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.

The Oracles of Cuomo’s Orifices

The Pen is Mightier than the Person slogged through the sludge of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent op-ed on education so you wouldn’t have to. You’re welcome.   

Cuomo begins with a long-winded olive branch that only pokes his audience in the ear:

The education system is deeply entrenched, localized, unionized and personal to the families of the state—as it should be.

Cuomo’s correct—public education is in a deep trench. Parents, teachers and students are taking cover against the bayonets of the governor’s billionaire bidders and the pernicious fumes of his budget. 

Cuomo bizarrely claims he prefers “unionized” schools while simultaneously auditioning for Scott Walker’s running mate. The AFL-CIO even passed a resolution demanding the removal of his education reforms from the budget, calling them a "circumvention of the collective bargaining process."
 
Cuomo’s anti-union stench only thickens further down the page:     

Not surprisingly, the teachers unions and educational bureaucracy oppose parts of my plan.

Wrong. Educators oppose all of Cuomo’s plan, including the current teacher evaluation law (APPR). Fueled by greed and hubris, it is a plan designed to undo the same schools Cuomo says are so “personal to the families of the state.”

There is no reasoning or reasons to compromise with someone who also writes:   

The acceptance and implementation of an evaluation system predates my administration.

Just like the state’s email-deletion policy predates his administration, so does the evaluation system Cuomo once wanted to “force down your throats.” In addition to emails, Cuomo would prefer to erase everything he has ever said about education, and it is impossible to decipher from which orifice his oracles are emerging:        

Virtually everyone also agrees that New York's teacher evaluation system is not accurate and is skewed in its construction to provide favorable results for teachers.

Who, exactly, is “virtually everyone”?  Virtually no one supports Cuomo’s plans, however, save those who stand to profit from the destruction of teachers unions.

The governor then turns wonky and indignant:

…only 38 percent of high school graduates are ready for college or careers. How can that be?

This nebulous number is allegedly the percentage of students on pace to score 1630 on the SAT.  The national average for the SAT is 1500, but that doesn't stop Cuomo from declaring 62 percent of kids unprepared for life. Though it’s not clear which colleges and careers these students are not “ready for”, Cuomo is not ready for a career as a statistician, or a realtor:

Suffolk County will want to know how its teachers and schools compare to those in Westchester County.

Right, because APPR scores are the first things people check before moving from Patchogue to Pleasantville. In fact, parents around the state have been so curious about how their own teachers rate that a whopping zero parents requested to see the scores in the cities of Syracuse and Rochester last year.

The Lobbyist for the Students next touts his heroism in the face of high-stakes tests:

I have signed a law reducing the significance of testing for students, including eliminating standardized testing for students in grades K-2 and removing standardized test results from students' permanent records for five years.

Cuomo thinks Common Core tests are so flawed that they shouldn’t count for students but should count against teachers. See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.     

Local school districts are then blamed, once again:  

My proposed reforms to the evaluation system reduce the amount of testing by eliminating the existing local component of the system that leads to more testing.

Though education should be “localized”, high-stakes tests should come from faceless, monopolistic corporations and be graded by people found on Craig’s List. The same tests Cuomo wants to banish from a student’s permanent record are somehow superior to tests created by that child’s teacher. See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.

The op-ed concludes in a fiery ball of ignorance and deception:

I have proposed that testing comprise 50 percent of the [teacher] evaluation. The State Department of Education suggests 40 percent. Still, teachers and administrators prefer that the emphasis be on classroom observation as opposed to testing. Interestingly, whatever percent is assigned to standardized testing will only affect a small minority of teacher evaluations as only 20 percent of teachers are in subjects and grades that have state testing.

The governor neglects to mention that per his budget, teachers rated ineffective on the testing component will be rated ineffective overall, regardless of how well their classroom observations go.  To further ensure failure, observations will be conducted by “independent evaluators” from outside the district. So much for a “localized” education system.

Furthermore, if local tests will not be used and 20 percent of teachers are tied to a state test, will tests comprise zero percent of the evaluation for the remaining 80 percent of teachers?

See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.  

Cuomo Welcomes Heastie to the White Pants Club

At a recent presentation of his Inopportunity Agenda, New York Governor and department store dummy Andrew Cuomo welcomed Carl Heastie as the new speaker of the state assembly. Cuomo acknowledged that pastoral junkets will accompany the Bronx native's statewide position, proving once again that with great power comes a life of leisurely responsibility:

Assemblyman Heastie is now going to become a statewide official. You’re going to have to share him now. This summer he’s going to take Senator Diaz’s hat, put it on, and we’re going to send him [to] upstate New York. You’re going to see him river rafting in the Adirondacks. You’re going to see him out at Montauk Point shark fishing—reeling in the big one. You’ll see him up in the Finger Lakes, sipping white wine with white pants on. And you’ll say, what happened to Carl Heastie? Wasn’t he from the Bronx at one time?

Before he even thinks about thwarting Cuomo’s perverse agenda—such as by saving public education or fumigating Albany—Heastie has been promised some fun in the sun with Cuomo. New Yorkers should rightly ask whether their governor or their paychecks will be funding the Summer of Carl. 

Moreover, his overtures to Heastie exemplify once again Quid Pro Cuomo’s fetid philosophy of governance: everyone, including Carl Heastie, has a price.

As Heastie considers life on the Cuomo side, middle-class New Yorkers are riding a rapid toward the mouth of a Montauk shark, with members of the White Pants Club lining the shore, pointing and laughing.

Cuomo is a proud member of this club.

And as long as people like Heastie will fit in his pockets, Cuomo will continue to wear the pants.

White Sweaters, White Pumpkins, White Pants