Principal Carol Burris is one of the co-founders of the Long Island principals’ revolt against high-stakes testing. When she heard that Governor Cuomo’s commission would be holding hearings in New York City, she joined up with fellow principal Harry Leonardatos and they headed for the hearings.

Read their gripping account of the proceedings, where the deck was stacked in favor of the corporate agenda.

They were among the first to register, but soon discovered that they would not be allowed to speak.

Who was allowed to speak? Campbell Brown, an ex-anchor for CNN who spoke about sex abuse in the schools (her husband is on the board of Rhee’s StudentsFirst, which she did not disclose); the TFA executive director for New York City; someone from the New Teacher Project (founded by Michelle Rhee); an 18-month-veteran of teaching who is now heading a Gates-funded group of young teachers who oppose tenure and seniority. “…they all represented organizations that embraced the governor’s policies, and they all advocated for the following three policies: state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.”

Although the two principals were told that the last 30 minutes would be reserved for those who signed up first–which they had–they were not allowed to testify. Instead the commission heard from the leader of Rhee’s StudentsFirst in New York. They thought they would be allowed to testify against the NY system of grading teachers on a bell curve, which guarantees that half will be found “ineffective.”

Please read this article. It is alarming. Governor Cuomo and his commission have aligned themselves with the enemies of public education.