Rex Smith, the editor of the Albany Times-Union, wrote an excellent column, chastising Governor Andrew Cuomo for picking on teachers. Let’s hope that the mounting criticism of Cuomo’s cynical effort to place the blame on teachers for low test scores persuades him to reverse course. The surest predictor of low test scores is poverty, not “bad” teachers. Rex Smith knows this. Why doesn’t Governor Cuomo?
Here is an excerpt from Smith’s column:
Students come to school with all sorts of problems, starting with poverty. Most low-performing schools are in high-needs communities. Plenty of research underscores the link between learning capacity and poverty, with its attendant problems – including poor housing, inadequate health care and neighborhood violence.
The governor knows this to be true. He has on occasion been eloquent on this very point. It makes his current campaign of demonizing teachers all the more mystifying.
Yet we hear him repeatedly attacking “the public school monopoly,” ignoring all the non-public (and taxpayer-aided) schools that make the educational system a lot more competitive already than other government services. You know, police and fire departments are monopolies, too. Should we subsidize competing privately-owned agencies, and blame cops for crime and firefighters for fires?
And there was the governor during his State of the State presentation last month, juxtaposing two statistics as though one directly related to the other: 96 percent of teachers were rated “effective” or better by the state’s teacher evaluation system last year, but less than 40 percent of students in grades three through eight were at least “proficient” in standardized language arts and math tests.
The inference he wants us to draw, it seems, is that more teachers should be rated lower so they can be fired, making way for teachers who can raise test scores.
The problem with this analysis begins with a logical fallacy of seeing a causal relationship where there’s really a coincidental one. Call it the Pirate Paradigm, explained thus: The number of pirates plying the high seas has shrunk over three centuries, even as roughly 40 percent of marine species have vanished. Thus, you may conclude that pirates are good for fish.
Good work, Mr. Smith!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I do think for most these teacher-bashing politicians, blaming teachers not only caters to a certain base, but helps distract the public from the politician’s own incompetence in governing.
Straight to the Honor Roll! Media members who truly understand the issues are still too rare. Excellent editorial.
Good for him. Pushback must happen.
I like his police and firefighter monopoly point. I like to use the one of the Register of Deeds. The Register of Deeds holds a monopoly on housing public records. So should we bust it up and be mad at the clerks who stamp deeds all day and let private entities compete to house and record our public records.
Friedman was not appropriately challenged academically when he put his ideas on education out there.
Or what about the courts? Clearly they hold a monopoly on justice.
Unfortunately, if you believe this piece by Jeffrey Toobin, Cumo doesn’t care about teachers or other living things. That includes staying far from the press, the public, or anyone who gets in his way. The only way to stop this man is to continue to expose his mysogony to anyone who reads. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/16/albany-chronicles
Nancy Letts, thanks for the link to the Néw Yorker article about Cuomo. This, I thought, was an important point:
“It’s sometimes said of certain politicians that they love humanity but hate people; Andrew Cuomo does not appear especially fond of either. He is the uncommon elected official with a streak of misanthropy. Cuomo rarely sees ordinary people, and they rarely see him, except in television commercials. “Andrew doesn’t like meeting with voters,” someone who is familiar with his campaigns told me. “He’ll do parades, but that’s about it.” In his 2014 race for reëlection, which he won with fifty-four per cent of the vote, Cuomo outraised Rob Astorino, the Republican candidate, by forty-five million dollars to six million, and thus dominated the airwaves with his advertisements. Cuomo agreed to a single debate with Astorino and none with Zephyr Teachout, his opponent in the Democratic primary.”
It is not a prerequisite to hate people to hurt them.
You just have to not care. Then you don’t even have to feel responsible for hurting them.
How many times do we read or hear about the leaders and enforcers of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement abusing their authority over others to demean and degrade but when it comes to their own precious egos and reputations—
They suddenly discover civility and decorum.
Double speak, double think, double standards.
Pathetic bullies all.
😎
What an interesting article! The comment about his favoring -ed verbs over -ing verbs perhaps give some insight into his affection for tests. To him tests show what has been accomplished. Education/Learning is an accomplishment rather than a process to him. Education is defined by “dones” rather than “doings.” You would think his father’s comments about his own schooling would inform him as to why judging students, teachers, and schools by high stakes tests is wrongheaded.
Interesting video out of Maine. The teacher is trying out the online testing platform:
This should be shown to every parent and taxpayer across America. What a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. What horrific damage we are doing to children!
From Fred LeBrun, also of the Albany Times-Union, on Gov. Cuomo’s newfound interest in the Massachusetts ‘failing schools’ receivership model:
“Here we go again. It’s about the difference between learning and teaching. Massachusetts may indeed have much to teach us, but experience dictates that when it comes to learning this administration is remarkably selective.”
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/LeBrun-Learning-from-a-neighbor-s-teaching-6081692.php
Cuomo loves Massachusetts model. He would do well to note that Mass. spends more than $2,000 more per pupil in high needs school districts. As a state, Massachusetts is willing to invest in their neediest students.. In contrast, NY State rigs the game so we spend $3,000 more per pupil in the schools where almost no needy students attend. We wonder why we have a huge disparity in outcomes? This failure to invest in needy children is a political decision endorsed each of the last four years by Cuomo–acceding to the regional selfishness of people like Dean Skelos, and Senate Ed. Chair John Flanagan. NY distributes funding based upon political power and an unwillingness to invest in needy children–then wonders why we have great disparity in student outcomes. Politicians are nothing more than “pigs at the trough.”
Smith seems to be a very smart man. Students have low test scores for all kinds of reasons, one being the lack of support from the home. No matter how qualified and dedicated a teacher is to helping his or her students succeed, some students just might not do well on standardized tests. I don’t know how you can rate a teacher solely on his or her student’s text scores, there is much more that goes into teaching than just preparing a child for a test.
“VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” saith the um, er, Governor. He may aspire to a higher office . . .
Or if you prefer the fictional future to the biblical past . . .
From Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn:
Khan: . . . “Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?
It is very cold in Albany” (space)?
Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
It’s good to see a NYS newspaper calling Cuomo out on his attack on teachers. Rex Smith poses two questions that I will respond to.
First, Smith writes: “You know, police and fire departments are monopolies, too. Should we subsidize competing privately-owned agencies, and blame cops for crime and firefighters for fires?”
My response: please don’t give the Governor any ideas! The Federal government has contracted military services and prisons and with the new Congress I wouldn’t be surprised to see more privatization taking place. If the feds can privatize the armed forces, why couldn’t the State Police be contracted?
His second question: “So why would the governor demonize teachers? ”
My response: he is playing the politics of resentment. Teachers have contracts that provide them with benefits and pensions that were commonplace in the private sector but are now non-existent… and to make matters worse, in many cases those pensions and benefits were taken away unilaterally by corporations when they outsourced functions and/or sold off portions of their business. Voters don’t like seeing their tax dollars paying for benefits that exceed their own and I’m sure that Mr. Cuomo has polling data that shows he gains more votes than he loses whenever he “goes after” the “bad teachers”.
Perhaps we should just call it a truce and say that everyone is to blame. We have a system that does not meet the needs of our growing population. We are all frustrated and we are grabbing at straws in hopes that one will be the solution. The Common Core has been the latest attempt to right wrongs. It is not the solution. In fact is has set the barn on fire. It is true we have been asleep at the wheel for decades but it seems now many have awaken and so there may be hope on the horizon. We should put down our arms and wave our white flags so that we can begin fresh. As long as we stay in this fight nothing good can be accomplished. Let’s do it for the children.
Waving a white flag is telling Cuomo that he wins.
Um, no. Just no.
Cuomo’s plan is an abomination that must be defeated.
“We should put down our arms and wave our white flags so that we can begin fresh.”
Either my sarcasmometer needs adjustment or you had to have been born into Vichy France.
“Let’s do it for the children.”
Spoken like a true Vichyssoise.
Cuomo is probably eyeing Los Angeles with envy. Here the teachers union does not defend members when they are charged so there is no impediment to firing permanent teachers. Thousands have been terminated without a hearing.
While it is true that Rex Smith wrote a nice editorial about teachers he should note the high level of unethical behavior going on in the State Dept. of Education in Albany. The Board of Regents is running State Ed. and doing it in a very underhanded way. M. Tisch has her own private work force and it has been reported in the Albany Times Union, She began a Regents Research Foundation by contributing $1 million to get it going. Bill Gates contributed $3.3million and many other foundations contributed $$$$ totaling $19 million. Tisch directs their research and pays them this is the most unethical behavior I have ever been aware of in a government office. The 1% are running the state dept. of education in Albany. They have circumvented all democratic policies and regulations. I have never been more upset with the state government. I hope someone like Preet B. will examine this and stop it.
good piece. it’s not hard to understand what and why cuomo is doing if we understand it as part of the NATIONAL bipartisan agenda to undermine public education to justify its privatization through charters, vouchers, etc. it’s not just in ny; it is led nationally by the quarterback of this team, obama with his minion duncan, with various local acolytes such as cami anderson pursuing the same agenda. for cuomo, it’s all of a piece with his push to expand charters. it’s hard to get more explicit than his call to break up the public education monopoly, and in order to accomplish this, he has to make sure public ed fails, teachers are demonized and unions are busted. there is one word that describes the motor behind both the actions and rhetoric :SABOTAGE