NY Post And NY Daily News Slap At Andrew Cuomo Over Teacher Evaluations

Ooh, lookee here - Rupert Murdoch just slapped Cuomo across the face with today's editorial on teacher evaluations and the Daily News made matters worse by comparing him unfavorably (at least in their minds) to the behemoth across the Hudson, Chris Christie (who happens to be Cuomo's rival, perhaps, for the 2016 WH race.)

Cuomo never likes to be criticized by any news outlets, but he especially hates to be taken to task publicly by his patron, Rupert Murdoch, or Murdoch's proxy in Albany, Fred Dicker.

You can bet Cuomo will respond the way he always responds when slapped by Murdoch - he'll act as fast as he can to make Uncle Rupert happy.

Remember, that's what he did the last time Murdoch slapped at him by calling him "Chicken Cuomo" on Twitter over teacher evaluations.

Within hours, Cuomo responded by giving Uncle Rupert everything he wanted (at least at that time) on evaluations.

But now it turns out it wasn't enough.

How long will it take for Cuomo to give Murdoch what he wants once again?

Oh, and one last thing - are the DN and Post coordinating editorials?

Funny how they ran the same one on the same day.

Daily News editor Colin Myler of course is a former criminal, er, employee of News Corporation, so perhaps there is some coordination there.

Or perhaps somebody in the education reform/hedge fundie world pushed to have the editorial pages run the editorials so close together.

More likely it's the second choice.

With the start of school just a few weeks away, I suspect we are about to get a very heavy-handed push from the education reform world and their media mouthpieces to get a punitive, test-centric teacher evaluation deal here in NYC that will give the DOE the right to impose dozens of local standardized tests in every subject in every grade on top of the state tests and use the scores from both to evaluate and fire teachers.

Who cares if adding dozens of high stakes standardized tests a year to every grade in every subject makes sense?

Who cares if this so-called accountability movement is actually doing much more harm than good to kids?

After all, there is money to be made by Uncle Rupert and the rest of the reformers on all the testing, the test prep and the accountability and data tracking tools, and there is money to be saved by firing all those expensive veteran teachers and replacing them with cheaper (and disposable) newbies.

Cops Execute Knife-Wielding Man On Seventh Avenue

Another day in New York, another dramatic NYPD shooting.

Cops shot a knife-wielding man in Times Square yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. Police claim he had been stopped for smoking marijuana on the street when he pulled out a knife and began running away from them while swinging the knife.

They followed him through Times Square, eventually shooting and killing him on 38th Street and 7th Avenue. The Daily News reports at least fifteen bullet casings on the street, though there may have been more shots fired by the NYPD than that.



Was this guy a danger and a menace?

Absolutely.

According to the media accounts, they'd sprayed him with six blasts of mace and he still hadn't dropped the knife.

The cops claim he lunged at them with the knife right before he was shot.

The NY Post reports he was shouting "Shoot me! Shoot me!" before he "lunged" at them with the knife.

Some people say the knife-wielding man was trying to commit "suicide by cop".

Dunno how much of that to believe and the videos that have surfaced are quite jumpy - it's hard to see what's going on.

That said, the first photo with the man backing away from cops, hands behind his head, as they advance in preparation to shoot him, sure makes you wonder if there was another way to get him down without killing him in a flood of bullets.

But in Bloomberg's New York, this is actually the perfect emblem.

Get rid of the Big Apple symbol and put the photo of the guy with the knife backing away from a dozen armed cops getting ready to execute him in its place.

You don't have to be wielding a knife to get shot by gun-toting NYPD goons.

You can just be trying to flush marijuana down the toilet when they kill you - like in February when police followed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham into his home and executed him, NYPD-style, for trying to flush a small amount of marijuana before they arrested him.

Graham was unarmed when he was executed by police.

Graham's grandmother witnessed the shooting and was brought down to the precinct and worked over for hours as cops tried to get her to change her account of what happened.

One officer has since been charged with manslaughter in the case.

But we know how the justice system works in New York, don't we?

NY Times Fails To Mention Rhee/KJ Sex Abuse Scandal In Campbell Brown Story

The NY Times covered Campbell Brown's assault on teachers unions tonight.

They do mention how her husband Dan Senor sits on the board of the New York chapter of Michelle Rhee's group, StudentsFirst.

But they fail to mention how Michelle Rhee has been accused of helping a sex abuse case against her husband, former NBA star and current Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, go away when he was running a charter school.

Far from being an immaterial part of the story, how does Brown come off declaring the unions protectors of perverts and sex criminals when her husband sits on the board of a group run by a woman who has been accused in a Congressional committee report of helping to cover up alleged sexual misconduct by her then boyfriend and now husband?

And how can the Times cover the story without bringing this up? After all, they covered the allegations against Rhee back on November 20, 2009.

I have said it before, I will say it again - if Campbell Brown wants to go after people who protect sex criminals and perverts, she needs to look no further than Michelle Rhee.

Too bad the corporate media doesn't seem to want to connect the Rhee/Johnson sexual abuse cover-up to the Campbell Brown story.

But that's par for the course.

The media rarely have a problem dragging teachers through the mud but Michelle Rhee seems to consistently get treated with kid gloves over her alleged ethical lapses - from the widespread cheating that took place when she was chancellor of the DCPS to the allegations that she lied about her own record as a teacher to the allegations that she helped KJ cover up his sexual misconduct when he was a charter school head.

Post Editors Wring Their Hands Over Stuyvesant Cheaters

The NY Post editors work for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - you know, the company embroiled in a hacking/corruption scandal that has seen over 60 of its current and former employees arrested on hacking, bribery, conspiracy and/or corruption charges. The latest arrested was a Sun journalist on suspicion of corruption on August 7th. This followed another Sun journalist who was arrested on July 20th on computer hacking charges and made "Employee of the Month" a day after his arrest.

News Corporation is currently enjoying not one, not two, but three different police investigations into its criminal activities in Britain as well as a Parliamentary investigation. The SEC and the FBI are looking into allegations of corruption here in the U.S. and could bring charges against the company for breaking the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bloomberg News reported on August 1 that News Corp. is also facing corporate hacking offenses over phone hacking.

In addition, the company faces numerous lawsuits from hacking victims in Britain and will soon face at least three suits brought by victims allegedly hacked by News Corp. reporters here on U.S. soil.

The former head of News International (Rebekah Brooks) and the former News of the World editor and aide to Prime Minister David Cameron (Andy Coulson) are both set to face hacking and corruption charges in the case. Brooks also faces charges of corruption and cover-up in the bribery case and Coulson faces conspiracy charges in Scotland relating the case.

News Corporation paid out over $315 million in costs related to the hacking scandal and faces hundreds of millions more the next fiscal year.

The scandal has been so damaging to the company that they have been forced to split into two, relegating the damaged newspaper properties to a smaller corporate entity while the more lucrative entertainment properties will go it on their own.

I give this context as background to note that the Post editors decry the culture of cheating at Stuyvesant high school and are - shocked, shocked - to find out that neither the new interim principal at Stuyvesant nor the NYCDOE brain trust seem all that concerned about the cheating:

Good news, Stuyvesant HS cheaters: Your new principal sees nothing amiss at your school — despite a massive cheating scandal recently that involved 71 students.

And despite reports in The Post from Stuyvesant sources, including students, of a serious “culture of cheating” at the school.

No, obviously, this is terrible news — even for the cheaters. Because if new principal Jie Zhang doesn’t end that twisted mindset fast, she won’t be doing the kids, the school or anyone else any favors.

First, as they say, she needs to recognize the problem. “I have not been made aware or have a reason to believe there is ongoing cheating there,” she says.

Willful blindness? As one source told The Post, “Everybody cheats all the time — on homework, on tests, on everything.”

As recent Stuyvesant grad Daniel Solomon reported on these pages, a school-newspaper survey found some 90 percent of seniors had advance knowledge of test questions and 5 percent ’fess up to cheating on SATs and AP exams.

Either Zhang has some quick learning to do — or she finds the scams tolerable.

Neither bodes well for the school.

Or perhaps she’s just taking cues from the Department of Education, which let off six of the 71 cheaters with just suspensions and the other 65 with no penalties at all.

The DOE wouldn’t even expel ringleader Nayeem Ahsan, who used his cellphone to photograph and distribute a Spanish exam.

It was encouraging that long-time principal Stanley Teitel left after the scandal broke. But what will that have accomplished if Zhang carries on his tradition?

Let’s face it. Eventually, cheating is likely to catch up with kids sometime in their lives, and the school’s sterling rep will fade.

That wouldn’t be a mere scandal — but a full-blown tragedy.

OK, before I get to the hypocrisy of the Posties, let's deal with the editorial itself.

The Post is wrong to say that cheating will catch up with these kids sometime in their lives.

In American culture, cheating is a privileged thing.

The guys on Wall Street do it all the time and nothing - I mean nothing - ever happens to them.

The hedge fundies cheat, the big banks rigged LIBOR rates and so far only one has received a slap on the wrist (but promises of no criminal prosecution!), the Obama administration has refused to prosecute even one person responsible for the financial collapse of '08, former NY State attorney general Andrew Cuomo also refused to bring charges against anyone for the same crimes, and current Treasury Secretary Geithner knew 16 Big Banks were fixing LIBOR rates in order to enrich themselves and make their balance sheets look better than they were and did nothing about it - tell me exactly how the culture of cheating the kids at Stuyvesant are learning won't be rewarded in Big Business, especially on Wall Street, in the future?

Seriously, learning how to cheat and get away with it is an indispensable lesson every member of the American elite must learn before adulthood.

Next, let's deal with the allegations of cheating.

The Post is decrying the whitewashing of the Stuyvesant cheating scandal which involved one school and 71 or so students, and rightfully so, but nowhere in the paper (or its sister paper, the Wall Street Journal) do we see any story of the whitewashing of the massive cheating scandal that took place in Washington D.C. under education reform darling Michelle Rhee that involved over 100 schools, more than half of all D.C. schools.

Erasure rates of answers from wrong to right were so frequent at many of these D.C. schools that statisticians say you would have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery twice than having all of those wrong answers in all of those schools erased and right answers put in their place by real kids.

Yesterday, the Washington D.C. school system exonerated itself by limiting the cheating scandal investigation to one school, the one with the most egregious erasures and the one focused upon by USA Today when they brought this scandal to light back in 2011.

Yesterday USA Today reported that D.C. officials limited the scope of the investigation because

they believed news coverage of the scandal would limit future cheating — and because schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson handed over "no additional evidence" of cheating or "investigative leads to pursue."

There you have it - news reports of a limited, whitewashed investigation of past cheating ought to discourage future cheating and how can we expect to investigate this thing fully when the DCPS chancellor refuses to hand over additional evidence? Gollee, we just have to go with what we have here, folks.

Clearly there is a cover-up going on in the DCPS and city officials in Washington D.C. are helping, along with officials at the USDOE who don't seem to want to get to the bottom of the matter either, perhaps because an investigation of Rhee's D.C. tenure that found widespread cheating would undercut so many of the "Rheeforms" the USDOE is pursuing nationwide, with D.C. as one of the "models" for where these "Rheeforms" have supposedly worked.

It seems to me this is a much bigger scandal than the Stuyvesant scandal, and while I have no problem with the Posties decrying the cover-up at Stuyvesant over cheating, I do take issue with their refusal to call for a wide and "rigorous" investigation into their education reform darling, Michelle Rhee and her tenure of cheating at DCPS. I understand that the DCPS is not in New York, but since the DCPS reforms and evaluation system have been promoted by many education reformers around the country - including those at the Post - I think it is only fair and honest that the Posties decry the whitewashed investigation of Rhee and DCPS while they're decrying the Stuyvesant whitewash.

Finally, let's look at the hypocrisy of the Post editorial writers, decrying what they allege is a culture of cheating and cover-up at Stuyvesant.

Given that the NY Post's parent company is embroiled in a scandal that stems from a culture of cheating (hacking into people's phones for stories, hacking into people's computers for stories, paying public officials for privileged info about people and using that info in stories, threatening to use damaging info against enemies) and a culture of cover-up (even Rupert Murdoch himself has admitted that News Corporation spent more time trying to make the hacking scandal go away than trying to fix it and right the wrongs done), it sees quite hypocritical for the Posties to write so indignantly about the harm done by the Stuyvesant cheating and cover-up.

After all, it seems to me that these kids who engaged in the cheating can grow up to be very successful businessmen or women, very successful hedge fund managers or Big Bank CEO's, real estate moguls, or even - gosh, we can only hope - journalists who work for ethically-challenged News Corporation.

And therein lies the crux of the hypocrisy in this story.

Even as we say we don't tolerate cheating as a culture, the fact of the matter is, we reward it constantly.

America is not some meritocracy where those who work the hardest and the longest, who are the most forward-thinking and most innovative, are the ones who rise to the top.

America is a kleptocracy where those who are the most ruthless, the least ethical, the most willing to act criminally are the ones who rise to the top.

We see this again and again - from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to Michelle Rhee to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, the most ruthless, the least ethical, the most selfish and (often) the most willing to engage in criminal acts survive and thrive while the rest of us who play by the rules get screwed again and again.

So really, those kids at Stuyvesant have learned the best lesson possible for them.

As members of the elite, they have cheated and gotten away with it.

Just as most members of the American elite cheat and get away with it.

Seems to me this lesson has simply reinforced the reality in 21st Century America.

Politico: Many Unions Tell Dems No On Convention Cash

Good for them:

The Democrats are hitting up unions — their go-to cash cows — for last-minute donations to help pay for next month’s convention in Charlotte.

The response from some big unions? Tough.

Union leaders insisted from the start that they wouldn’t help fill the piggy bank for this year’s Democratic National Convention after the party picked a labor-hostile location and at the same time made fundraising tougher by banning corporate contributions and capping individual donations. And with the event less than a month away, they’re sticking to their guns.

Labor unions aren’t slated to sponsor any official convention events, according to a recent convention itinerary obtained by POLITICO. Unions are also refusing to put up the money to back get-out-the-vote efforts they’ve funded in the past.

Heavy hitters like the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Laborers’ International Union of North America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers say they won’t be making big money contributions this year.

Other unions are toning down their convention involvement with many opting to send a few staffers to engage with union delegates. And some, like the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, have said they are sitting out entirely.

“[T]here was a general disappointment in the selection because of the non-union hotels, the non-union accommodations in North Carolina,” said Chuck Rocha, president of the union consulting firm Solidarity Strategies and former political director of the United Steelworkers union.

You can bet that if unions starve the cash-begging Dems this time around, they won't be taken for granted next time around.

This is still a lesson the AFT and the NEA have yet to learn.

That's why the NEA said yes to the anti-union Dems and gave $1.2 million for this convention.

What a disgrace.

Oh Mr. Obama, do you want our endorsement three years out and our hard earned cash for your convention, even though you've pushed a pro-privatization, pro-charter, pro-testing agenda that hurts our members and you're holding your convention in a right-to-work state that pisses on unionized workers?

Please please please can we give you cash as you abuse us!

Ugh.

But many of the other unions have learned their lesson - you abandon us, we abandon you:

One Democratic lobbyist said the reason unions aren’t reacting to the arm twisting is that the Democratic National Committee and the Obama administration haven’t laid the foundation for a good relationship.

“One of the greatest frustrations with this administration is how they treat members and everyone else. It’s sort of this attitude that they’ll come because they are Democrats,” the lobbyist said.

Indeed.

Now if only the co-dependents running the teachers unions could learn this lesson.

Bloomberg Pulls The Plug On Vibrator Technologies (UPDATED BELOW)

Usually the Mayor of Money loves machines that replace human endeavor, but for some reason, he doesn't like vibrators:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A vibrator giveaway that attracted long lines in New York City came to an abrupt end when the city told the promoters to pack it up.

The Trojan condom company set up "Pleasure Carts" on Wednesday in two Manhattan neighborhoods, and were set to give away 10,000 vibrating sex toys. Nearly 300 people had lined up at each of the hot-dog-style carts.

According to the New York Post, the giveaway was interrupted when a city representative told the promoters to shut down because of crowds.

One of those on line, Melody Henry, grumbled that Mayor Michael Bloomberg "doesn't want anyone to have fun. You can't have a giant soda, You can't have a vibrator."

Indeed, the mayor only likes technologies that take away fun and freedom from you - like the new Microsoft/NYPD "crime-fighting system" partnership that he excitedly announced at a press conference yesterday.

Technology to track humans using thousands of cameras and computerized data systems - that Bloomberg gets off on.

Free vibrators handed out by the Trojan Man?

Not so much.

And New York City is a much sadder place for it.

UPDATE - 6:15 PM: The city has decided that the Trojan vibrator giveaway can recommence:

Good news, ladies (and certain gentlemen): Mayor Mike Bloomberg has given the Trojan condom company the green light to give away 10,000 free vibrators on the streets of New York.

As we reported earlier, Bloomberg's office put the kibosh on Trojan's sex-toy promotion, citing the fact that the company hadn't obtained the proper permits as the reason.

The vibrator giveaway is now scheduled to resume at 5 p.m. today on the south side of 14th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, and go until 7 p.m.

It would be nice if Trojan sent some vibrators to the mayor and his staff for not being buzz kills after all.

Bloomberg, NYPD, and Microsoft Go Into The Crime-Fighting Business Together

Sounds like a story from The Onion - but it's not:

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has unveiled a new crime-fighting system developed with Microsoft – and revealed that the city will take a cut of the profits if it is sold to other administrations.

The innovation, which bears a passing resemblance to the futuristic hologram data screens used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, will allow police to quickly collate and visualise vast amounts of data from cameras, licence plate readers, 911 calls, police databases and other sources.

It will then display the information in real time, both visually and chronologically, allowing investigators to centralise information about crimes as they happen or are reported. "It is a one-stop shop for law enforcement," Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference unveiling the new technology.

But, though it has many screens, maps, and flashing visuals that make it look like science fiction, the new technology has a distinctly un-Hollywood name: the Domain Awareness System. Developed by Microsoft engineers working with New York police officers, DAS will allow a host of activities to be carried out, such as spotting a suspicious vehicle and being able to track its recent movements or use cameras to track back and see who left a suspicious package.

It features live video feeds, huge databases of recent crime patterns and can take input direct from the field in real time via things like 911 calls or police radios. "All the information is presented visually and geographically and in chronological context," said police commissioner Ray Kelly.

If other cities purchase this system, Microsoft will share 30% of the profit with NYC.

Given how shoddy Microsoft products generally are, I doubt this thing will work as Bloomberg and Microsoft are advertising it, so we'll just have to see if any other municipality signs on to it.

Even so, I am a little disturbed that Microsoft and the NYPD are partnering on a crime tracking system.

Maybe the Gates Foundation can add a test score/teacher evaluation and really bring the school-to-prison complex together into one huge database?

Oops - maybe I shouldn't give Uncle Bill any ideas - he's been known to steal them before and make them into a core component of his Microsoft business model.

Although as I noted above, if this thing is as bad as Microsoft ME, Vista, Zune or Windows 8, I suspect it will spend more time freezing up and causing frustration than actually helping police track "criminals."

Cuomo's Aides Caught Writing Other Politicians' Praise Of Cuomo

Governor Cuomo doesn't like to leave what other people say about him or his policies to chance - so he has his staff write other people's speeches for them:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s staff wrote at least portions of speeches made in favor of Cuomo’s budget proposal earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The story noted that Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, SUNY Plattsburgh president John Ettling and state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, Niagara County, all said basically the same thing about Cuomo:

“Gov. Cuomo has restored a sense of pride, a credibility in New York state government,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, a first-term Democrat, told an audience on Jan. 18, before beckoning Mr. Cuomo to the podium.

“Gov. Cuomo has restored a sense of pride and credibility in New York state government,” said state Sen. George Maziarz, a Niagara County Republican at a Jan. 25 event in Buffalo.

“Gov. Cuomo has restored a sense of pride and credibility in New York state government,” SUNY Plattsburgh President John Ettling said.


The Wall Street Journal said that the officials were sent “a fully scripted speech” before they introduced Cuomo.

Cuomo’s aides said their written comments were simply talking points, and aides to the local officials said they concurred with the talking points, so they used them.

Cuomo's minister of propaganda, er, spokesperson, Josh Vlasto, said it is standard operating procedure for governors to have their staffs write speeches for other politicians that will be given in front of the governor.

Aides to two former New York governors told the Wall Street Journal this was not the case at all. A former aide to Senator Schumer also disagreed with the Cuomo spokesperson:

A press aide to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer recalls a different approach. "The closest we came to control was in the minutes before a news conference. We'd gather the participants and say: 'Are you OK to go first? You second? You third?' That was it. There really wasn't much in the way of orchestration. And sometimes it showed. Sometimes we are all surprised by what was said," the aide said.

A senior aide to former Gov. George Pataki said the administration regularly suggested talking points to those introducing the governor. The official didn't remember an instance in which an entire text of a speech was provided. A former aide to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said his office doesn't write speeches for other people. A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg had no comment but said it is uncommon for elected officials to introduce the mayor.

This isn't the first time Cuomo has been caught having other people's remarks about him written for them by his staff.

Last month we learned that Cuomo's staff has also written the remarks of business leaders who were giving speeches about Cuomo and his policies.

Along with his scrubbing of his papers and official documents as attorney general, his refusal to release the donor list to his SuperPAC, the Committee To Save New York, and his insistence that his staff use untraceable methods of communication with him that can never be subpoenaed after the fact, a pattern of Nixonian paranoia and manipulation has emerged from Cuomo.

So far, his poll numbers are through the roof, so clearly the manipulation is working.

But I maintain that this man with the Nixonian paranoia and insatiable need for secrecy and control will eventually be exposed.

Roseanne Barr/Cindy Sheehan

I haven't settled on my 2012 vote just yet, other than I will NOT be voting for either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama - both of whom are corporatist whores looking to complete the nation's move to neo-feudalism.

I am debating voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

But I am intrigued by the Peace and Freedom Party, which is running Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan on its ticket.

Here's what Roseanne is running on:

Roseanne Barr thinks America has been “bamboozled and hoodwinked.” She is referring to the government, which she says is “owned by bankers.” Her solution is simple: “Vote for me. I’m not a liar. I’m not a thief. I’m not a whore,” she says. “And I’m not a politician. I think that uniquely qualifies me to become president of the U.S.”

...

“There is no real third party in America,” she says. “There’s this one party that has two sides to it—the Democratic and Republican side. It’s one party that has two heads. We want to give voters a choice for people not owned by Wall Street.”

...

“Our party is about peace and freedom—Americans have been been bullshitted into forgetting that war does not mean freedom ... When I’m president, I’m gonna outlaw bullshit.”

...

Among the key points in her platform, Barr says she wants to cut back on military spending and bases abroad, bring troops home, create a financial-transaction tax, crack down on corporate outsourcing of jobs overseas, and remove caps on taxes for the rich. She also wants to create a single-payer health-care system and legalize marijuana.

She believes prison time should be reserved for violent criminals—with the exception of the Wall Street bankers who have “defrauded the working class and middle class,” she says. “Those people should be in jail.”

...

She thinks her history as a comedian works in her favor, not against. “In order to be able to write a good joke, you have to find the truth,” she says. “I’ve spent 30 years as a comedian focused on working-class issues. Working-class people do not have a vote in this country. That’s the real reason why I’m running and why I’ve put up my own money to seek ballot access in all 50 states. I will keep running till I win.”

Barr says the government is “not supposed to be run like a business” and is “supposed to protect people from fat cats.” She adds, “They had the big bubble that they created. If you watched cable TV, you just saw all the time: ‘Time for a second mortgage!’ That was a scam, just theft.” She calls the battle between Republicans and Democrats a choice between “Satan and Satan.” And Romney? “About the most corrupt person that ever lived.”

...

When asked if she would accept donations from companies or political action committees, she says, “Special interests don’t want no part of me—they know I can’t be bought. Their god is money, and they are devout. I’m just trying to get signatures and get on ballots. It does cost money. We would rather take it from people with a decent heart and clean hands. We’d rather take $5 from a grandmother.”

Barr, who grew up in a working-class family in Salt Lake City, Utah, says she knows what it’s like to struggle. “I was raised on government cheese,” she says. “As an adult, in my first marriage, my husband and I worked real hard just to go bankrupt. I happened to write some jokes about it. I did real well for myself.”

I really like what she's saying here.

Plunge Into The Data...Click Deeply

This is the advice we get from the geniuses at the NY Times today, as they have "updated" their data pages for each school in the system.

The article makes it sound as if the data is all trustworthy and if you just do your research, you will know which schools are "good" and which are "failing."

Because you see, nothing is more trustworthy than NYCDOE test scores and graduation rate data.

They're the LIBOR of the public school system - the core numbers and the solid foundation upon which everything else we know about schools, students, and teachers are based.

So plunge deeply into the data, people.

Wade in the truth that is ARIS.

Click deeply and feel the wisdom and power emanating from the numbers.

Just don't actually try to access the data itself.

You'll get a "server error" message.

And don't try to leave a comment on this NY Times schoolbook article.

You'll get a

403 Forbidden

notice.

But do plunge into the data, click deeply and know that in the data there is truth and in the cutting edge technology brought to us by the geniuses at the NY Times there is knowledge.

And when the server is back up, you will know the value of NYC schools and teachers.

You will bathe in the light of knowledge, wisdom and power.

Just like when you look up the LIBOR rates.

Cuomo's Education Reform Commission: The Fix Is In

Carol Burris sums up what is wrong with Andy Cuomo's education reform commission - it's rigged for pre-ordained outcomes:

We recently had our personal experience with how difficult it is to be heard. On July 26th, New York Governor Cuomo’s Education Commission held its only meeting in New York City. The purpose of the commission is to travel around the state in order to hear from stakeholders regarding suggestions for New York State school improvements.

Prior to the time and place of the meeting being posted, both of us sent a request to testify on the topic of teacher and principal quality. As high school principals, we are deeply concerned about the direction of the Regents reform agenda, especially in regard to evaluating teachers using test scores. We were joined by an outstanding New York City high school principal and two teachers from South Side High School. Both teachers had submitted requests to speak, one sending that request and her remarks weeks in advance.

We were not allowed to speak. That was certainly troubling, but even more troubling was the overall staging of the event to ensure that the weight of testimony would support the predetermined, favored policy agenda. The selected panelists on teacher and principal quality were not practicing educators. The first speaker, former CNN reporter Campbell Brown, spoke about sex abuse and arbitrators’ decisions. Brown has no experience as an educator or public school parent, and she has been inconsistent in disclosing that her husband is on the board of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

The other panelists were Jermima Bernard, the New York executive director of Teach for America; Lesley Guggenheim from The New Teacher Project; and Evan Stone, an 18-month sixth grade teacher who described himself as the CEO of Educators 4 Excellence, another group aligned with the favored policy agenda.

So, with the exception of Campbell Brown, they all represented organizations that embraced the governor’s policies, and they all advocated for the following three policies: state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.

We patiently waited through the testimony because the directions on the website stated that the final 30 minutes would be reserved for those who wished to speak, determined via a sign-in, first-come basis. Because we were among the first five to sign up, we believed we would have time to make brief remarks. We were stunned when the list in the lobby was not used. Instead, additional speakers were hand-picked. The speakers selected to comment on teacher and principal quality were a teacher who told the committee how she looked forward to being evaluated by test scores, and Anna Hall, the new head of StudentsFirst NY. Hall is a former principal from the Bronx, and she argued that teacher tenure should be abolished.

The fix is in.

If you want to be heard at this thing, you had better already agree with the governor's corporate reform policies.

Can you imagine a reform commission that refuses to hear from respected educators like Carol Burris but puts not one but two Educators4Excellence on the panel to spout their stuff and Campbell Brown, a failed CNN anchor with no education experience but plenty of political connections via her husband, Dan Senor (former Iraq war spokesman for the Bush administration, current Romney adviser and member of the StudentsFirst NY board)?

Sure you can - it's the rigged education reform commission put together by Andrew Cuomo.

Just another example of how you cannot "collaborate" with the education reform movement.

You cannot "work with" these people.

There is no "working with" people who want 100% of their will imposed on everybody else and do not know the meaning of the word "compromise."

They are authoritarians looking to impose their will and their agenda on others and they do not care a whit what anybody else thinks.

They show disdain for democratic processes, they run their "reform commissions" like Stalin ran Russia, and you can bet that the "findings" from this committee are exactly what Carol Burris says they are going to be:

state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.

So what if parents don't want this? So what if it's harmful to students, teachers and schools?

This is for your own good, folks.

The education fascists in power have an agenda and they will impose that on you whether you like it or not.

There is no "working with" these people.

There is only battling against.

It seems quite clear from the first meeting that the only voices that are being heard are the ones with the corporate education reform agenda.

This commission must be exposed for the Stalinesque sham that it is and every time Carol Burris and her colleagues try and speak before it and they are shunted aside for somebody with a corporate reform agenda that already agrees with the governor's agenda, that's exactly what is happening.

NYPD Goons At It Again

How dare a photographer take photos of the NYPD arresting somebody - that's a beatable offense in Bloomberg's NYC:

The New York Times has complained to the city's police department after one of its photographers said he was assaulted by officers who arrested him on Saturday.

Robert Stolarik, a freelance photographer, claimed a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer "slammed" his camera into his face before he was dragged to the ground, kicked and arrested.

Stolarik was on assignment with two other reporters in the Bronx when he was stopped by police on Saturday evening.

Police ordered Stolarik to stop taking pictures of a teenage girl being arrested. When he refused, an officer reputedly grabbed Stolarik's camera and dragged him to the ground.

Stolarik claimed he was then kicked in the back and received scrapes and bruises on his face, legs and arms as a result of the arrest. He was charged with obstructing government administration and of resisting arrest.

The New York Times reported that a video of the arrest taken by another journalist showed Stolarik face down on the pavement beneath a huddle of about six police officers.

Two words here - sue them.

Microsoft Set To Release Windows 8 - Negative Reviews Abound

Microsoft announced the launch date for Windows 8 last month.

It will come out on October 26.

Given the negative reviews they've had so far over the new system, they may not want to launch at all.

Here are a few:

As bad as Vista.

A "technological, ideological, and functional failure."

A "catastrophe for pc's."

Tell me again, why do we listen to the guy who owns Microsoft on things like education policy and health care when it's clear that, other than being a ruthless, charmless shmuck willing to fuck his cancer-ridden partner out of his stake in the company and/or steal most of his "innovations" from other companies, this guy isn't too successful at anything in his own business?

If he can't get the computer stuff right, what makes anybody think he can get education policy, vaccine research, or food policy right?

Enough With The Metrics

The Guardian editorial writers wrote the following on August 15, 2008:

In this week's Guardian, a former aide of Tony Blair admitted that Sats risked turning schools into "drab, joyless assessment factories" where preparation for tests crowded out real learning.

Instead of using Sats as a snapshot assessment of how pupils are doing, schools end up teaching to the test because of the confused double purpose of the exams. As well as checking on the progress of individual children, the results end up defining the standing of the school - once they are collated into league tables. What gives the tables their power with parents is the seeming precision of the numerical rankings. But that precision is entirely spurious. Academic analysis suggests that year-by-year chance fluctuations in pupils' ability overpower any real differences in performance for the majority of schools. And much of the real variation that can be discerned is down to the social mix of the pupils, as opposed to the quality of teaching. There have been worthy attempts to recognise good teaching in tough areas by creating new tables which adjust the figures to take into account, among other things, the number of children entitled to free school meals. But such approaches are inescapably arbitrary, not to mention hard to understand.

Earlier this year ministers floated plans for a new battery of metrics, covering everything from bullying to drugs. They would do better to reflect that there should be more to education than arithmetic alone.

The geniuses at the NY Times wrote today

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been pushing the states to create rigorous teacher evaluation systems that not only judge teachers by how well their students perform but also — when the results are in — reward good teachers while easing chronic low performers out of the system. More than half the states have agreed to adopt new evaluation systems in exchange for competitive grants from the federal Race to the Top program or greater flexibility under the No Child Left Behind law.

These incentives are long overdue. As things stand now, according to a study by the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn-based policy group, many school managers make no distinction between high-performing and low-performing teachers. The result is that poor teachers stick around while good teachers go elsewhere or leave the profession, frustrated because they are not promoted, rewarded with better pay, or even simply acknowledged.

That clearly needs to change if the new evaluation systems are to have any impact on the quality of the teacher corps.

The study covered four large urban school districts consisting of more than 2,100 schools and nearly a million and half students. It measured about 20,000 teachers by how much academic growth students showed in a given year. On average, the highest-performing teachers — about one-fifth of those studied — helped students learn two to three additional months’ worth of math and reading, compared with the average teacher, and five to six months more compared with low-performing teachers.

No questioning of the metrics by the geniuses at the Times - of course the tests measure what we say they measure, of course the scores mean teachers who "add value: to their students' scores are "good" and teachers who do not are "bad," of course the "bad" teachers should be fired and the "good" ones rewarded with extra money and of course "incentives" will make teachers work harder and improve the test scores (and thus learning) of students.

All based on false premises of course - teachers are not working hard enough now but if you incentivize them, they will work harder. Test scores measure good teaching and can be used to evaluate teachers. Merit pay will keep the "good teachers" around and demoralize the "bad ones (which may push them out of the system.)

Sigh - most teachers do not want these things. Most teachers want Washington and the states to stay out of their classrooms and let them teach the way they know how to teach. They want the micromanagement of teaching from the districts to stop. They want the states and districts to stop changing policies every two years so they can actually see if something is working as opposed to just changing stuff for change's sake. They want to stop being demonized in the media and by the politicians for the things that are out of their control.

Most of all, teachers want to be evaluated rigorously but fairly. Value-added measurements with high margins of error and wide swings in stability based upon error-riddled standardized tests are NOT rigorous or fair ways to evaluate teachers. Basing teacher pay on these will not incentivize the "good" teachers to stay and the "bad" ones to go.

Most of the teachers I know who have left over the last five years have been fed up with the jive coming out of first NCLB and now RttT - the endless testing, the overreliance on metrics, the endless reforms that "hold teachers accountable" but let students and parents slide on accountability, and the refusal of the people in charge at the city, state and federal level to take responsibility for their policies - whenever something goes wrong, it's always the teachers' fault.

In short, teachers want to be treated with respect and appreciated for the hard work they do day in and day out in some very challenging circumstances.

And they do not want to be evaluated using metrics that do not measure what the people running things say they measure.

The geniuses at the Times (the $88 million dollar losing Times, btw) believe metrics can be used to quantify "good teaching" and "bad teaching," reward the "good teachers" and push out the "bad" ones and make the system a better one.

If metrics were the sole measurement of quality, the $88 million dollar losing NY Times is clearly a failure in the world of newspapers.

But the Timesmen and women do not see it this way, of course - metrics apparently matter in education, but not so much in journalism.

We would be better off if we got some of the The Guardian writers to speak truth to the "geniuses" at the Times about the value of metrics.

Or if we just solely judged the $88 million dollar losing Times by metrics and shut the whole thing down - like a "failing school" with "bad test scores.

Bloomberg Helps Goldman Sachs Profit From NYC Prison Scheme

Always be privatizing:

Mike Bloomberg, still the mayor of New York after all these years, has announced a new four-year program to keep prisoners from reoffending after their sentences, funded by $9.6m from Goldman Sachs. When we said we wanted to see the bankers in the clink, this is not what we meant.

It may sound like a nice philanthropic gesture, but that $9.6m sum isn't a donation; it's a loan. As City Hall explained, Goldman is being incentivized to produce results – if recidivism drops by 10%, Goldman gets the money back, and if it drops further then the GS boys will turn a small profit.

...

New York's foray into cash-for-results social services is part of the voguish infatuation with "social impact bonds", in which a private investor invests in a public service and makes a positive return only if things improve. They are currently all the rage in Britain, whose coalition government espouses a hazy ideology called "the big society" to obscure a much clearer ideology of across-the-board cuts. And they've begun to seduce US policymakers. The Goldman-Rikers deal is the first social impact bond in America, though governments from Massachusetts to Ohio are preparing to jump on board.

You might wonder why, since reducing crime and offering better lives to past offenders are obvious social pluses, the government doesn't just pay for such a program itself. (The usual cries about public sector inefficiency don't apply. The ex-offender education scheme isn't a state program; it's administered by a nongovernmental social enterprise.) Alas, this is the nature of Bloombergism. There is no social problem that can't be reduced to metrics, no public function that an unaccountable private undertaking can't perform better, and no incentive like the profit motive.

How much does Bloomberg believe in this new plan? So much so that he is personally guaranteeing to make Goldman whole if the program doesn't work. Our billionaire mayor's own philanthropic foundation will cut a $7.2m check to the social service provider with which Goldman is contracting if the bank needs to be repaid. Say what you like about risk and reward; the plan announced Thursday is an exceedingly safe bet for the bank but a giant gamble for us.

...

If this goes well, the Bloomberg team has said, it'll be the model for all sorts of for-profit social initiatives. Corporations could make money if an adoption agency finds a home for a child, or if you survive a heart attack, or if your kid's reading scores on one of his five thousand exams increase by such and such percent. This latest neoliberal swindle is the stuff of a million MBA case studies, and the wet dream of a new crop of young, pseudo-beneficent capitalists who think their guilt at profiting from inequality can be assuaged by "humanizing" their businesses.

Jason Farrago really gets Bloombergism:

There is no social problem that can't be reduced to metrics, no public function that an unaccountable private undertaking can't perform better, and no incentive like the profit motive.

That's it, in a nutshell.

And of course Goldman Sachs, one of Bloomberg LP's biggest clients, is on the other end of this deal.

The Hypocrisy Of Campbell Brown

Eduwonk interviewed Campbell Brown post-WSJ op-ed.

Brown continues to say over and over that teachers unions are "protecting sexually predatory teachers" in the interview.

She agrees that she should have disclosed that her husband, Dan Senor, former Iraq war spokesman for the Bush administration and current Romney adviser, is a board member of the New York chapter of Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, but says that is immaterial to her argument - teachers unions protect sexual predators:

Critics have seized on your husband’s [Dan Senor] affiliation with the New York chapter of Students First to discredit you. In retrospect, should you have disclosed his role as a board member in the op-ed?

Yes. Absolutely. But tell me why this matters? This is just an attempt to distract people from the problem. The teachers union is protecting these teachers and they have to stop.

Neither Brown nor Eduwonk bring up the supreme irony in all of this - Brown's husband Dan sits on the board of a group run by Michelle Rhee who was accused by a federal inspector general of helping to "fix" sexual misconduct allegations made against her then boyfriend and now husband, former NBA star and current Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, when he was running a Sacramento charter school, including using Americorps funds to cover up Johnson's alleged sexual misconduct.

Here is the Congressional committee report detailing those allegations and the NY Times coverage of that report.

Is the allegation in the Congressional report that Rhee helped cover up her husband's sexual misconduct when he headed a charter school "relevant" to the discussion we're having over whether teachers unions, by insisting upon due process for teachers accused of sexual misconduct, are "protecting" sexual predators?

Absolutely.

If Brown is going to accuse a group of protecting sexual predators and her husband sits on the board of a group run by a woman who has been accused by a Congressional committee of protecting a sexual predator, then that surely is relevant to not only the issue being discussed but the credibility of Brown to discuss it.

But apparently neither Brown nor Eduwonk think this is the case.

The hypocrisy these people in the education reform movement exhibit knows no bounds.

That Campbell Brown was given one of the top slots at Andy Cuomo's education reform committee forum to attack teachers unions for protecting sexual predators when she herself has a connection to a group run by a woman who has been accused of protecting a sexual predator says all you need to know about Andy Cuomo's education reform committee and says all you need to know about Campbell Brown.

Neither Campbell nor the Cuomo education reform committee are looking to protect children or put students first.

They're looking to attack unions and use any method or argument at their disposal to destroy them.

That the argument they've chosen this time happens to apply to one of their own (the infamous Michelle Rhee) doesn't seem to bother them in the least.

Robert Fripp Fights The Corporate Music Industry Once Again

Interesting piece in the FT with Fripp - his first print interview in seven years. He says he's done playing music, that he's embroiled in a fight with Universal Music Group and just doesn't have his head in composing and playing right now.

This isn't the first time Fripp has fought the music industry, of course.

Elvis, The Beatles And Nixon

Few people weirder than Elvis.

Or sadder.

Why Does Michelle Rhee Protect Sexual Predators (AKA, Her Husband, Kevin Johnson)?

Seriously.

I assume Campbell Brown will get right on this and write an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal calling for the firing of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.

The Machines Have Taken Over

Gotta love that we've given the world over to the almighty algorithm:

An automated stock trading program suddenly flooded the market with millions of trades Wednesday morning, spreading turmoil across Wall Street and drawing renewed attention to the fragility and instability of the nation’s stock markets.

While the broad stock indexes quickly recovered and ended the day slightly down, it was the latest black eye for the financial markets. The runaway trading suggests that regulators have not been able to keep up with electronic programs that increasingly dominate the supercharged market and have helped undermine investor confidence in stocks.

Traders on Wednesday said that a rogue algorithm repeatedly bought and sold millions of shares of companies like RadioShack, Best Buy, Bank of America and American Airlines, sending trading volume surging. While the trading firm involved blamed a “technology issue,” the company and regulators were still trying to understand what went wrong.

The debacle follows the botched Facebook initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange in May and the aborted effort in March by another exchange, BATS Global Markets, to bring its own stock public. The episodes, along with the flash crash of 2010 when the market lost trillions of dollars of value in minutes, have stoked suspicions that stocks are safe only for specialists, and sometimes not even for them.

“The machines have taken over, right?” said Patrick Healy, the chief executive of the Issuer Advisory Group, a capital markets consulting firm. “When events like this happen they just reaffirm that these aren’t investors, these are traders.”

Maybe it's time to bring back the humans and put a limit on the machines?

Can't wait for my evaluation as a teacher to be based on something as "scientific" and "objective" as an algorithm.