Yesterday we asked you to join us this Saturday in Manhattan as we rally, along with 40+ other organizations, for public education. Today we want to make you aware of another important date in the coming week. On Wednesday, May 21st we will join thousands of other Long Island teachers as we demonstrate and picket outside of the Huntington Hilton in Melville at 4:00 pm. The Hilton is the site of the 2014 New York State Democratic Party Convention. You will remember that this is the rally the governor asked Beth Dimino and other local leaders to cancel. We assured you the rally would still go on and it will! Let’s let the governor and the other elected officials in attendance know how we feel about Common Core, high stakes testing, junk science evaluations, the tax cap, and the rest of their ed deform agenda!
As we roll through the spring towards next November’s elections we are starting to hear a lot from the gubernatorial candidates when it comes to public education. Let’s look a little bit closer at our options now.
We are all familiar with Governor Cuomo’s litany of attacks on public schools, the children who they serve, the teachers who work in them, and the labor unions who represent those teachers. It would take course correction that is unprecedented in modern politics for Cuomo to earn my vote in November. The man who brought us the tax cap and who foisted school deform upon New York at an alarming rate has been quite possibly the worst education governor that we have ever had in the Empire State. Don’t forget this is the man who is on the take from Wall Street, DFER, and charter school operators. He is also the man who declared that schools who perform poorly on standardized tests should receive the death penalty. While NYSUT may not want to publish anything against Cuomo and may secretly hope that he gets the AFL-CIO endorsement, the PJSTA is happy to report that we will, under no circumstances, be encouraging our members to vote for him.
That brings us to Rob Astorino. Mr. Astorino achieved some well deserved praise when he opted his children out of the state tests this year. Kudos to him. Of course that’s not the only issue that matters in public education. When speaking of charter schools Mr. Astorino has said, “And for you charter school parents whose classrooms are being shut down, I’ll have your back. We need more charter schools in New York, not fewer.” In other words, like Cuomo, he will continue to support our tax dollars being siphoned off to be used to fund what amount to exclusive private schools. The last thing our schools need is a continued loss of funds as politicians kowtow to the powerful charter school operators. No thanks Mr. Astorino. I won’t make the mistake of giving him my vote either.
That brings us to the increasingly popular third party options. Last week we learned that Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, a Teamster, named Brian Jones of the MORE Caucus as his running mate. Perhaps you remember when we previously posted this video of Jones…
Below is the Green Party’s education platform. It has certainly earned my vote…
Education
Introduction: The purpose of education is to produce critically thinking, civically engaged responsible adults committed to building and maintaining a just sustainable, democracy. All children in New York State deserve a quality public education preK-? (grade 16, beyond) that fosters critical thought and creativity. Learning is a lifelong and life-affirming process and all people, regardless of age, should have equal access to education.
The Green Party of New York State supports the following policies:
Equity for All Students
All schools should receive the same amount of services and resources regardless of the socio-economic class of the community.
Public schools should not be funded by outside sources such as corporations.
Every school shall be fully staffed with a nurse, a social worker, and services available to parents.
Every school shall have afterschool and weekend programs.
Each child, regardless of economic status, must be offered free breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Improve Our Students’ Learning Conditions
Funding must be made available for Creative Arts (Music, Art, Drama, Digital Arts), Physical Education, Technology, Social Studies, English Language Arts, Science, Math, and electives.
Every school shall be equipped with working computers, interactive boards, internet, heat, air conditioning, and have a fully-staffed library and media center.
Class size limits should be reduced by at least 10%, with no exceptions.
Fair Student Assessment
Standardized tests should be only one tool used for assessing student learning and growth. Portfolios, written assignments, verbal presentations, digital presentations, and projects shall all be available options.
Academic Freedom and Support
Educators shall be responsible for decisions regarding the methods and materials used for the instruction of their students.
When any new, significant education policy is agreed upon for implementation in the classrooms, it shall be:
Limited to one per academic year.
Administered with a minimum of two years professional development.
Continuously reviewed by a jointly agreed upon panel of experts for effectiveness.
Special Educators
Professional educators working with special education students should be assigned reasonable caseloads that will allow for all mandated services and paperwork, to be completed during the work day.
Educators working with special education students shall be able to safely report any inconsistencies between the mandated services included in a student IEP and the services that the student is actually receiving.
Paraprofessionals, Physical Therapists, and Occupational Therapists
Salaries for all paraprofessionals, physical therapists and occupational therapists should be increased to levels closer to teachers.
All paraprofessionals, physical therapists, and occupational therapists shall be offered the same job protections as teachers.
Guidance Counselors
There should be one guidance counselor in every school.
The state recommended ratio of 250 students to one counselor should be lowered to 200:1.
Fairness and Due Process in Evaluating Educators
Eliminate the use of test scores for teacher evaluations and reduce the amount of evaluation paperwork.
Observations of teachers should not be conducted by principals, but by fellow teachers, department chairs, and experts in the field of the teacher being observed.
All employees shall have the right to respond to accusations and demonstrate that they are inaccurate or unfair.
Restore the principle of innocent until proven guilty in all investigations. An independent arbitrator, jointly selected and paid for by the school district and union local, shall judge all grievances and removals.
There shall be a clear and explicit path to tenure, stating what is expected from new teachers in order to receive it. All denials must include a written explanation and be eligible for appeal before an independent arbitrator.
Administrator Conduct
Any administrator that is found to be routinely violating the contract at their school shall be automatically removed and face charges for permanent removal.
Governance of New York City Schools
End centralized mayoral control of New York City public schools.
School board members should be publicly elected, not appointed.
High schools teachers must have the right to elect the chairs of their own departments.
Prohibit the sale of public school land and buildings to private real estate developers.
Charter Schools
End public subsidies and tax breaks for charter schools.
Ban the co-location of charter schools in public school buildings.
School Funding
Stop the testing of students and evaluation of teachers for the purpose of funding schools or closing schools.
Federal and state funding of schools should be based solely on need.
Military Recruitment
Prohibit military recruitment and access to student records in public schools and public colleges.
Higher Education
Allow City University faculty to continue to elect their own department chairs.
Restore free tuition at CUNY and SUNY, for all low-income students who graduate from public schools.
Provide tuition-free education at SUNY, CUNY, and community colleges for students who perform 250 hours of community service per year, or 125 hours per year for students in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics); and who stay in New York for at least five years after graduation.
A lot was made in the lead up to the NYSUT election in April about the Revive NYSUT slate’s apparent fondness for Governor Cuomo. This parent’s account of events at NYSUT’s “Picket in the Pines” earlier this month would seem to back that up…
At NYSUT’s rally at Lake Placid, it became painfully obvious that NYSUT was not there to challenge Cuomo — all the rhetoric was directed at DFER and the Walton Foundation. None of the rally speakers said anything about Cuomo (or even Gates!). The most obvious giveaway that NYSUT had completely sold out came when the NYSUT photographer wanted to take a picture of a child who was wearing a sign that said, I “heart” public school, but he wouldn’t take a picture of the child’s brother whose sign said, No Mo Cuomo. The photographer explicitly stated that NYSUT wouldn’t publish anything against Cuomo! If all this is true, union leadership is even more effed up than I thought….
Barbara Madeloni won an election to become the President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, an NEA affiliate. Congrats to her. Like Chicago’s CORE Caucus, NYSUT’s STronger Together, and the UFT’s dissident MORE Caucus, Madeloni represents a more aggressive, progressive, and militant form of unionism.
We have a few links on the UFT’s controversial contract agreement. Our friends from MORE are urging a NO vote…
As momentum built toward’s the April 28th rally at Villa Lombardi’s to protest Governor Cuomo, one of the governor’s top aides, Joseph Percoco, reached out, through an intermediary, to the President of the Connetquot Teachers Association Tony Felicio. Percoco offered Felicio, one of the rally’s organizers, a meeting with the governor to air his grievances in exchange for canceling the rally. Felicio rejected the governor’s offer, telling him that the rally would go on and that if the governor wanted to meet they could do so after the rally.
You will recall the rally did in fact go on. Despite the fact that it was not supported by NYSUT, an estimated crowd of 2,500 gathered outside Villa Lombardi’s to protest Cuomo’s education reform agenda. The rally clearly sent a very powerful message to the governor that the parents and teachers of New York State will “remember in November” the havoc that his policies have wreaked on the children of our communities. Unless he displays a startling and dramatic change of course regarding his education policies in the very near future he can count on no support in November’s election from the people in New York State who value public education, whether NYSUT endorses him or not.
Following the rally, Percoco once again reached out to Felicio to request a meeting with the governor. Cuomo’s re-election campaign clearly is rattled by the tidal wave of support for public education that stands in clear opposition to the reform agenda he has helped to force upon our community schools throughout his term in office. Felicio agreed to the meeting and arranged to bring a few trusted friends in the fight for public education. Yesterday five Stronger Together local presidents, including Felicio, Tim Southerton (President of the Sayville Teachers Association), Laura Spencer (President of the Smithtown Teachers Association), Kevin Coyne (Brentwood Teachers Association), and our very own Beth Dimino were joined by Brad Lindell (Vice-President of the Connetquot Teachers Association) at a meeting with the governor.
At the meeting the team raised concerns about high stakes testing, APPR’s, the tax cap, charter schools, Pearson, and RttT, among other things. Dimino told the governor that given his actions up to this point she could only assume that he didn’t know the truth about the harmful agenda he had been pushing. After the group gave him the perspective of real classroom teachers they suggested potential solutions to the disastrous situation his policies have created. Dimino then warned him that he now knew the truth and that there is no excuse for the continuation of such policies. She stated that there would be a price to pay if swift action is not taken to undo much of what has been done up to this point. Dimino explained to the Governor that there were two things he could do immediately to mitigate the devastating impact his agenda has had on NYS students, first decouple the testing from teacher evaluations and then decouple all of the unfunded mandates from the tax cap, either by funding those mandates or by making them exclusionary under the cap.
Cuomo, who was polite, respectful, and attentive during the meeting that lasted nearly two hours, responded with a lot of “I didn’t know” or “It’s not my fault” types of answers. He also told them, “I thought everybody loved charter schools?!” Additionally he warned that we may want to cancel the rally scheduled for the New York Democratic Convention on May 22nd in Melville so that we don’t upset other Democratic politicians. Let me be very clear here: The rally will go on!As Felicio warned on April 28th, the Lombardi’s rally was just a warm up for a bigger, louder, more intense one on May 21st.
Finally Cuomo pledged to create a task force of classroom teachers to more deeply investigate the issues discussed. He said he would be in touch with NYSUT President Karen Magee to create that task force. Unfortunately Magee is no fan of the PJSTA, so don’t expect Dimino or many other NYSUT members critical of the Mulgrew/Pallotta/Revive NYSUT coup to make the cut for the task force. Of course we have been down the task force road with Cuomo before. Typically what happens is that any voices of truth who speak for teachers and students are ignored so that Cuomo can stock his war chest with big money from Wall Street, Pearson, and Eva Moskowitz. In the end the losers are usually public schools and the communities they serve. Color me skeptical when it comes to any meaningful changes being made. Still, for a change, it was nice to know that our message was sent to the governor yesterday, loud and clear.
On Monday, April 28th we will be picketing an event at Villa Lombardi’s in Holbrook that is meant to honor Governor Cuomo. This is an opportunity for you to share with the governor how you feel about his education policies. Plan to be at Villa Lombardi’s at 4:30 pm so that other arriving elected officials can also see where you stand on the governor’s stance on education.
The plans for the protest arose after Connetquot union president Tony Felicio spoke out at the union’s state convention a week ago saying “not only is it important to send a loud and clear message to Cuomo, but it is just as important to send a loud and clear message to Cuomo’s political supporters who will be in attendance on the 28th.”
He warned the “2 percent tax cap … is going to ultimately kill public education” and candidates “need to know you’re either with us or against us…period.”
Yesterday, Andy Cuomo, the self-proclaimed “Lobbyist for Students” announced his Common Core Implementation Panel. In a move that surprised absolutely nobody, the panel is stacked with people who have already professed their love for the common core publicly. It would seem as though the reason it took our esteemed governor such a long time to put this panel together was because he needed to go to the far reaches of the universe to find a superintendent and teacher who liked the Common Core to put on the panel. But he did that.
John Flanagan, head of the Senate Education Committee, was endorsing Common Core as late as last August, though he has recently stepped back a bit from that as the political pressure has mounted and has called for a delay in their use for high stakes.
Jackson-Jolley said she has an open mind about the Common Core, in particular how it has been introduced in New York. But she said that she wants her two daughters, 10 and 7, who attend North Salem schools, to receive a more challenging public-school education than what she received.“I hope they get an education that is rigorous, challenges them, and inspires them, so they never feel they are skating through,” she said. “When they get to college and beyond, I want them to feel prepared and competitive.”
Don’t want to say she sounds definitively like a CCSS supporter, but she’s throwing around the kind of CCSS buzzwords (“rigorous” and “competitive”) you hear from pro-CCSS supporters.
Dan Weisberg is an education reformer who runs an education reform outfit that is pro-CCSS and just recently wrote this:
Back in the fall, we noted that teachers unions in New York appeared to be resorting to Tea Party tactics in an attempt to bully Governor Andrew Cuomo and Education Commissioner John King into backtracking on two of their signature achievements: Implementing a state law that requires better teacher evaluation systems, and adopting the Common Core State Standards, a set of more ambitious and coherent learning standards for students.
What has happened in the months since? Despite all the maneuvering, Cuomo and King haven’t backed down. In fact, Cuomo reiterated his focus on these achievements in his State of the State address last week, pointing to the evaluation law as a success story and proposing to use the results from evaluations to award bonuses of up to $20,000 to the state’s highest-rated teachers.
…
What’s happening in New York is an important lesson for leaders across the country: If you’re serious about education reform, be prepared to fend off a steady stream of political attacks from both sides of the aisle, even after your policies have been adopted.
Fortunately, Governor Cuomo and Commissioner King don’t scare easily, and they finish what they start. They’re setting a commendable example by sticking to their principles in the face of all these attacks. Here’s hoping they keep it up, for the sake of the millions of students in New York who will benefit from higher standards.
Mulgrew praises formation of Governor’s Common Core panel
FEBRUARY 7, 2014
UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Feb. 7 applauded Governor Cuomo’s appointment of an 11-member group — including education expert Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, State Senator John Flanagan, and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan — to recommend changes to the flawed rollout of the Common Core Learning Standards.
In response, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said:
“I want to thank the Governor for listening to parents, children, principals and teachers across the state who have made it clear that the rush to implement the Common Core standards in New York State has not worked. We look forward to the panel’s recommendations.”
Happy with Gates. Happy with Cuomo. Happy with Common Core. Happy with King. Happy with Tisch. Happy with Bloomberg. (2009 election) Happy with Danielson. Happy with 40% MOSL’s.
Is there a teacher/student-abusing person or policy the UFT Leadership is unhappy with?
Governor Cuomo Continues to Avoid Addressing New Yorkers on Public Education
Parents, educators and community members are deeply disappointed by Governor Cuomo’s failure to address widespread concerns regarding the disastrous implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards, excessive high stakes testing and the collection and sharing of private student data. In recent weeks, Governor Cuomo has remained silent on these harmful reforms and today’s State of the State address confirms that the Governor has failed to fulfill his promise to “put students first.” NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) is dismayed that while he once called himself the “lobbyist for students,” Governor Cuomo has joined the ranks of those in power who have dismissed the voices of tens of thousands of informed parents working to protect their children, their schools and their communities.
One year ago, Governor Cuomo reminded us that, “the purpose of public education is to help children grow, not to grow the public education bureaucracy.” However, today the governor has confirmed his commitment to political ambition and corporate interests over the millions of students that he was elected to represent and protect. Lori Griffin, Copenhagen public school parent says, “When parents started to seek answers and ask for help, this Governor stayed in the shadows and ignored our pleas to examine the state of public education and the effects on New York’s children.”
Rather than delivering the honest leadership that NYS students and parents deserve, the Governor used his remarks to distract from what will go down in history as an abysmal track record on public education. “We don’t appreciate his thinly veiled diversionary tactics by attempting to shift the attention to medical marijuana, instead of on these abusive and onerous reform initiatives. Cuomo needs to keep his promise that he is the students’ lobbyist” stated Tim Farley, a parent and a principal of the Ichabod Crane School in Kinderhook, New York. Regarding Governor Cuomo’s refusal to address parent concerns, Eric Mihelbergel, a Buffalo public school parent and co-founder of NYSAPE says, “Governor Cuomo needs to either step up or step aside.”
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters says, “Though the Governor has called himself the lobbyist for students, he has refused to take any position on the state sharing personal student data with inBloom and other vendors without parental consent. With 8 out of 9 states having pulled out of inBloom or put their data-sharing plans on hold, New York is now the worst state in the country when it comes to protecting children’s privacy. Leaders of both parties in the Legislature have spoken out against inBloom, called for a moratorium and have bi-partisan legislation to protect parental rights and student data. It is deeply disappointing that in his speech today, the Governor again failed to show leadership on this critical issue.”
“It’s very telling that while Governor Cuomo not only supported and endorsed the State’s rushed adoption and implementation of these so-called reforms, he now seems to want to wash his hands of any responsibility for the botched initiatives. The fact is, it is well within the Governor’s power to slow down their implementation through legislative means” says Bianca Tanis, New Paltz public school parent and steering committee member of Re-Thinking Testing, Mid-Hudson Region.
New York State Allies for Public Education represents forty-five grassroots parent groups from every corner of the Empire State. The organizations are proud to stand with the parents, community members and fellow educators in NYSAPE to call for a change in direction and policy beginning with new leadership at the New York State Education Department.
I don’t care what research says! You’ll do what I say… and you’ll like it!
In his State of the State address, Andy “Lobbyist for Students” Cuomo chose to completely ignore the growing revolution by students, parents, and educators over his education reform agenda. Rather he doubled down on his efforts instead, proposing a merit pay system that would pay “highly effective teachers” a $20,000 reward. The same merit pay system that has, time and again, failed to work anywhere it has been tried. No mention of the bungled implementation of the Common Core State Standards. No mention of how deeply flawed those standards are. No mention of the obscene amounts of testing being used to torture students. No mention of the disastrous APPR system that he’d want to base these “bonuses” on.
To make it perfectly clear, Governor Cuomo chose to use his most visible platform of the year to completely ignore the concerns of New Yorkers across the state. Instead the message he sent was, “I don’t care what concerns you have. I am King Andy and we will continue to jam this ill conceived agenda down your throats!”
Of course Cuomo/Tisch puppet John King thought Cuomo’s idea was wonderful. “We certainly support rewarding highly effective teaching. We know there’s an opportunity to identify teaching practices and allow them to be mentors for their colleagues.” King said.
Over at Perdido Street School, Reality-Based Educator had a great idea (emphasis mine)…
The revolt over Common Core, the Endless Testing regime, inBloom and APPR is not going to go away just because Sheriff Andy ignored it and made as if it doesn’t exist.
If anything, Sheriff Andy threw more kindling on the revolution bonfire by doubling down on the agenda with a merit pay proposal based upon test scores.
The key now is to have people ask him at every campaign stop he makes in 2014 why he refuses to listen to students, parents and teachers on education issues, why he refuses to acknowledge his APPR evaluation system is an unworkable mess, the CCSS implementation has been nightmarish and every other state dropped out of inBloom so why is NY State still in it?
Put him on the spot every day of his campaign for re-election, that’s the goal here.
…
Still, if some students, parents and teachers show up at every Cuomo campaign appearance around the state protesting his education reform agenda (one which he won’t defend publicly anymore – he just continues to implement it), the press will notice, as will his GOP opponent, and eventually he will have to take a public stand on this stuff himself.
The point is to make him pay a political price for his refusal to listen to criticism and opposition to his agenda.
He wants to run up the score in his 2014 re-election bid in order to set up a 2016 White House run.
But students, parents and teachers angry over his education reform agenda can put a crimp in Andy’s re-election campaign this year by putting him on the spot over it.
That should be part of the movement against CCSS, APPR, inBloom and testing going forward – continued pressure on the politicians in Albany, especially Governor Cuomo.
Now that the holidays are behind us and our legislators are planning
to return to Albany for the 2014 Session next week, we’ve noticed
media coverage of Common Core has quieted down significantly. Our
mission is to ensure this quiet time is not misinterpreted as
complacency.
Governor Cuomo is scheduled to deliver his State of the State Address
on January 8th. We need to apply statewide pressure on him to
specifically address the failures of education reform in New York.
Doing so would get this issue front and center in the media again.
We have an idea that will be very effective, and we need your help.
Starting on Thursday, January 2, we begin the “New York New Year Blitz”
on Governor Cuomo and the Legislature. We will call, fax, email,
Tweet, and snail-mail Governor Cuomo and ask him why he has turned a
deaf ear on our voices, why he refuses to acknowledge the failure of
Common Core in New York State, and why he has not spoken one word
about education deform in response to our testimonies and appearances
at NYSED’s and Senator Flanagan’s hearings around the state. We will
do the same to our legislators (Assembly and Senate) and remind them
that we are still here, we are still not happy, and that they work for
us! They need to ignore Flanagan’s proposed legislation and do
something that throws Common Core out of New York.
Public protests and picketing at local/regional television news
stations across the state would put us front and center with a unified
message to the Governor that this issue isn’t dead, and that
Flanagan’s report of his statewide hearings was an abysmal
misrepresentation of the shortcomings, experiences, and objections
presented by parents, educators, administrators, and early childhood
development experts. On Monday, January 6th beginning at 4 p.m. outside
each TV news station listed below, we make our voices heard. We will
call on the media to get our message out. We will bring signs,
placards, bullhorns. We will apply as much pressure and generate as
much noise as humanly possible. We will post this activity to every
social media outlet and make it go viral. After the Governor’s Address
on the 8th, we get on the phones, we get on our computers and we flood
every New York State Senator’s office (both locally and in Albany)
with the message to get this fixed and not stop until it is. We keep
the heat turned up high until someone steps forward with a REAL
common-sense solution to this mess. It is only the majority of people
statewide that will show Flanagan how wrong he has been about the
Common Core and his interpretation of the message we have been
sending.
THIS IS IT FOLKS!! What we’ve been training for…our Marathon Day! This
is the effort that must happen without a hiccup. We have it from a
reliable source that January is CRITICAL and our efforts are URGENTLY
NEEDED. WE ARE CLOSE TO WINNING THIS! This activity will have to be a
skillfully choreographed dance and can only work if we are ALL pulling
on our oars at the same time in the same direction. These are OUR
children, OUR teachers, and OUR schools. Let no arrogant politician
stand in our way!
Governor Cuomo’s Contact Info
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Office of the Governor
NY State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
Phone: 518-474-8390
Fax: 518-474-1513
Email: Gov.Cuomo@chamber.state.ny.us http://www.governor.ny.gov/ www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo www.twitter.com/NYGovCuomo @NYGovCuomo Use #StopCommonCore and#fixNYschools
NY State Senate: http://www.nysenate.gov/ NY State
Assembly:http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
TV Station Rally Locations for January 6th
Albany
WTEN (ABC Network)
341 Northern Blvd
Albany, New York 12204
518-433-4286
Binghamton
WIVT-TV (ABC Network)
203 Ingraham Hill Road
Binghamton, NY 13903
607-771-3434
Bronx & Brooklyn
News 12 Bronx/Brooklyn
930 Soundview Ave
Bronx, NY 10473
Phone:(718) 328-7504
Buffalo
WGRZ (NBC Network)
259 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo,NY 14202
716-849-2222
Elmira
WETN-TV (NBC Network)
101 East Water Street
Elmira,NY 14901
607-733-5518
Long Island (Nassau & Suffolk Counties)
News 12 Long Island
1 Media Crossways
Woodbury, NY 11797
516-393-1200
E-mail: LIDesk@News12.com
Lower Hudson Valley
(Rockland & Orange Counties)
News 12 Lower Hudson Valley
235 West Nyack Road
West Nyack , NY 10994
Phone: 845-624-8780
Fax: 845-735-1601
E-mail: news12hv@news12.com
Manhattan
WNBC-TV
30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA
NEW YORK,NY 10112
212-664-4444
Plattsburgh
WPTZ (NBC Network)
5 Television Drive
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
518-561-5555
Syracuse
WSYR-TV (ABC Network)
5904 Bridge Street
East Syracuse,NY 13057
315-446-9999
Utica
WKTV (NBC Network)
5936 Smith Hill Rd
Utica,NY 13502
315-733-3477
Watertown
WWNY TV7 (FOX and CBS affiliate)
120 Arcade Street
Watertown,NY 13601
315-788-3800
Westchester
News 12 Westchester
6 Executive Plaza
Yonkers, NY 10701
(914)378-4800
We are entering an important period of time in the push back against the education reforms in New York State. Fearing for their jobs next November, we are beginning to see some movement from state legislators on the school reform agenda. This is to be expected, as they have been hearing more about this agenda than anything else. Recently Senator Flanagan indicated that when the legislature convenes in January we should see quick action on the student privacy issue. Make no doubt, this is excellent news and it shows that finally legislators are starting to listen.
This, however, is not nearly enough. It became fairly predictable a couple of weeks back that there would be some movement in this direction. Legislators are fearing for their jobs and Commissioner King has had enough vitriol directed towards him that the state is now willing to throw us a bone. But as we have stated time and again, nothing but a full withdrawal from Race to the Top in New York State is acceptable. That is the message our legislators should continue to hear until they have delivered it.
There is a danger that with the passage of legislation restricting the data sent to inBloom people will be appeased. That is what John King and Merryl Tisch are hoping. That is what Andrew Cuomo is hoping for. That is what John Flanagan, Ken LaValle, and the rest of the legislature is hoping. That they can offer up the privacy issue in the hopes that the public will thank them, jump into their holiday season, and forget all about the rest of the abusive reform agenda.
There have been signs that some people are ready to head down this road. Here is No Kids Data NY:
Thank you Senator Flanagan…. The late night hours are starting to pay off! We have been heard http://t.co/8r4BAKcnTA
Again, let me be clear, limiting student data that is passed on is a win for our movement. It is something to be thankful for and a feather in our cap. But I am not ready to throw too many plaudits in Senator Flanagan’s direction yet. Keep in mind, Senator Flanagan is a major reason we are in this mess to begin with. Along with Andy Cuomo, puppet John King, and puppet master Merryl Tisch, he has been at the forefront of pushing the abusive reform agenda in New York State. Senator Flanagan has a long way to go before I am sending him a thank you card. A lot needs to be accomplished before I can be assured that the money that his chief campaign contributor, Michelle Rhee, gave him is not being spent to continue to harm students and teachers in New York for the benefit of private corporations.
The Smithtown News recently published a great editorial, titled “Change course on King/Flanagan agenda”, about Flanagan’s role in harming public education in New York State. It’s behind a pay wall so I’ll only give you the highlights. All bolded emphasis is mine.
On the organized opposition against the reform agenda…
Call it the King/Flanagan agenda, and it stinks.
The opposition has become so angry that wherever Senator Flanagan, SED Commissioner Dr. John King and Regent Chancellor Dr. Merryl Tisch go from one end of the state to the other, people start screaming at them.
On what may be part of Flanagan’s motivation (though the Rhee bucks help too)…
Ever since NYSUT refused to endorse him for re-election in 2010, Mr. Flanagan has been out to get public school teachers and he is hell-bent on taking the public school system down with them. He has jumped to the center of the charter school bandwagon, which drains money from public schools, he has fostered implementation of an inherently unfair and flawed APPR system, he has ushered in the misguided and premature implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards and he has allowed the implementation of the abusive testing of students.
After commenting on the $1 billion in state aid that Long Island districts have lost while Flanagan has either been the ranking Republican or Chairman of the Senate Education Committee…
Never has Long Island faired so poorly in terms of state aid as it has under the educational leadership of John Flanagan, and now his failed policies are threatening to destroy the quality educational system that we have enjoyed here on Long Island for generations.
On Flanagan’s hearings around the state that are dedicated to the reform agenda…
The hearings should have been held before implementing these new policies, not after. The intent now is only to act as political cover for Mr. Flanagan, who will try to emerge as if he resolved this difficult problem.
Remember though, he is the root cause of the terrible situation facing public school education right now. He needs to be replaced whether the problem is ultimately solved or not.
It really was a great article that reminds us that John Flanagan is one of the primary reasons we are in this mess. So I will hold my thank you until the entire agenda is repealed.
The Official Website of the PJSTA 