Local Control? New York Schools Need Not Apply

As things go, the 1998 film The Siege is remarkably prescient. Terrorist bombs and bullets bombard Manhattan as New York FBI agent Anthony Hubbard (Denzel Washington) gives way to the maniacal whims of President Trump U.S. Army Major General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis). Muslim males are concentrated into camps around the city and Hubbard must take his investigation underground--both to evade Devereaux's homicidal scrutiny and because his headquarters is blown up at the beginning of the movie.    

It's Hubbard's apparent ineptitude at stopping the terrorists which draws the ire of the feds in the first place, and he must find a way around the government's ignorant interventions to save his city.   

Lest anyone label this the stuff of hyperbole, it is marching across New York State today.

Albany, for instance, has developed a bizarre love-hate relationship with public education, promising to increase funding if--and only if--schools agree to implement Governor Sociopath Cuomo's latest teacher evaluation law (3012-d). Among other absurdities, Cuomo's plan counts standardized tests as 50% of a teacher's overall score, and includes a student "growth formula" that even Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has called "random." Add to this number classroom observations performed by people who will need a GPS to find your child's school.  

In other words, public education is careening toward a place where bureaucrats like Cuomo only allow it to exist on their terms instead of the terms of local communities. Firing teachers and closing "failing" schools will only increase unless people shut up, take the Tests, and admit, "It is what is."

Sadly, NYSUT's promise to "seek" local control is closer to fiction than The Siege. The Union has voiced tepid opposition to Cuomo's attempts to trample workers' rights and test kids into conformity. Tortured Tweets aside, Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta conspicuously excluded references to 3012-d in his annual address to the state legislature, but can't wait to tell you how great Hillary Clinton is.

In addition, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who controls some 800 delegates to NYSUT's annual representative assembly and thus essentially controls how the Union votes --shamelessly proclaimed that a teacher's job should ride on test scores because principals cannot be trusted to do their jobs. It seems Mulgrew likes his chances with the demons of junk science more than the better angels of humanity. Paradoxically, Mulgrew also tried to take credit for Cuomo's meaningless "moratorium" on test-and-punish, and even placed a pricey ad that touted the UFT's bogus victory.

Any progress against the privatization of public education in New York, however, is thanks to thousands of prudent parents who've refused to expose their children to Cuomo's toxic tests. Unfortunately, Mulgrew's litany of lunches with the Lobbyist for the Students--access which no other NYSUT president knows--has only spread dysentery to schools throughout the state, as they must take another bite out of Cuomo's shit sandwich or starve to death--whichever comes first.  

NYSUT members outside of the UFT who dare question Mulgrew's malfeasance are accused of violating the "autonomy" of the Union's largest local. After all, there's a UFT election coming up, and teachers from Gloversville to Hicksville should just stay out of it; it's not like Mulgrew's autonomy has ever allowed him to fuck things up for the rest of the state.

But what say defenders of the UFT's recent $100,000 donation to a man named Ted O'Brien, a failed candidate for the state senate in the Rochester area, some 350 miles beyond the UFT's autonomy? The donation was allegedly part of an asinine scheme by New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio to raise money for distant Democrats. Is meddling in corrupt state elections less offensive than meddling in union elections?

Should UFT members think twice before funding the futile campaigns of candidates who live closer to Canada than Corona? Do UFT members even know what their money is being spent on? Maybe the U.S. attorney can clear this up.

Mulgrew and DeBlasio: Felonious Fellas?

Like a child needs a family, public education needs local control. The more control that schools surrender to ambitious idiots (i.e. New York politicians), the deeper our divisions delve. As we enter the Idiocracy, we must not let idiots divide us.

Rather, parents, teachers, and students must tell the likes of Cuomo and Mulgrew that their authority ends now.

Give our schools liberty, or give them insolvency.


         

Cuomo Still Holding School Budgets Hostage over Teacher Evaluation Law

Stay classy, New York. 

In news more inevitable than Donald Trump dick jokes, school districts across New York State have soundly rebuked Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest teacher evaluation law (3012-d). Look no further for evidence of this than one year ago, when 250,000 parents refused to subject their children to tests designed to fire middle-class workers.

And though Cuomo and others would like you to believe that his bogus "Common Core Task Force" fixed everything, absolutely nothing has changed--including the law. Districts must still abide by the most pernicious aspects of Cuomo's plan. These include, for instance, having ass clowns in Albany instead of working educators determine whether or not students possess enough "college and career readiness" to keep their schools open or their teachers employed. Welcome to the idiocracy.  

Schools will also still administer the same tests Cuomo recently called "meaningless", along with yet another test that will be used to rate their teachers.  

Any district seeking to protect itself from the Lobbyist for the Student's asinine law will lose millions in funding. Immersed in his usual sleaze, Cuomo is offering bribes to imbibe his bile.

Districts who fail to strip teachers of more job security by July 1 can say goodbye to whatever aid Albany planned to provide them. Already faced with a crippling tax cap that inhibits help from within their own communities, superintendents everywhere must choose between a thousand cuts or decapitation.

Regardless, Cuomo is still determined to "break" public education; neither his laws nor his ego have lessened since last year. Add to this a devotion to deep-pocketed donors and the blurred lines between hubris, greed, and bad public policy once again come into focus.  

Heavy-hearted legislators who held their noses and voted for Cuomo's ludicrous law last year must breath the air of good sense if they expect to have any credibility on public education again.

It is immoral to tie lives to a law which no sane person can faithfully justify or defend.

Take the Board of Regents, for example, the unpaid group tasked with implementing the law. The outcry over Cuomo Core has swiftly put three Regents out to pasture, including chancellor Merryl Tisch--as complicit as Cuomo in the attacks on schools. Working the unworkable is the definition of absurdity, after all, especially on a volunteer's salary.      

Lawmakers must lighten their hearts and thicken their spines if they expect resistance to their malfeasance to end. They can start this process by listening to those who know our kids better than most: actual educators.

Beware the Ides of Testing

Great news, New York! Your kids will have the chance to take standardized tests even earlier next year! The New York Education Department (NYSED) has ruled that the Big Tests will now go down in March instead of the usual April. Note to white suburban moms: the tests will no longer interfere with soccer season!

And it's no coincidence that Governor Cuomo's annual budget will now be due after the tests instead of before. After all, Cuomo was hoisted by the petards of his budget last year when draconian changes to his teacher evaluation law (APPR) enflamed the Opt-Out movement. Since then, Cuomo has correctly yet bizarrely credited himself for the dramatic spike in test refusals, announcing that his asinine education laws "increased parental participation."    

With the winds of Opt-Out now at his back instead of his face, the Lobbyist for the Students will try to ram whatever other "reforms" he can down our throats without too much gagging. Cuomo and his slimy associates count on parents and teachers having short memories when it comes to education laws passed in the middle of the night.

New Yorkers have longer memories than Cuomo thinks, however, and will not soon forget last year's pernicious attacks on their kids and communities. Whether in March, April, or any other time of year, refusing Cuomo's abusive tests strikes at the heel of an education agenda that is bankrolled by billionaires.

Opt-Out must not relent until lawmakers do their jobs and bring the Test and Punish era to an inglorious end.

NYSUT Bargains Without the Collective

With a case before the Supreme Court that could eviscerate public sector unions, more American workers may soon see their salaries and savings evaporate. The case of Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association threatens to severely undermine the ability of Unions like New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) to collect dues and thus muster the many to stand up to a handful of assholes who are wreaking havoc on public policies. Union members can say goodbye to the professions they once knew in favor of jobs concocted by those who embrace "efficiency" at the expense of decency. Obedient or unemployed workers we all shall be.  

NYSUT has already been deploying a few instead of many members when bargaining teacher evaluations. Since Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest law dictates how communities must rate and fire their teachers, a negotiation which was once left up to thousands of NYSUT members within their respective school districts has been subsumed by NYSUT leadership and their lackeys. Schools now have little control over how outside evaluators and asinine tests will impact their teachers.

When the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association (PJSTA) recently had the nerve to question what the Union was doing about Cuomo's ludicrous law, NYSUT President Karen Magee responded that there are just some things low-level people need not know:    

Thanks for writing. While we are always interested in engaging our members in the substantive issues that you raise in your email, I'm sure you also understand from your position as a union officer that much of what you raise here is subject to high-level negotiations. In any negotiating scenario, it's imperative for the officers to let the members know that they are fighting on their behalf, as we have done, but just as crucial that the ebb and flow of the actual negotiations remain at the bargaining table. 

Though NYSUT refuses to reveal the "ebb and flow" of these "high-level negotiations", they promise to let you know if and when your career is no longer subject to the whims of idiotic politicians.  

Perhaps United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew can shed some light on these mysterious negotiations. After all, Mulgrew is a favored lunch guest of the Lobbyist for the Students and rejoiced upon passage of Cuomo's law last April. It seems Mulgrew's hard bargaining at the lunch table has somehow paid dividends for everyone except students and teachers. Did Cuomo order the fish before frying the job security of middle class teachers? Only Mulgrew can say.

When 100,000 workers protested Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's insidious assaults on collective bargaining in 2011, they sought to sustain a system that gives voice to the voiceless up and down all levels of government--including public education. They fought so workers could forge agreements with those for whom a service is directly provided--not some distant bureaucrat beholden to his benefactors. There's nothing democratic or "collective" about an elite group of people bargaining away the fates of thousands of teachers and schools and refusing to talk about it. 

Instead of using the sanctity and secrecy of collective bargaining to shield their alleged efforts to protect teachers, NYSUT should call it what it has become: bargaining that is limited to those more concerned about their own seats at "high-level" tables than the shrinking seats of teachers at tables throughout the state.

Not unlike their colleagues in Wisconsin, the collective voice of working teachers in New York has been greatly diminished in recent years. If NYSUT expects to survive in a post-Friedrichs world, they must awaken this voice and bring the collective back to bargaining. 

NYSUT Asks Teachers to Fire Themselves

Is self-immolation back in style?

Rather than urging members to reject high-stakes tests, New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) is pining for teachers to create the tests, even though the state fully controls how the results will be used. After all, Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest teacher evaluation law (APPR) gives Albany—not local school boards—the last word on how well students must perform for teachers to be rated "effective" and not subject to harassment and dismissal. Even if they were as flawless as diamonds, nothing is stopping the state from using the tests to saw into schools everywhere, as bogus benchmarks and HEDI bands will soon hum the tune of "failing" schools.

NYSUT's call for teachers to write high-stakes tests instead of shred them is an assault on reason. Though at last year's Representative Assembly (RA) the Union unanimously passed a resolution that members' children not take the tests, NYSUT has since done zero to spread this message. It seems a resolution passed by thousands of teachers to protect their own children doesn't deserve a billboard or a commercial during the NFL playoffs, for example. 

The Union did, however, spend $2.4 million on a commercial that had nothing to do with junk science and everything to do with fiction. According to the 30-second ad (which yes, aired during the NFL playoffs), "progress" has been made to protect schools—even though Cuomo's ludicrous law remains unchanged. And NYSUT has no plans to challenge this law anytime soon, as it is conspicuously absent from both the ad and the Union's 2016 legislative agenda.  

Perhaps NYSUT finds great dignity in teachers hastening their own demise, akin to Kamikaze pilots or Buddhist monks. Yet if NYSUT is ready to sacrifice members on the altar of privatization, its tool of choice should be a resolution meant to save schools and not shut them.

For given this choice, most teachers would rather go down shielding children from abusive tests instead of embracing new and equally abusive ones.

Mulgrew Declares Victory, Promptly Surrenders

What do over 200 politicians do in an election year?

That's right—hide out in their offices.

At least the head of New York's largest teachers union seems to think so.

At a recent meeting, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew shamelessly discouraged members from lobbying the state legislature this year. The reason? All 213 lawmakers are up for reelection but don't want to talk about it. 

According to Mulgrew, our fearful leaders have embarked on the tried and timid tactic of avoiding the voters, especially school teachers. At the risk of saying something stupid, they won't say anything at all. So don't even think about asking your heavy-hearted assemblyman to say, repeal Governor Andrew Cuomo's asinine teacher evaluation law (APPR), a law which has cemented chaos and dysfunction in schools around the state. Got a problem with high-stakes tests? You're on your own. Mulgrew will be home shaving his head.        

Mulgrew thinks everything is swell anyway, so there's no need to complain. As he recently declared in the Daily News, "The days of test and punish are over", and the recommendations released by the Cuomo Core task force were a "huge victory" for schools—even though zero has changed. Communities and careers can still be obliterated by tests scores. Moreover, recent federal legislation rolls out the red carpet for privately-run charter schools and any and all efforts to replace teachers with computers—the stuff of Andy Cuomo's dreams. 

It seems Mulgrew's strategy is to heap praise and union donations on the same lawmakers who stuck a shiv in the ribs of educators everywhere last April with the passage of Cuomo's bullshit budget. These same lawmakers are now up for reelection and Mulgrew kindly asks that you leave them alone; your paychecks and pensions are in good hands, after all.

With Mulgrew himself up for reelection this year, he too wants to avoid the voters, at least the ones who don't live in Florida. Oddly, significantly more retirees voted in the last UFT election than working teachers, but that's just how Mulgrew likes it. The last thing Mulgrew wants is a more politically active membership, for that brings more questions than commendations. He might actually have to explain why, for instance, he condones the use of tests to punish schools. Or why the commissioner of education called APPR "random." Or why Mulgrew's members will soon have less job security than a drunken babysitter.

A victory for Mulgrew signals defeat for everyone else. Everyone, that is, except for Cuomo and the legislature.

Placating politicians at the expense of middle class workers is a perversion of democracy. We deserve who we vote for, however, especially if we don't vote at all.

Don't be Fooled by Cuomo's Mea Culpa on Testing

As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pretends to listen to parents and teachers, he hopes they don't know how to read.

Buried at the bottom of a recent press release announcing the "recommendations" of his education task farce is proof that Cuomo is open to changing nothing: 

The Education Transformation Act of 2015 will remain in place, and no new legislation is required to implement the recommendations of the report, including recommendations regarding the transition period for consequences for students and teachers. During the transition, the 18 percent of teachers whose performance is measured, in part, by Common Core tests will use different local measures approved by the state, similar to the measures already being used by the majority of teachers. 

Yes, tests will still count for 50% of a teacher's evaluation.

The so-called “local measures" will require the state’s seal of approval, and the cut-points on the convoluted “matrix” that determines if teachers keep their jobs will be tweaked just enough so heads roll—regardless of how “fair” the tests appear. Moreover, the number of tests will double as students will take one test to grade their teachers, and one test that will, according to Cuomo, be "meaningless" until the 2019-2020 school year. So much for reducing the amount of testing. 

School districts can now expect a full-court press by Cuomo and his slimy associates to convince them to agree to his asinine teacher evaluation law (APPR) or lose more funding. After all, the (Common Core) tests won't count for another four years, even though communities and careers will still depend on tests.   

Additionally, everything else in the Lobbyist for the Student's infamous Education Transformation Act remains, including receivership and weakened due process rights. As Cuomo maintains, the law will not change. The test is still king.   

   

Though federal law now says states don't have to use test scores to rate teachers, Cuomo doesn't care. He will use any means necessary to break public education and hand the pieces over to his Wall Street donors. Cuomo is too greedy and prideful to try to save face. 

Education historian Diane Ravitch recently wondered why Cuomo thinks he can control education since the New York State Constitution grants that power to the Board of Regents, not the governor. Cuomo gets control by linking ludicrous laws to budgets which are rammed though in the middle of the night. As he once said, he is the government, and public education and all of its democracy threatens Cuomo's control.   

It's time for spineless, heavy-hearted legislators to take control away from Cuomo and ram through legislation on behalf of the communities they claim to represent. 

Nothing short of a complete rebuke of Cuomo's toxic agenda will stop 500,000 test refusals now.