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.

 

Andrew Cuomo Hoists Himself on the Canards of Perverted Teachers and their Pensions

"Alas, poor NYSUT!"

In an improvised interview from his mansion on New Year’s Eve, New York Governor and unabashed sociopath Andrew Cuomo bizarrely morphed into Campbell Brown, conflating and spewing the faults of his own teacher evaluation law (APPR) with the imaginary epidemic of perverted teachers:

“I understand the union’s issue; they don’t want anyone fired,” Cuomo said. “But we have teachers that have been found guilty of sexually abusing students who we can’t get out of the classroom.We have a process where literally it takes years and years to get a bad teacher out of the classroom. “

Perhaps the New York State Police should ask Cuomo exactly who these teachers are and where they can be arrested. Cuomo, the former attorney general who reportedly failed the bar exam four times, should understand that “guilty” sex offenders in New York are either in jail or have limited access to minors. If one were to actually slip through the cracks and become a certified teacher, the parole violation alone would blow a hole in our criminal justice system as wide as Cuomo's ego.

Not to mention the attention Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and former Commissioner of Education John King would receive for allowing the teacher in the classroom in the first place. Tisch would likely deflect blame under her breath while kicking King further under the bus on his way down to Arne Dunked-on in D.C.

Cuomo should also understand that a sex offender has a much better chance of getting a job in his prized privately-run, publicly-funded charter schools, since 30% of teachers in charters are not even required to possess a New York State teaching certificate. Both Cuomo and Tisch apparently want to make it more difficult only for those seeking jobs in unionized schools to make a career out of teaching.  

Cuomo’s crusade to fire more teachers is fueled by both his donors’ desires for more charters and Cuomo’s own desire for revenge against New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) for not endorsing him in either of his gubernatorial campaigns.

Forced to postpone his State of the State speech due to the death of his father and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo—who coincidentally passed into eternity on his son’s double inauguration day—Cuomo has also rebranded himself on social media for his second term, taking the low road against the middle class as his father lay dying: 

In Cuomo's alternate universe, the interests of students and teachers are
mutually exclusive...

Teachers and their families request that when Cuomo further threatens their lives and livelihoods in his State of the State that he at least do so at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center and not in a series of Tweets.

Meanwhile, the Union has rightfully taken to the streets in response to Cuomo’s education malfeasance, rallying outside his mansion during his New Year’s open house and outside the Buffalo History Museum during his second inauguration of the day. Protesting teachers froze outside while Cuomo threatened their pensions inside.

Guests to the governor's mansion were randomly selected to kiss the Prince’s ring—and check the First Amendment at the door. 

Cuomo’s slimy associates reportedly would only allow NYSUT members to speak to Cuomo if they first removed Union apparel, and tickets to the event devoted three paranoid sentences to warnings about photographs.

The Pen is Mightier than the Person was able to obtain an exclusive copy of Andy Cuomo’s Golden Ticket:

...and integrity comes with asterisks.

Cuomo’s fear of photography has as much to do with trashing the rights of his constituents as it does his fear of saying something stupid, which he achieved anyway with his remarks about perverted teachers.

On the other hand, Cuomo’s inflammatory and ignorant Tweet about teachers’ pensions was not spontaneous but rather written into his inaugural address. 

A rebuttal of this canard, however, should be obvious to all:

As NYSUT prepares to rally at the governor's State of the State on January 21, members should frame his insidious words within those of his late father, who, in surreal contrast to his son, actually loved and respected teachers. (He married one, after all)

The elder Cuomo’s sentiments cannot but resonate through the halls of Albany and the minds of all New Yorkers:

"We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter, we are bound one to another; that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child—that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future…”

And while we urge the Lobbyist for the Students to also remember his father’s words, those who paid attention in English class already know how this vengeful tale will unfold… 

With Liberty and Charter Schools for All

Where can 12 billionaires turn if they want education laws changed?

That’s right, their checkbooks.

Between late September and Election Day, a dozen hedge funders donated a combined $4.4 million to New York State politics, mainly to ensure that Governor Andrew Cuomo and his slimy associates will help publicly-funded, privately-run charter schools seep deeper into the state.

Led by the likes Paul Tudor Jones II, who recently hosted an education “summit” featuring Cuomo and other corpses, the billionaires see charters as investment windfalls. After all, those pesky teachers unions and their due process rights won’t be around to challenge every test and technology tonic sold to New York’s taxpayers once the metastasis of charters quickens.     

With minimal overhead and oversight, charters and their plutocratic backers can finally corner an elusive market in New York State—public education. In words reminiscent of showman P.T. Barnum, “there’s a sucker born every minute”, and the billionaires see no bigger sucker than New York’s working families, with snake-oil salesmen peddling toxic Common Core tests and standards as the panacea for underfunded public schools.

The billionaires would rather subsume these schools than fix them, however, and their sycophantic public servants are lining up to comply. Cuomo has said he wants to “break” public schools in his second term, and lest we forget what Secretary of Education Arne Dunked-on said just last year:

“…he [Duncan] found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

In a recent interview, Jeremiah Kittredge, founder of Families for Excellent Charter Schools (an anti-labor, pro-douchebag super PAC which spent $9 million on the New York election) continued efforts to slime our schools. Kittredge’s organization is calling for an “epic infusion of excellent schools” to rescue 249,000 children supposedly “trapped” in public schools statewide. Kittredge wants parents to believe their local schools face a “crisis of epic proportions” for which charters apparently hold the cure. 

Kittredge says charters are “outperforming” public schools, but it doesn’t require a close-reading of Kittredge’s claims to reveal his simplistic and savage suggestion: charter school students are just better test-takers.

Yet even if their scores are higher—and study after study prove otherwise—most parents would rather raise compassionate, well-rounded human beings instead of test-taking cyborgs programmed by flawed standards. 

Look no further than Pink Floyd’s classic “Another Brick in the Wall” for an allegory of corporate charters and their subservient students. Note how the children in the video react after too many trips through the meat grinder of educational malfeasance: 

The rebellious students in the video throw their teacher on a bonfire, while the New York State Education Department (NYSED) throws teachers on the scrapheap in real life.

With allies like Kittredge doing their bidding—who in the same interview calls public school teachers the “worst servers” of special education and ESL students— Education Commissioner John King and Chancellor Merryl Tisch are paradoxically demanding more accountability for unionized teachers and less for charter chains, from the “board of trustees” down to the lowly teachers.

A glance at NYSED’s handy-dandy “Guide to Charter Schools in New York State”, for example, tells us that 30% of the teachers in a charter don’t need to be certified.

At least the important parts are in color

Meanwhile, Tisch seeks an “aggressive” proliferation of charters as her department makes it more difficult for those who would rather teach in unionized public schools to become certified—the majority of job seekers throughout the state. More and more of these applicants might soon find a home in New York’s charters, however, who will entice them with a logo only a hedge funder could love:

Sadly, the day when billionaires like Merryl Tisch control who gets to work in schools has finally arrived. Up-and-coming teachers are not far from signing contracts with corporate boards instead of boards of education, one bad test score away from working at Walmart.      

It was industrious journalism and not NYSED which exposed the fraudulent resume of “Dr.” Ted Morris, Jr., whose Greater Works Charter was revoked by the state after it was revealed Morris lacked both a doctorate and a high school diploma. Both Tisch and King disavowed responsibility for this gross oversight, with Tisch blaming her unnamed underlings and Director of Charter Schools Bill Clarke in hiding since the scandal broke.

With their schools tumbling toward insolvency and privatization, where can members of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) turn to preserve their profession?

From Manhattan to Massena, the state's teachers union is only as strong as its weakest links.

Though not yet an existential threat, non-urban locals should fight charters as much as urban locals should fight non-urban threats like the Tax Cap and Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA).

No teacher outside of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), for instance, would be offended if UFT President Michael Mulgrew suddenly spoke out against the Tax Cap, just like Mulgrew should not take umbrage if a teacher in Westchester spoke out against New York City charter schools.

Things might be different for NYSUT if Mulgrew had threatened to punch someone other than teachers who opposed the Common Core, or if American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten’s next arrest is outside the offices of Cuomo or NYSED.   

The privatization of public education is a many-headed hydra, fed by a handful of plutocrats.

This should be no match, however, for an organization fed by 600,000 workers instead of 12 billionaires.

NYSUT must lead this fight before public education starves to death.            

NYSUT Must Run Towards Cuomo—Wherever He Hides

NYSUT has ignored the power of its people

600 members of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) recently gathered at a bowling alley less than two miles from Governor Andrew Cuomo’s house.

No, this was not the staging ground for a rally against the anti-teacher Cuomo, but rather the venue for an event which raised thousands of dollars for the homeless. NYSUT locals from across the Hudson Valley did more to benefit struggling New Yorkers in one night than all of Cuomo’s campaign fundraisers combined.

If only $1,000 per plutocratic plate fed the hungry instead of Cuomo’s political war chest.          

The NYSUT Bowling Extravaganza is yet another example of the Union’s power to organize, something that unfortunately has escaped its newly-elected leadership.  If this many members can peacefully assemble on a Thursday night amid bad pizza and gutter balls, it won’t require much more to rally against a governor who has vowed to “break” public education.

Would it have been too much to ask, for example, for President Karen Magee and the other NYSUT officers at the Mount Kisco event to lead a march past Cuomo’s house after returning their multicolored, sliding-sole shoes?

When will NYSUT President Karen Magee aim for Cuomo?

Cuomo’s words are whispers compared to his actions. His tax cap and GEA continue to syphon more dollars from essential programs, while his teacher evaluation system (APPR) spins its wheels in the muck of Common Core, spraying its sludge on families and educators around the state.

As Cuomo searches for ways to jettison unionized teachers, he’s also counting on a Republican-led legislature (which he helped elect) to dump public schools into private hands. Lifting the cap on charter schools and passing the Education Investment Tax Credit would be long strides in this direction. Look no further than the East Ramapo School District in Rockland County for a taste of what could soon be coming to a district near you.  

With the mood of New York’s teachers torn between indifference and indignation, it is well past time for NYSUT to mobilize its members within shouting distance of Cuomo. Leadership could begin this push by at least publicly pronouncing the Lobbyist for the Student’s name, which they tip-toed towards in a recent statement:

                                     

It will take more than fine print at the bottom of a briefing, however, to remove Cuomo’s fangs from public education and chase him back into his cave.  

The good news is that New York’s governor is notoriously thin-skinned, and NYSUT must exploit this. Cuomo rails against the press throughout the pages of his worst-selling memoir and has even placed phone calls to journalists in an effort to downplay and dampen stories that may damage him a lot more than his bombastic book has.   

When confronted in-person by people with placards, Cuomo’s paranoia and resentment deepens. Fracking protesters have crippled him into inaction on the issue, as the governor recently claimed he’s “not a scientist” within weeks of feigning more expertise on Ebola than a doctor who had Ebola. The protesters even scared Cuomo away from his Mount Kisco polling place on primary day:

The small group of protesters Tuesday was apparently undaunted by some last-minute schedule changing by Cuomo's administration. After New Yorkers Against Fracking, a coalition group, announced Monday they would be outside Cuomo's polling place at 5:45 a.m. Tuesday, Cuomo's office announced later in the day that he'd be voting at 5 p.m.

By Tuesday morning, that was changed to 10 a.m.

"I literally see them everywhere I go," Cuomo said of the hydraulic fracturing opponents. "One of my daughters joked, we were pulling up to an event and she said, 'We must be in the wrong place. There's no fracking protesters.'"

NYSUT must join the anti-frackers and also be everywhere Cuomo goes. After all, a lot more than 600 of its members—600,000 to be exact—would like to talk to a governor who usually doesn’t like talking to anyone north of Wall Street.

Less than two years ago, NYSUT bused 20,00o members to Albany to protest Cuomo’s attacks on public education.  In response to the One Voice rally, Cuomo sent Education Commissioner John King and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch on their disastrous Common Core goodwill tour around the state. Outrage over education reform spread from town to town as Cuomo, King, and Tisch played defense against concerned citizens.

Later the following year, for some reason, the same union that flexed its solidarity and scope that spring day in the capital decided to overhaul its leadership, replacing those ready to challenge Cuomo with those content to lick crumbs from his chair.             

It's time once again to force Cuomo out of his chair and towards the placards approaching his door.

Teachers in the trenches await President Magee’s call.

Why the NYSUT Election Should Matter to Members

The ax against asinine education reforms is starting to swing in New York. Politicians are writing laws to unravel Common Core, and more and more local leaders are speaking out against the gap elimination adjustment and a crushing property tax cap. Changing laws is not easy, however, and those rallying against nonsensical reforms in New York and around the country have a task akin to an exorcism.

On the front lines of this battle are Dick Iannuzzi, president of New York’s largest teachers union (NYSUT), and his executive vice president, Andy Pallotta.  Paradoxically, both are fighting the powers that be while fighting each other, as Pallotta has helped form another group within NYSUT to challenge Iannuzzi’s presidency that calls itself “Revive NYSUT.” Running for president on the Revive ticket is not Pallotta but Karen Magee, president of the Harrison Association of Teachers. Magee has remained silent since accepting the nomination while Pallotta wines and dines politicians on VOTE-COPE money, the union’s voluntary political action fund. 

On the surface, Pallotta is only doing his job; NYSUT’s executive vice president is expected to push legislation on behalf of the members. As the campaign unfolds, however, many local leaders are starting to question just how effective Andy Pallotta has been as NYSUT’s chief legislative advocate. After all, if Pallotta is expected to push favorable laws, why have New York’s teachers been saddled with the tax cap, reduced pension tiers, Common Core, and InBloom? Pallotta’s inaction against this legislation sings louder than Billy Joel at Governor Cuomo’s birthday party.

Pallotta, the only NYSUT incumbent running unopposed, cut his teeth in the UFT, NYSUT’s largest yet smallest local. For example, only 14% percent of working teachers voted in the UFT’s last presidential election. This minority of active members and retirees who reelected Michael Mulgrew also essentially controls over a third of the votes for NYSUT president, and Mulgrew and the UFT have already endorsed the Revive slate. Should Revive come to power, Mulgrew’s UFT will be first in line for handouts from Cuomo as long as Cuomo’s signature reforms of the tax cap and APPR remained unmarred by Pallotta. An endorsement of Cuomo by NYSUT (spurring a subsequent AFL-CIO endorsement) wouldn’t hurt, either.  

Though rank and file teachers were among the first to see through the pseudo-democrat Cuomo, Pallotta, Mulgrew, and the rest of Revive have not sounded the alarm against him, opposing him in lukewarm spirit only. Many have questioned where Revive’s loyalty lies, as the group seems more interested in ousting Iannuzzi than Cuomo. Though elections are healthy for any organization—this contest has already engaged more members in unionism—NYSUT cannot afford to be more outspoken against itself than Cuomo. Ideally, Revive should be strong enough to oppose Iannuzzi and help NYSUT find a viable candidate to run against Cuomo.  This would undermine Revive’s tenuous platform, however, and require Pallotta to finally step off the political cocktail circuit and into the offices of legislators.

Last June, nearly 20,000 members of NYSUT converged in Albany to demand action against laws passed under Pallotta’s watch. The One Voice United rally was President Iannuzzi’s own attempt to awaken our leaders in the capital. Though Mulgrew failed to awaken his own members for the rally (most of the UFT did not attend), One Voice United aroused Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, whose money and dark-rimmed glasses determine much of New York’s education policies. Concerned that NYSUT was co-opting the reform narrative, Tisch and Education Commissioner John King soon embarked on a series of community forums around the state to clear up “misconceptions” about Common Core. 

By anyone’s standards, the Common Core forums were a disaster for the Regents, with passionate parents bringing everything but the torches and tomatoes.  Tisch and King’s detached, myopic views alienated people at each stop on the tour, and calls for King’s resignation before the forums suddenly seemed premature.  NYSUT’s “Speak Truth to Power” campaign had reached the grassroots, with Albany leaders on the run. Meanwhile, with no Pallotta-pushed repeal in sight, NYSUT’s legal department filed a lawsuit against the undemocratic tax cap. NYSUT also recently withdrew its support for the Common Core, and moved to vote “no confidence” in Commissioner King, who has screwed his feet even tighter to his stubborn positions since the disastrous forums.  Iannuzzi began picking up where Palllotta never left off, joined by people and politicians of all political persuasions.  As Iannuzzi’s long game played out, the Revive candidates huddled behind the scenes, biding their time until their certain victory in April.

Revive should not become too complacent, however, as local presidents will have something to say about Magee and the rest of Revive at this year’s Representative Assembly (RA).  Iannuzzi, along with other incumbents Maria Neira (Vice President), Kathleen Donahue (Vice President), and Lee Cutler (Secretary Treasurer), have formed Stronger Together and are urging leaders from all locals to attend this year’s RA, regardless of their size.  If NYSUT is truly a democractic organization, multitudinous voices from all corners of the state will drown the din of Magee and the UFT this April in New York City.    

New York’s teachers are calling for help all over, demanding action from their union. Though slow to unfold, Dick Iannuzzi’s actions are now beginning to come into view. Common Core has garnered unanimous disdain, and the public is finally starting to side with teachers again. NYSUT must keep this momentum moving, and solidarity needs affirmation now more than ever before. This election should matter to NYSUT members, as their union is the only thing standing between them and the twisted visions of plutocrats.