it.

It is a testament to the rough rollout of the Common Core agenda in New York, and perhaps even more so to the poor marketing of it, that there should be such unanimity of political opinion about it.

Cuomo's solution to deal with the CCSS issue is to send it to a committee to be studied.

That's not a real solution to the Common Core problem.

Astorino doesn't sound like he gets the problem of the Common Core right either:

In his press conference, Astorino blamed Governor Andrew Cuomo for a “terrible” rollout of the standards, saying that “Cuomo's Common Core has been an awful mistake in this state.”

“I think Common Core needs some major changes,” he said. “There are elements of it … The standardized testing and elevating education is a good thing. But teaching to a test, which is going to unfortunately leave kids who are right on the edge, or who are struggling—they're going to get swept away in this.

“You're going to have school districts who, I think, are going to lose good teachers because of this, and school districts are going to struggle to keep up with this. It needs to be completely revamped,” he continued.

So standardized testing is good?

He doesn't seem to realize part of the rebellion over the Core has been because of all the ancillary testing - some of it arriving as part of the CCSS implementation, but most of it arriving because Andrew Cuomo mandated it as part of his APPR teacher evaluation system.

Nor does he seem to realize that teaching to the test is the deal when schools, administrators and teachers are all evaluated using high stakes standardized tests.

Quite frankly, I don't think Astorino knows what the hell he is talking about when it comes to CCSS - he simply wants to tar Cuomo with it and ride the anti-CCSS wave.

Alas, his opposition to it is half-baked at best (Common Core bad/standardized testing good!) and certainly not the kind of thing I can get behind.

How about you?

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

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

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

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

King got some pushback from one state senator:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indeed, Regents Chancellor Tisch said this very thing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sheriff Andy Cuomo Is Dubbed The "Education Governor"

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

The Cuomo administration defended the budget proposal thusly:

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

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

Have you got that?

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

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

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

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

Cuomo is the "education governor" of the state?

In what bizarro world does that state exist?

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

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

How's that for unmitigated gall?

Andrew Cuomo - the "Governor of Gall."

Cuomo Goes To Hollywood To Receive Bribes, Er, Donations

Governor Cuomo's schedule today:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s press office has not released a public schedule for him. He’s scheduled to be in Los Angeles, CA tonight to attend a high-dollar fund-raiser being hosted in his honor by Hollywood bigwigs.

Gee, that wouldn't be payback for this, would it?

ALBANY—New York's tax rebates for movie and TV studios are so generous that the state is actually paying them to film here, according to an analysis prepared for—but not published by—one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's tax commissions.

The 137-page addendum to the commission's formal report asserts the Film and Television Tax Credit—which Cuomo has expanded to $420 million a year—now accounts for nearly a quarter of all business tax subsidies the state offers, and should be rolled back.

The analysis was funded by Blackstone founder Peter G. Peterson and commission co-chair Peter Solomon, an investment banker and former deputy to New York City mayor Ed Koch.

...

 “The film production credit, now generally 30 percent of qualifying costs, is large relative to industry profits and tax liability,” the addendum says. “Because the credit exceeds tax liability many times over and is refundable, in effect it is a program of cash payments by the state to credit recipients.”

“It is not clear from our analysis that there is sufficient justification for the size of the film credits. The state should consider scaling back the credits and monitoring the film industry closely to determine the impact on its activities of such a cutback,” the addendum concludes, suggesting a reduction of $50 million per year.

Paying an industry to do business here can be effective, the addendum acknowledges. But why target Hollywood?

The addendum says a similarly tailored credit for manufacturing would offer factories 40 times what they would otherwise owe in state taxes. While film has blossomed in New York—especially since the opening of Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—the addendum notes that “the industry accounts for less than one percent of the state’s employment” and “many of the film industry jobs are temporary.”

The addendum also questions whether movies or projects, including Steiner Studios, wouldn't have come anyway.

I wrote earlier about this:

Given how Cuomo handed out million in tax breaks to the real estate industry in return for campaign donations and took a couple of million from the gambling industry in return for legalizing casinos and expanding gambling across the state, it behooves some independent entity not connected to Cuomo to look and see just what Sheriff Andy is getting in return for his Hollywood largesse.

We don't need an independent entity to see what Cuomo is getting in return for the Hollywood tax give away.

He's getting bribes in return.

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.

Fighting Cuomo's Budget Proposals

It's important progressive people and groups take Governor Cuomo on over his budget giveaways to Wall Street and the 1%:

A coalition of progressive groups announced Wednesday afternoon that it would launch grassroots efforts to knock out what it described as giveaways to the wealthy in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive budget proposal.

“Right now, we cannot afford to spend a $2 billion surplus on tax cuts for the wealthiest New Yorkers,” said Ron Deutsch of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness.

He singled out proposed changes to the estate tax and reduced business taxes as “a misguided effort” in a state with what advocates says is the nation’s most profound income inequality.

That dubious superlative “is killing our economy,” said Michael Kink of the Strong Economy for All Coalition.

“Our state can’t afford a billion dollars a year in new tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and Wall Street,” he added, indicating that the groups backing the effort “have proven over the last several years that people power can beat money power when it comes to big tax and budget issues.”

The coalition includes the Working Families Party, labor unions including New York State United Teachers, the state AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America, plus advocacy groups such as MoveOn, the Hunger Action Network and Community Voices Heard.

Legalized gambling proceeds to pay for education programs while tax cuts go out to millionaires and billionaires.

More mandates on school districts when so many are already underfunded and on the brink of fiscal disaster.

It's an election year and Governor Cuomo does not want a fight over the budget.

But if ever there is a year to have that fight with the governor, it's this year.

Not just over the budget, of course.

There's so much more to fight him over - like Common Core, APPR, inBloom, etc.

But the budget too.

It's All De Blasio's Fault

The Murdoch news outlets ran with the story that the de Blasio snow response was incompetent and inept, with the Post putting the story on the front page and Fox 5 playing the story on the TV.

The meme went something like, Socialist de Blasio played payback with the UES by failing to plow the streets there promptly during yesterday's snow storm.

The Times and other outlets picked up the story, de Blasio himself spent most of a morning press conference responding to the charges and now we have ourselves a full-blown meme - de Blasio's the kind of incompetent steward of the city streets that hasn't been seen since John Lindsay was mayor (everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten the "Take in a Broadway Show!" guy already...)

De Blasio's excuse, lame as lame can be, was that the earlier onset of the storm, coupled with everybody's leaving work at once, made it difficult for the plows to get through the city streets, especially with traffic gridlocked off the bridges and tunnels.

This also happened in New Jersey, which the Newark Star-Ledger descibed as "Commuter Hell."

Happened on Long Island too, where NYC Educator enjoyed his worst drive home ever.

But that's Long Island and New Jersey - these are not civilized places nor civilized people who live there. 

What can they expect living like savages out in there in uncivilized territories like Long Island and, shudder, New Jersey?

NYC has different expectations than these places, and there is simply no excuse for the streets of the UES to go unplowed one extra second than necessary - and gosh, was it hell on the UES yesterday, as described by even a non-Murdoch news outlet like New York Magazine:

Rich people are whining as well, if the New York Post is to be believed. In addition to those on the Upper East Side claiming the mayor is getting back at them for being wealthy by plowing slowly, the tabloid is really trying to make “Turmoil as De Blasio botches early snow” happen. (“I think the city handled it very well,” he said.) Evidence of “storm-related chaos” — chaos! — includes two non-fatal car accidents (it's icy), a “parade” of buses with their “not in service” signs on (...), and, you know, tons of snow. Definitely all Bill de Blasio’s fault.

The non-Murdoch Gothamist also covered the snowmaggedon on the UES brought to us courtesy of Bill de Blasio:

Bill de Blasio had to deal with a major snowstorm just a few days into his tenure as mayor earlier this month—and by all accounts, he did a fine job handling it, though everyone may have been too distracted by him performing a striptease to fully assess the response. But the second major snowstorm yesterday has proved to be slightly more divisive, at least if you live on the Upper East Side and/or work at the NY Post. The tabloid cried havoc and let slip the dogs of class warfare today, blaming de Blasio for "leaving the 1-percenters in the cold" by not plowing parts of the UES last night—regardless of whether that was actually true or not.

The Post cited the city's snow plow tracker as evidence that no plowing was done between East 59th and 79th Streets and between Second and Fifth Avenues. As you can tell from today's front cover, this little narrative was exactly what they ran with. They also went out and elicited the riled up quotes they needed to sell it.

...

The only problem with this little narrative? It's not specifically too truthy. Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty—who served under Bloomberg before de Blasio—explained the reason the PlowNYC website showed there had been no snow removal on the UES was due to a faulty GPS system on a salt spreader.

The other problem? Too many cars on the UES: “Traffic also created a big problem for us in that area. I think any of the reporters, or anybody who was in that area this afternoon were reporting, nothing is moving in the area,” Doherty said. "The longer it takes those cars to move, the longer it takes for us to get in there and salt those streets, and that’s what part of the problem was,” he said.

But who can argue with a quote like this: "De Blasio is trying to hurt the more wealthy people by ignoring us but there’s no logic to that,” Martin Cisse told the Post. "There are a lot of blue collar working people out here driving trucks and trying to get around too." Oh sure, the backend of that quote may somewhat contradict their whole thesis that this is revenge on the 1%. And sure, the Post may not have gotten quotes from residents in other parts of the city that weren't plowed immediately either. And hey, whatever delays there were in plowing the UES may very well be totally normal in other parts of the city during previous snowstorms, but there's no denying that de Blasio CLEARLY wanted to stop rich people from leaving their apartments today as political revenge because that makes so much sense.

...

Is it ideal that there's a backup of slush on subway stairways on the UES? Is it news when there's a backup of slush on subway stairways in any part of the city? Is the UES a very precious neighborhood whose residents need to be coddled by the city during weather crises? Did de Blasio order Bloomberg's Sanitation Commissioner to punish the One Percent? Is the NY Post a ridiculous newspaper? Are any of these questions rhetorical?

And the non-Murdoch-owned Daily News also reported evidence of de Basio's botched snow response:

Others defended the mayor. “It’s almost impossible to keep up, they have to be plowing all of the time,” said Anastasia Christofiridis, 69. “He’s not ignoring the neighborhood. It was worse when [former Mayor] Bloomberg was here.”

Well, actually it turns out the non-Murdoch-owned New York Magazine, Gothamist and New York Daily News were kinda downplaying the snow catastrophe NYC experienced under its Socialist mayor (the Daily News for a time had the headline "It Was Worse When Bloomberg was Mayor!" on it's website), but that's because they're not as on top of this kind of thing as the crack reporters at the Murdoch-owned Post.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there was no way the Murdoch-owned news outlets, particularly the NY Post, were trying to get the "de Blasio is worse than Lindsay" meme into the public consciousness, that they simply were reporting the news in a non-partisan way without any agenda or axe to grind.

I am also going to go out on a limb and say that not only was de Blasio's snow response on the UES piss-poor, so was his response on Long Island and in New Jersey.

Quite frankly, everywhere that experienced any weather-related traffic or transit delays yesterday can blame Bill de Blasio's incompetence and know that we need to bring back Bloomberg to make the trains (and traffic) run on time in this town again!

That goes for New Jersey and Long Island too.

Serves us all right for not electing Mayor Bloomberg to a fourth term.

Cuomo's Pre-K Proposal Doesn't Add Up

From Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—Some lawmakers and advocates are questioning whether Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposal of $1.5 billion over five years is enough to fund full-day pre-kindergarten statewide, or whether it's a wise expenditure when schools are struggling to educate students in mandatory grades.

The governor announced Tuesday during his annual budget address plans to allocate $100 million for pre-K next fiscal year as part of the phase-in package. The funding will prioritize expanding pre-K programs for high-need students, and charter schools will be eligible.

...

“Any expansion of pre-K is step in the right direction, but after all the hype and promises, Governor Cuomo’s budget proposal just does not add up,” Billy Easton, executive director of the labor-backed advocacy group Alliance for Quality Education, said in a statement. “Calling this a universal full-day pre-K program is far from accurate; after five years we will be lucky if it covers even 20 percent of the state’s 225,000 four-year-olds.”

Lawmakers with expertise in education issues said they're worried about schools' ability to support their existing students. Cuomo's budget proposal provided about a four-percent increase in education aid, including targeted funding streams for pre-K and other programs. While it would be the third consecutive aid boost for schools, many are still struggling to recover from several years of cuts and a state-mandated property-tax cap.

“We already have schools who are saying that they're having a very difficult time meeting their basic obligations,” Senate Education Committee chair John Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, said after the speech. “When we have schools coming to us and saying, 'we are worried about whether or not we can keep kindergarten,' and now you're talking about pre-K, there is a practical reality to what's being advanced.”

Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, a Democrat from the Albany area, said Cuomo's proposal “pits K through 12 against pre-K.”

“We're all excited about pre-K and the efforts to expand pre-K, but you cannot do that on the backs of the K to 12 kids,” said Fahy, who is a former school-board member. “The increase that he is recommending for this year … does not bring the vast majority of school districts out of the hole that they are in.”

In short, districts are going to get stuck with the funding for this program in short order and they can barely fund the mandates they have know.

The Daily News editors warned yesterday that de Blasio had better take Cuomo's proposal because it is a good one with sustainable funding.

But there is nothing sustainable about this funding at all - Cuomo is doling it out just the way he doled out his "competitive grants" proposal last year, and that means it can dry up at any time.

Raising taxes on NYC residents who make more than $500,000 a year to fund pre-K and after school programs is much more sustainable than relying on Cuomo's magical funding formula that may disappear at any time.

Stop Saying Cuomo Has "Joined The Fight" Against Common Core

From the Daily News:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo has joined the fight to change the state’s new Common Core curriculum.

Cuomo, as part of his budget presentation Tuesday, announced plans for a special advisory panel that will recommend “corrective action” in the way the state implements the curriculum — which is part of a national effort to raise academic standards.

“I support the Common Core agenda,” Cuomo said. “But the way the Common Core has been managed by the Board of Regents is flawed. There’s too much uncertainty, confusion and anxiety.”

The tests linked to the new curriculum have sparked outrage among parents around the state.

 Cuomo said the panel will issue its recommendations before the Legislature ends its session in June.

... 

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch expressed support for Cuomo’s test ban for young students and said she was willing to work with the governor on changes to the Common Core rollout.

Oh, goody - another Cuomo commission.

I'm sure this will end with meaningful changes to the Common Core implementatinon.

No - it really won't.

Cuomo already says he "supports the Common Core agenda.”

Tisch already says she is "willing to work with the governor on changes to the Common Core rollout."

While I doubt Cuomo would be so audacious as to put Tisch on the commission, you can bet Tisch and Commissioner King will have allies on it looking into the Common Core implementation.

And you can bet that whatever changes are recommended by the commission, they will be Tisch- and Cuom-approved changes.

Which means very little actual change.

This commission is simply a way for Cuomo to look like he is addressing public concerns over the state's education reform agenda without actually doing anything about those concerns.

In short, it's a dog-and-pony show.