An editorial in the Glens Falls (NY) Post-Journal deplores Governor Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous policies, which are stripping rural public schools of resources and driving them into economic calamity.
Governor Cuomo is not just balancing the state budget on the backs of poor school children, the editorial says, he is literally standing on their backs in his reach for the presidency.
So eager is he to preserve his reputation as a fiscal conservative that he has denied rural schools the funding they need to provide a decent education to its children.
To meet Cuomo’s demands, class sizes have increased, schools have closed, teachers have been laid off, the middle school band was eliminated, foreign language classes were cut, and the Glens Falls district still can’t balance its budget.
We know that Governor Cuomo loves testing and loves the Common Core, but neither of these initiatives will compensate for the damage that his policies are doing to the children in upstate New York.
In the latest state budget, Governor Cuomo became a champion of the billionaires’ charter schools, which enroll 3% of the children in the state. What about the children in impoverished rural districts? Don’t they count? Governor Cuomo also found it in his heart to eliminate a tax on the banks, removing a source of revenue that could have been used to replenish the coffers of rural schools.
Let’s face it. Our governor, who once declared himself the “students’ lobbyist,” is the lobbyist for Wall Street. He doesn’t care about public education. He doesn’t realize that the children in school today are the future of our state. It’s all about him and his campaign contributors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have searched the NY Times for evidence that they’ve even tried to cover the gap elimination adjustment. No luck so far.
But for those who want an overview: http://www.nyssba.org/clientuploads/nyssba_pdf/CapitalConference/Gap-Elimination-Adjustment13.pdf
The “virtues” of Gov Cuomo and government/corporate “reformers” are not the virtues that represent American society. Their ‘virtues” are a violation of environmental ethics.
The Common Core is to education what Monsanto is to soybeans. The corporate industrialization of the food industry that created inhumane “caged” environments for chickens, pigs, and cattle as a cheaper more efficient way to boost their profits, has now created an inhumane “industrial” model of education that requires “caged” and managed children to produce data that is needed to dismantle the public schools in order allow corporate rule.
Common Core is the equivalent of Genetically Modified Education.
The destruction of our children’s health is just “collateral damage to the “reformers’. As long as their own children are safe and protected in private schools, they can pursue their self interests of greed and power through destruction of the public school system.
How can the masses of 99% become educated to this abuse of power that is destroying children’s health and their right to thrive and flourish in their own schools? The only way to stop it is to prevent your children from being used to gather data. Refuse to Test.
…and educate others!
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23280-character-and-environment-a-virtue-oriented-approach-to-environmental-ethics/
That’s a nice analogy. Are these “transformative innovators” trying to create Roundup-tolerant kids and teachers? That is, tolerant of toxic inputs like high-stakes testing and VAM?
That kind of innovation is going to make everybody sick, everybody forced to swallow the poison, that is.
Cuomo has always been a nasty piece of work, and as more people suffer the consequences of that, opposition to him will build.
The man’s chances of becoming president are less than zero, given that so many people in both parties eagerly anticipate his destined-to-occur fall.
He certainly isn’t his dad, that’s for sure.
It makes me sick.
Rural school kids are a perfect market for online charter scams.
The article expresses some confusion regarding Cuomo’s willingness to spend on Pre-K. No mystery there: he couldn’t be shown up by DeBlasio. Cuomo knows the reputation he’s building for himself, but has weighed the power of money vs popular support-and knew he had to act on the pre-K thing.
At some point soon, hopefully in November, politicians in both major parties, like this self-servant, are going to regret that they’ve limited their voter base to the 1%. It’s a numbers game and with a continued track record of blowing off the 99%, no matter how much moola they pump into pop media PR, the common people and social media will prevail and that house cards will collapse.
Keep digging yourself into a hole by pissing off those who are less fortunate, Cuomo et al., and bye bye, plutocracy!
Don’t voter for him. Vote for his opponent even if the other person’s education policies are no better. He will probably win anyway but keeping his margin of victory down will send at least a small message about his education policies. Murray
Psy,
I agree 100%. The “New Democrats” take the voters for granted. They believe real democrats will be reluctant to vote for anyone but a Democrat. Cuomo, Emmanuel, and Obama have sold out public education for Wall Street donations and support.
Real Democratic voters need to turn our against the sell ours in their party.
SAVE the Democratic Party by supporting a fool like Astorino, over a sellout like Cuomo! Either way you lose but in the long run, a viable pro public education party is more important than electing a “Democrat” like Cuomo.
Enough is enough.
Very unusual for the Post Star. I dropped my subscription, as most educators have, as it is so anti teacher, education, etc. You can tell what their cheering section is like if you look at the comments. If this news paper is speaking out, it must be getting bad here in NY. Additionally Cuomo is using the taxpayers money as a bribery system. If you vote down any budget request that dares to go above the 2% tax cap, he will send all the homeowners a check, “of their own money” as a reward. It will be about $43 coming just before Election Day in Nov. (big surprise). Of course he has now decided to tax upstate more than that in order to give $300 million to NYC for pre-k so DeBlasio won’t ask the NYC millionaires for a tax increase. He is a tool of the uber rich who put him there. Cuomo is as fake as Steven Colbert’s conservative persona, but Cuomo isn’t joking, he is a Republican in Democratic clothing with his eye on the White House. Now if I started offering to pay people to vote yes on a school budget, I would be jailed for illegally influencing an election. But, no one questions a tax refund that is based on how your budget vote turns out?
A $43 tax refund in this economy? I was not impressed with the $350 that I got back from Bush in better times. If this crook thinks struggling voters can be bought off with just pennies, he is truly delusional.
I was shocked at this blatant pandering for votes (not by the pandering, but with the nakedness of the pandering) when I learned about it at some Board of Education meetings. Our city is accepting the kickback to our taxpayers. Can’t say I blame the BOE – they need to sell their budget to the public no matter what – but, boy, does it feel slimy.
As a teacher in Northern NY, I can testify that Cuomo is killing rural public schools. We enroll about 875 kids Pre-K-12. We can’t consolidate, we’re 20 miles from the nearest town with a school. The Gap Elimination is destroying education here in the Adirondacks. All I can say is that he’s a very sick man.
What is it about this “emotional contagion” that causes our “brain washed” population to follow these 1% “impostors” like sheep? Has our entire nation become so traumatized from chronic stress that we actually as a nation have “Stockholm Syndrome”?
We can see the social regression that has taken us back to the Dark Ages of “survival” in a corporate/government feudal system where proximity to power is protection.
The question is, How do we get people to overcome their fears and function with moral courage?
Regarding the first part of your post:
See Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.
Regarding what can be done. How can we overcome?
“The only way to resist shock is to know what is happening and why?” N.Klein
I completely agree with Ms Klein.
“He doesn’t realize that the children in school today are the future of our state. It’s all about him and his campaign contributors.”
Do you really think he spares a moment thinking about today’s children as the future? He is only interested in his own agenda.
This editorial is right on. Although I live in a city, I do work with some rural school districts in Upstate New York. Every time I return from one of my meetings with them, I thank my lucky stars that my kids are in a “failing” urban district. Those rural districts have nothing now. They are already illegally cutting mandated services – the thought being, what more can they do to us? I’m not sure what they can cut next. Heating maybe? One district has over a quarter of their teachers teaching outside their certified content areas. Not sure how to have these people’s voices heard. They are not as likely to swap stories and band together because of the physical distance between them.