Cuomo’s Budget Enflames Massive Opt-Out Movement in New York

In the midst of a maniacal quest to conquer his “opponents” in the state’s teachers union (NYSUT), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo may have single-handedly quadrupled the number of children who will Refuse to take federally mandated Common Core tests this month. Cuomo forgot that many teachers are also parents, and can easily smell the shite of a teacher evaluation plan that will further subject their children and communities to the will of flawed tests designed by profit-hungry corporations.

Though the Lobbyist for the Students acknowledges his plan will amp up anxiety in schools, he doesn’t care. Instead, he repeats the mantra of his corporate masters, who want their piece of a public education system the governor calls a “$50 billion industry.”

Cuomo seemingly came under the spell of Bill Gates recently in telling us what this is really all about:      

“We have all new technology, new systems that we can bring to bear for education, and that’s what this is all about.”
                                                                             Andrew Cuomo
                                                                             April 1, 2015

As if New York’s schools aren't dry enough, Cuomo also envisions tying their funding to the quality of their teachers (according to his evaluation plan, of course). The day may soon arrive, for example, when a fourth-grader’s panic attack during a Cuomo Core test could contribute to her bus breaking down on the way to her dilapidated school.

It is an affront to American democracy and collective intelligence when an ignorant asshole like Andrew Cuomo gets to decide so much for so many.  

Cuomo said he was “celebrating late into the night” upon passage of his Inopportunity Agenda, a budget that simultaneously erodes the due process rights of middle-class workers and gives yacht owners a tax break.

Greed fuels the flame of hubris, however, and Cuomo’s actions, to the exasperation of education deformers everywhere, have only caused a simmering Opt-Out movement in New York to explode.

With lives and livelihoods threatened by toxic tests, New Yorkers have no choice but to fight back.

Fight back against a governor and legislature who call our children and teachers failures, but wouldn’t know the difference between a piece of chalk and a suppository.    

Fight back against Big Media; share this blog post with someone.

Fight back and refuse the tests.

Visit NYSAPE.org for answers to questions
the Department of Education won't answer.

NYSUT Must Spit Up Cuomo’s Baloney

What Cuomo wants to feed New York now tastes far worse than baloney

New York Governor and all-around asshole Andrew Cuomo recently denounced the same teacher evaluation law (APPR) he once wanted to “force down your throats”, calling it “baloney.”

While Cuomo’s APPR did indeed taste like baloney four years ago, instead of steak, the Lobbyist for the Students now wants to feed public education raw sewage, mixing everything from tax breaks for the rich to broken due process rights into his fetid stew.

As if his proposals weren’t shitty enough, Cuomo is also holding taxpayer dollars hostage to them. Already neutered by his Gap Elimination Adjustment and undemocratic tax cap, schools will receive a measly $1.1 billion if and only if they grant the state (i.e. Cuomo) the power to fire as many middle-class workers as possible. Cuomo seeks to kick districts in the face after kicking them between the legs.
With New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) finally out of the picture, Cuomo’s campaign donors can swarm the schools, subsume policies, and further segregate our kids.

It is an understatement to call what Cuomo is proposing the “end of local control”; he is telling public education—the bulwark of democracy—to get lost.

So as not to limp quietly into the graveyard of civilization, both public education and NYSUT must appeal to the people—democracy’s saving grace.

In forums last year throughout the state, for example, thousands of teachers and parents came together and irrefutably indicted the Common Core Standards and their accompanying high-stakes tests. Parents and educators cried into microphones while Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch cried into her vodka.



Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch will do whatever Cuomo says 

As protests against abusive state tests multiplied, Cuomo himself at one point bizarrely announced he was ready to pick up a placard and join the uprising. The same tests he once demanded makeup 20% of his teacher evaluation law had caused—according to Cuomo—“massive confusion, massive anxiety, and massive chaos.”   With his latest proposal cementing at least 50% of a teacher’s job to state tests, Cuomo apparently wants 30% more confusion, anxiety, and chaos to run riot throughout the state. 

Fortunately, civil disobedience usually arrives just in time to save democracy.    

If Cuomo thought the backlash against Common Core last year was chaotic, he needs to step out of his mansion more often.

Nothing inflames democracy more than a douchebag doing the bidding of Big Business, and communities around New York are catching onto Cuomo and his baloney tests, so much so that a record number of students are expected to refuse to take them again this year. With some teachers even refusing to proctor the tests, the message is clear: Cuomo and his donors will need to find another way to burrow beneath public education.

NYSUT must mobilize around the I Refuse movement, allowing democracy, not Cuomo, to rule our schools.

No parent, teacher, or cafeteria worker should serve our children Cuomo’s putrid slop.