Cuomo – Page 5 – The Official Website of the PJSTA

The Student Lobbyist Abandons His Public Education Agenda

Andrew Cuomo, who once proclaimed himself to be the “lobbyist for students” is trying to escape his education reform agenda as quickly as possible.

Via capitalnewyork.com…

“I’ve heard quite a bit from the parents who are very concerned about Common Core,” Cuomo told reporters after an event on Staten Island. “It’s part of a national curriculum that the national experts say is actually going to be beneficial.

“But there’s no doubt that there are significant elements, at least in the transition, that are problematic,” he continued.

“It’s actually a decision that the state Education Department is going to make, which ironically, although the state Education Department does not report to the governor … it’s something we’re watching very closely,” he (Cuomo) said. “And it’s something that might be the subject of legislative changes next year. But it’s not anything that I control, so we are watching.”

Cuomo is trying to detach himself from the agenda that has very much been his agenda throughout his term as governor. Go back and look at his state of the state comments in 2012 to see how this is his baby. Now, with his numbers starting to tank, Cuomo is running for the hills.

As usual, the Perdido Street School Blog does a great job covering (and exposing) Cuomo…

Also, from @ The Chalk Face is Chris Cerrone with “Cuomo: No longer the ‘Lobbyist’ for students?”

A Few Things to Read

A few good links to check out…

Reality-Based Educator wonders “Where Is Cuomo On His Education Reform Agenda Now?”

Dr. Rella’s letter to puppet Arne Duncan.

Presidents from two of our parent unions, Randi Weingarten of the AFT, and Dennis Van Roekel of the NEA, sit on a board with noted ed deformers Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and others. Whose side are they on anyway?

Ed Deformers play the race card in regards to the ire towards John King.

From the same article is this quote from Queen Merryl Tisch…

“John is doing a yeoman’s job, staying cool, focusing on the policy issues,” said Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the State Board of Regents, who has served as one of Dr. King’s psychological bodyguards at the forums. “People are asking complicated questions, but I haven’t seen him miss a beat.”

He hasn’t missed a beat. He has stayed the course with his mission to destroy public education.

Puppets

It is well known in these parts that John King is merely a puppet for Merryl Tisch and Andy Cuomo. A mouthpiece to spout off their talking points and take the heat coming their direction. He is nothing more than their marionette as they pull the strings. The same can be said for Arne Duncan, who plays the puppet to puppet masters Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Jeb Bush, and a whole host of ed deformers. It’s not that guys like King and Duncan have skills or are at a superior intelligence level that has helped them to rise to their positions. They simply make good lap dogs. Stroke their egos, give them scraps of good food and they will be happy. More than willing to be loyal to your agenda, even if that agenda is one of child abuse.

For years this sort of existence has worked like a charm for both the deformers and their puppets. The deformers have gotten to use the media to spout their propaganda about how bad our schools are, how we need accountability and choice, even going so far as to say that our schools are so terrible that they have become a threat to our national security! The media of course has eaten it up at every turn and have feted Duncan and King as though they could do no wrong.

But this year a funny thing happened. Parents stopped buying the nonsense they were being fed by Fox News. They stopped paying attention to the plaudits that MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough heaped upon Duncan. They no longer paid attention to Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post as it pounded our state’s public schools. This all started to change, of course, because their kids started to be picked on. Their kids were the ones who wanted to stop going to school. Their kids were the ones who were slamming their heads against their desk during last spring’s ELA or breaking down into tears in the midst of the math test. All of a sudden their children were the vicitims of bullying. That’s where the tide began to turn.

Since that time a lot of questions have started to be asked. A lot of motives have been called into question. The parents, whose children are being abused, are no longer content to sit idly by as they listen to rehearsed talking points. That’s when things begin to fall apart for the deformers. Because stooges like King and Duncan are ill prepared to offer any real defense of the Common Core. Because there really isn’t a good defense for it. Instead you get John King complaining of “special interests” and taking his ball and going home. Or you get Arne Duncan crying about “white suburban moms” whose children “aren’t as brilliant as they think.” Of course anyone with half a brain would know not to incite an angry mob. But this is King and Duncan we are talking about. They don’t have half a brain combined. So their words have only served to fan the flames and in New York State we now have a full blown revolution on our hands.

It is now time for us to move our focus to the bigger guns. Move on to the puppet masters. In New York State Andy Cuomo and Merryl Tisch are behind the curtain, writing the script for John King. They are the ones to go after now. Tisch is put in place by the state legislators who are all up for re-election next year. So is Andy Cuomo who has his sites set on the White House in 2016. It’s time to ratchet up the pressure. To put the full court press on. Make sure the deform agenda is attached to the people who are really pushing it and make them pay next November.

They are Listening, Keep the Pressure On

For years it seemed as though our frustrations and concerns were falling upon deaf ears in Albany. State Ed would impose new and harmful reforms and our protests would disappear into a black hole somewhere. But they aren’t anymore. As Beth Dimino likes to say, “They have awoken the mommies” now and our voice has become a collective roar. All around us are signs that our elected officials are beginning to pay attention.

John Flanagan, cowering in his office while counting his Rhee bucks for most of his term, now is saying that “there is potential for legislation on privacy.” Funny because he had no problems selling our children’s data to private corporations before getting blasted by the public for it.
Andrew Cuomo is reportedly conducting polling to see how would be voters feel about the education reforms.
New York State Senators are reportedly getting more calls about the Common Core implementation than any other issue.
State legislators are feeling that they may need to curb the amount of testing taking place.

These are no small accomplishments for those of us who support public education. We should feel good about the seeds of change that we have sown. But we must be careful. We can’t falsely believe that these accomplishments are enough. They are not. They are movement in the right direction, sure. But they are a far cry from where things should be. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels, but rather to ratchet up the pressure we put on our elected officials and the intensity of our message. I will repeat what I said earlier this week, nothing short of a full withdrawal from Race to the Top, the Common Core, and test based evaluations is acceptable.

If John Flanagan thinks that he can make a few small changes to appease parents after a sustained period of pushing an abusive reform agenda through the senate, he needs to think again. It’s not nearly enough. Not if he wants to be re-elected next year. Go back and try again Senator Flanagan. This is your baby and anything other than a complete 180 means you will continued to be attached to this boondoggle.

If Governor Cuomo, who famously declared himself the “lobbyist for students” before pushing his reform agenda onto New York’s public schools thinks that now he can distance himself from this issue he is dead wrong. This is Cuomo’s baby. The entire reform agenda was to be the trophy he would tote around the country as he prepared to run for president in 2016. Now, sensing the push back, he wants to run from it and leave it all in the lap of his puppet, John King. Cuomo badly wants to win re-election with huge numbers next November so that he can take his “man of the people” act across the country. Sorry Andy, it’s not going to work. The education reform agenda in New York State is your agenda. You are the one who wanted to give schools the death penalty. You are the one who wanted to sell off New York State’s students to the highest bidder to fund your dreams of the White House. You are the one who pushed for test based teacher evaluations and giving the death penalty to schools so that you could open more charters and give more control to politicians. You can’t run from this.

Teachers, parents, and students, keep the pressure on. Ratchet it up. Keep the phone calls, emails, and faxes to your elected officials coming. Continue to take to the streets. Shout your message loud and clear at every chance you get. Tell your family, your friends, your neighbors to do the same. Work towards a full scale refusal of the Common Core tests this spring. These are our schools. They belong to us, not the money hungry child abusers in office. We will take care of them in November. Don’t let up until every last thread of these reforms have been expunged from our schools.

Dimino: “You have awoken the mommies!”

In front of 900 in the Ward Melville High School auditorium, and several hundred more in the overflow cafeteria, PJSTA President Beth Dimino shredded NYSED Commissioner John King, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and New York State Senator John Flanagan. She first called out King for what his agenda is: child abuse. Then she urged Tisch to fire King, citing the 350 letters she has collected supporting this stance. Finally she warned Flanagan that he had “awoken the mommies” and that “The mommies in New York don’t abuse their children and they’re not going to let bullies do that either!” She walked off to a rousing standing ovation.

Tisch later stated to the crowd, “I know you are passionate. We hear you, we get it.” But of course we know she doesn’t. We know that as currently constituted, NYSED, the New York State Board of Regents, the state legislature, and the governor have no plans to abandon their abusive reform agenda. Plutocrats like Tisch stand to make far too much money to abandon the agenda. Instead they may make minor alterations that change very little. They will claim these alterations are examples of them listening to parents, students, and educators. Nobody will buy it. Their agenda is now crystal clear. Too many people can now see what’s going on here. That’s why nothing short of a full withdrawal from Race to the Top, the Common Core, and test based evaluations is acceptable. Not waivers for special needs students. Not a three year moratorium. Only a full withdrawal from the entire agenda is acceptable.

Community members like the ones who filled the auditorium last night can’t fire the puppet John King. We also can’t fire puppet master Merryl Tisch. But next November we can vote out John Flanagan. We can vote out Andrew Cuomo. Then we can let a new state government deal with Tisch.

Flanagan, who hid in his office two weeks ago when 1,000 people rallied outside, looked like he wanted to slither away and hide under a rock last night. Don’t let his arrogance fool you. He knows the days of shoo-in victories in his senate district are over. He knows, that palling around with John King and taking big money from Michelle Rhee have now attached him to this agenda as much as anybody else. He knows that next November he will have to answer for the child abuse that he has supported as the chairman of the New York State Senate’s Education Committee. He knows now that he has awoken the mommies!

There was a slew of coverage of last night’s event. Just a bit of it is below…

YouTube sensation Dimino:

Fox NY’s coverage.

Newsday’s story.

News12’s coverage.

Perdido Street School’s story.

Diane Ravitch’s story.

Friday Notes

The NEA, to whom we pay dues, continues to sell out it’s members.

The AFT, to whom we pay dues, continues to shill for the Common Core. Here is Randi Weingarten in tandem with John King.

President Obama, whom the NEA and AFT endorsed twice, is bringing in a new education aid to join his team. He’s just what we need too… the leader of a philanthropic group who raises money for charter schools!

While we are on the topic, B-LoEdScene speaks of Upside Downland.

Andy Cuomo thinks John King should not step down. After all “change is hard.”

Surprise! NY’s Teacher Evals Don’t Work!

File this under “least surprising news of the year”. A story in The Journal News reports that New York’s teacher evaluation system is pretty much a failure and a waste of millions and millions of dollars.

“Our fears were realized,” said Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool, who was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents when the study was started in the spring. “The first round of assessments did not accurately measure the value of teachers whose students are in poverty, in special education or speak limited English. We are concerned that we have spent countless hours and millions and millions of dollars to produce results that are not comparable across the state and do not inform teacher practice or student learning.”

Countless hours and millions of dollars, not to mention the fear and intimidation that has become prevalent in many schools throughout the state as teachers are bullied into teaching explicitly to the state tests.

Bruce Baker, a Rutgers professor and expert on school finance adds…

“For the state to continue to enforce these measures in the face of contradictory evidence is over-the-top ridiculous.”

Ah, but this is New York. Home of corporate reform-loving plutocrats like Merryl Tisch, corrupt politicians like Andrew Cuomo, and their lackey John King. They’re not going to let things as inconsequential as evidence, wasted time, or wasted tax payer dollars stand in the way of corporate reforms. The show must go on!

King, responding to NYSUT’s call for a three-year moratorium on using high stakes testing to evaluate teachers, called the request a distraction and added, “We all agreed to the evaluation system: the governor, the Legislature, NYSUT and the state Education Department. We committed to the evaluation system knowing that we were going to implement the evaluation system alongside a change in the standards through the work on the Common Core.”

Which brings us to another question. Why is NYSUT, the AFT, and the UFT calling for a three-year moratorium? A garbage evaluation system today will still be garbage in three years. Junk science is junk science. What really should have happened is that they never should have agreed to an evaluation system that evaluates teachers based on standardized test scores.

But alas, they did and we are stuck with a system that a study now proves does not work.

Ianuzzi, Mulgrew, and Cuomo sing the praises of their evaluation system.

Firing John King isn’t Enough

When Cuomo/Tisch water boy John King is fired they’ll just look for a new lackey to do their dirty work.

By now it is clear that John King will likely be fired as the New York State Education Department Commissioner. Let’s recap why…

King was speaking last Thursday at what was to be the first of several PTA Town Hall meetings intended to act as a Q & A on the Common Core State Standards. The meetings were supposed to be an hour of King presenting and an hour of questions from the audience.
King spoke for over an hour and a half. When parents started to ask questions and and express anger during the remaining time, King spoke down to them and continuously told them that they needed to be quiet and listen to him. That made them angrier.
On Friday King cancelled the remaining PTA Town Hall meetings scheduled for the rest of the state.
King released a statement in which he referred to parents and educators as “special interests.”

In the interim nobody has come to King’s defense. Not his friend Andrew Cuomo. Not his good pal Merryl Tisch. Not his first day of school friend John Flanagan. Not surprisingly they have been in hiding since King went off the deep end.

While King’s friends have been off cowering in remote corners of the state, educators and parents have become further incensed. First at being so arrogantly dismissed by King and then by being labeled “special interests” by the guy who bows down to the all mighty Pearson. Their outrage is beginning to reach a fevered pitch and cannot go unanswered for much longer.

By this time it is almost certain that King will get the ax. Deservedly so. He has almost zero experience as an educator and is clearly in over his head. The powers that be, namely Cuomo and Tisch, will see to it that King is made an example of. But that won’t be enough because the real problem here isn’t John King. John King is merely a lackey. He is the water boy for the big players in the education deform movement. He exists simply to do the dirty work of Cuomo and Tisch. If he is fired he will simply be replaced with another reformy type.

Without John King we will still have the Common Core. Without John King we will still have the same high stakes testing. Without John King we still have Race to the Top, a junk science APPR, and a crippling tax cap. Without John King we are left with the same industry of trash that we have now… minus John King.

Cuomo and Tisch are the big guns. They are the ones setting the agenda. Cuomo taking money from hedge fund managers as he seeks presidential glory in 2016. Tisch as she seeks to further line the pockets of her fellow plutocrats.

So by all means, call for the firing of John King. Contact all of your elected officials about it. Scream and yell. Get mad. His behavior was an outrage and he deserves to be fired. But don’t stop there. Because that should just be the tip of the iceberg. 2014 is an election year. For Cuomo, for Flanagan, for Ken Lavalle, another enemy of public ed, and for the entire state legislator. If you really want to enact change, begin by voting them all out. A King firing is a victory, but a minor one at that. It is an action that should serve only to embolden teachers and parents. A sign that it’s time to ratchet up the heat on the ones pulling the strings.

de Blasio Trouble for Cuomo?

The New York Post made me smile this morning (didn’t think I’d ever utter those words together) with this article, claiming that if elected mayor Bill de Blasio is going to be a problem for our God awful governor. Particularly appealing is the supposed stance de Blasio will take against charter schools. Color me skeptical, given the fact that every politician of prominence tends to cave to school deformers like Cuomo. Still it’s nice to dream.

Happy Second Day!

A few good reads from around the web…

School Finance 101’s Bruce Baker with “On Death Penalties for Schools and Misplaced Outrage”

Ravitch discusses “Why Hedge Fund Managers are So Interested in School Reform”

Kris Nielsen reviews Davis Guggenheim’s TEACH, that aired Friday evening at 6:00 pm on CBS (My apologies… Sue Niver gave me the heads up on it but I didn’t have a chance to link to it before it was shown!). Nielsen says it delivered the “same tired infomercial”

EduShyster discusses how Chicago is planning to continue closing more public schools and then significantly expanding their number of charter schools. Then they will staff those charter schools with ~~temp workers~~ Teach for America “teachers”. The Badass Teachers Association’s Mark Naisson calls it an “a declaration of war on teachers, students, and hard pressed neighborhoods, and a throwback to the ugly years before the Great Depression when union busting was the American Way.”