Carol Burris has been an outspoken critic of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s baseless attacks on New York state’s educators. He is outraged that the current evaluation system rated 99% of the state’s teachers effective or highly effective. What he forgets, Burris reminds us, is that this is not an antiquated system: the current method of evaluation was created by….Governor Andrew Cuomo!
“Cuomo remains obsessed with teacher measurement and firing. Unhappy with the outcome of evaluations, he called them “baloney.” He forgets that when the Boars Head delivery arrived in Albany, he was driving the truck. The evaluation system he now mocks is the very one he insisted be put in place.
“In 2012, Cuomo called the new evaluation system, APPR, “one of the toughest in the country.” He referred to it as “groundbreaking” and “exactly what is needed” to transform schools. New York Students First, gave Cuomo credit for the teacher evaluation system—it was “because of the governor’s leadership” that this “groundbreaking agreement” came to be.”
Since the loudest complaints about Cuomo’s latest bad idea are coming from educators on Long Island, Cuomo has turned his hatchet towards them. But Long Island is home to some of the state’s most successful public schools:
“Part of the Cuomo strategy of reform is the shaming of districts and counties where teacher evaluations indicate a high-quality teaching force. The governor’s latest target is my region, Long Island. Cuomo’s aide, Jim Malatras, has called for an investigation of Long Island teacher scores, which he implies were deliberately skewed for success. There is no acknowledgement that the flaws in the system his boss rammed through left Long Island with an unworkable system. Malatras also ignores how comparatively successful Long Island schools are. Good teacher evaluations make sense.
“Long Island’s 2014 four-year graduation rate is 89 percent. The New York State rate is 77 percent.
“If Long Island numbers were not included, New York’s rate would drop to 73 percent, placing New York fifth from the bottom in national ratings.
“Not only are Long Island schools doing an overall good job in getting all students to the finish line—they do a better job than the state as a whole achieving equitable outcomes. Long Island is composed of two counties, Nassau and Suffolk. Unfortunately, the state Report Card website does not provide enough data to combine the counties on these measures, so I report them separately below. Here are three examples:
“Four-year graduation rate for students who are economically disadvantaged:
Nassau County: 80 percent
Suffolk County: 77 percent
New York State: 67 percent
“Four-year graduation rates for black students:
Nassau County: 81 percent
Suffolk County: 75 percent
New York State: 62 percent
“Four-year graduation rates for students with disabilities:
Nassau County: 70 percent
Suffolk County 67 percent
New York State: 50 percent
“The black/white graduation rate gap for the state is 25 points. For Nassau County, the gap is 14 points. Keep in mind that the New York State percentages include Long Island. Every one of the above state rates would drop without Long Island schools.”
Cuomo’s vendetta against the teachers’ union is payback for refusing to endorse him. His vendetta against Long Island teachers and public schools lacks a shred of rationality. He is like an angry little boy, stamping his feet and throwing his weight around, knowing that he can’t be reined in by “the little people.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Even Massachusetss gets it: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Opinion/ci_27543970/Edward-Udel:-Foolish-approach-to-rating-teachers
Just pretending to be smart. But, just an empty suit, who’s bought and sold.
Cross-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Carol-Burris-on-Governor-C-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Attack_Diane-Ravitch_Evaluation_Testing-150303-642.html#comment535681
with this comment taken from Diane’s posts here( and which contain embedded links at the page)
There is so my mush misinformation out there. Cuomo’s tantrum is just one aspect.
Ravitch points out: “This is one of the strangest political alignments ever: George W. Bush put annual testing into federal law, a practice unknown in the high-performing nations of the world. And Democrats–including President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and Washington State Senator Patti Murray–are fighting to keep George W. Bush’s policy in place.”
“Forget about all those stories you read that said the U.S. Department of Education had/has nothing to do with promoting the Common Core standards. Forget that it is a “state-led” initiative, that the standards were “written by the governors,” and that this just bubbled up from below while ED watched from the sidelines. Months ago, Chicago Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett said that the district was not ready, the students were not ready, the teachers were not ready. She said she would give the tests to 10% of the students, no more. But then the hammer fell, and the hammer is in Washington, D.C. The orders from ED (the Education Department): give the tests or Illinois will lose $1.4 billion in federal money. ”
The oligarchs are intent on controlling public education, and to do that the schools must be labeled as failing… THAT is what the tests are designed to do…
“Jonathan Pelto reports that 70% of students will fail the Common Core test called Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC); the tests were designed to “fail” 70% of students, as is the PARCC test. Both Common Core tests are aligned with the “cut scores” (passing marks) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP “proficient” is set very high; Massachusetts is the only state where 50% of students rate proficient on NAEP.Pelto points out that 90% of students with special needs are expected to fail SBAC.”
Parents are fed up with the shenanigans: “Peter Greene reports that the dream of one big national assessment is finished. States are dropping out of PARCC and SBA. Some are dropping out while quietly buying a new test that looks like PARCC. None is dropping in. Fifty states will not take the same test. Period.”
Did you say mushinformation? I like that.
Hee hee. Cannot fix spelling here as we all know, but if you go to the post at my news site, you will see it is corrected.
Again, I say….
I know a HS teacher who has to give the STAR test (computerized) as part of her evaluation. This test does NOT count WHATSOEVER for the student. It does NOT count as a test grade, a graduation requirement, a requirement for the student to move on in grades, etc. This test counts 40% of the TEACHER’S evaluation. This is a 15 minute computerized test. Sometimes the same questions come up over again. This test material is peripheral to what the teacher does in class. Students ask this teacher, “Oh, is the test nobody cares about?” and “Do I have to try?” Students just tap answers. This teacher has had students finish in 4 minutes or less. The students know that this test is used to evaluate only the teacher. This is patently and unequivocally absurd and unfair. It would be risible if it weren’t so odious.
I wish someone in education and the Governor himself could explain the fairness of this situation.
What does STAR stand for?
They are computerized tests from the company called “Renaissance Learning.”
Thank you Diane and Carol Burris! As a BOE Trustee on Long Island, I am tired of Cuomo’s diatribe. After much frustration, I can’t keep quiet anymore. The following is the message I shared with my community last week:
This is my fourth year serving as an elected trustee of the Comsewogue School District Board of Education. Trustees are elected by their community. The position is voluntary- there is no pay. There are no hidden perks, no allowances. It is time-consuming, with multiple meetings and events monthly, dozens of documents to review in preparation for the meetings, as well as correspondence between trustees and administration and of course with the community. In order to fulfill these responsibilities, I miss out on time at home with my husband and four children. It is stressful- particularly as we work to develop an annual budget. No matter what decisions we make as a board, there will always be someone disappointed. But I love every minute of it because I love my community- and I take very seriously the responsibility entrusted to me by the community.
I’ve been talking about the issues facing public education for a long time, but it’s not enough to talk. I am suggesting practical solutions could be implemented now. At this point, I want to make clear that the opinions I express here are mine alone- I do not speak for the Comsewogue School District, or the rest of the Board of Education. I can’t stay quiet for fear of retribution from NYSED anymore. I have been warned that a Trustee who speaks out could be removed by the State Education Commissioner. But this is too important: our schools, our children, OUR FUTURE depends on those of us who were elected to represent the best interests of our communities doing exactly that.
This is a particularly difficult time for public education, especially in New York. Governor Cuomo and the Board of Regents are pushing ahead with education policy in which the ends do not justify the means. There has been tremendous criticism of Governor Cuomo, and his recent decision to withhold state aid runs and extort the Legislature to pass his education reforms. Our legislators are stuck between agreeing to terrible reforms, and getting more funding for their local schools, or refusing the Governor, which would lead to a late budget and a potential loss of millions of dollars for those schools.
The reforms Cuomo is pushing on public schools are disingenuous, dangerous, and wrong. He is working out of the privatization handbook- attempting to dismantle unions, turn the public against educators, and make us believe our schools are absolutely awful. He uses inflammatory statistics to support his claims. In the process, our students are the ones suffering. The obsession with standardized testing has taken on a life of its’ own. It seems the federal and state government cannot think of any other way to move forward in education.
But they are not the ones who were elected to determine what happens within your school district. Governor Cuomo was not on the ballot last May when you voted for your local district budget and elected your Board of Education Trustees. Each of Cuomo’s education policies reflect a desire to remove local control from schools. The reason for local control is simple- those who have familiarity with a community are better situated to determine its’ strengths and weaknesses, and to know what works. The needs of an urban school in a high poverty area will differ from that of a rural school upstate. Even on Long Island, schools not far from one another have very different needs. Governor Cuomo and the Board of Regents are searching for a one size fits all answer to a million different issues. They will never work for every community. In the meantime an entire generation of students are being sacrificed for testing data.
Case in point, Gov. Cuomo is now insisting on an investigation into the evaluation procedures (APPR) of Long Island districts, because he thinks the system is skewed to favor teachers. He is demanding NYSED look into these evaluations, because he cannot believe so many teachers were rated effective, or highly effective. Those APPR plans were negotiated (as per labor law) and submitted for approval to NYSED. So the very entity which approved the plans is now asked to investigate them. Here is the point Cuomo cannot fathom: teachers on Long Island were rated highly effective or effective in large numbers because they are effective. If Long Island was a state, we would rank #1 in the nation for high school graduation rates, with 90.8% of our students receiving their diploma. In addition, Long Island would rank #1 in Intel Semifinalists and #2 in the nation in Siemens Semifinalists, behind California. Cuomo prefers to ignore these statistics because they do not fit his narrative.
So what is the answer? It’s not enough to complain. Name calling isn’t helping. We must propose an alternative vision for our public schools. There are several things than can and should happen now in order to stop the destruction of public schools with misguided education policy.
First, Governor Cuomo must separate his education reforms from his Executive Budget Proposal. If he believes strongly enough in these reforms he should be willing to let them stand alone as legislation and allow a healthy debate in the process. The Legislature would then be tasked with evaluating these reforms based on their merit, through committee hearings, and public input. Our democracy has three branches of government in order to prevent one person from having too much power. Cuomo should not be allowed to circumvent the separation of powers established in our Constitution.
The Legislature should ensure that new appointees to the Board of Regents have knowledge of, and experience in public education. There are four Regents whose terms are expiring, and interviews are being held now, with Legislators expected to vote in early March. The Board of Regents establishes education policies for the state, and it is imperative that they understand public education in order to fulfill these responsibilities.
Parents must educate themselves as to what is happening in their schools. They should ask questions, attend Board of Education meetings, local education forums, and contact their representatives. Every parent must make an educated decision regarding state testing in grades 3-8. This will be the 3rd year my children have refused to take the state exams. I believe this is the strongest weapon parents have in the fight to save public education. As the number of test refusals grows, the reforms dependent upon those numbers will falter. We will starve the testing machine.
School districts must respect a parent’s right to refuse testing on behalf of their child, and Boards of Education must adopt a policy to outline what accommodations will be made for students who are not taking the tests. A sit and stare policy is cruel and unacceptable.
Every one of us has a vested interest in public education. It’s not just cliche to say that these students are our future- it is reality. We must work together in order to move forward and find solutions to elevate public education without destroying things that are already working. I can’t sit by quietly anymore and hope that someone else will make it happen. I have a sworn duty to represent the interests of my community, and that includes speaking out against policies and people who endanger the well- being of our students and faculty.
~Ali Gordon
Ms. Gordon, your statement is so wonderful, so passionate. I applaud you for standing up and speaking truth to power. Best wishes to you and your district!
Diane, I think Ms. Gordon’s reply deserves to be a stand-alone post!
Thank you Sharon. I am hoping to encourage more Board of Education Trustees to speak out- our communities need us now more than ever!
Hats off (again) to Carol Burris for calling out Cuomo, our “mini-Nixon” as someone on this blog so aptly put it. It’s people like you who will save our public schools.
Comparing Cuomo to Nixon is an insult to Nixon.
To reiterate the point I made on an earlier post, and piggy back on Principal Burris, Long Island has 125 school districts. 4 were on his hit list; one of which was taken over by the state in 2002. Long Island schools are a highly competitive job market and teachers are paid well, all of which needs to be taken into consideration. I’m glad Principal Burris took the time to point out our contribution to the overall statistics of the state.
All across the Empire State thousands upon thousands of parents, students, business leaders, and teachers are standing up and speaking out for public education. The message is clear. We will not let Governor Cuomo destroy public education in New York.9/11 Memorial Run/Wall in Manhattan
Andrew Cuomo, our ‘self-proclaimed student advocate’, is holding school funding hostage in his maniacal quest to sell off public education to the highest bidder. An integral part of his plan is to falsely proclaim our schools and teachers as failures.
We have all witnessed Cuomo do the following;
shifting needed funding towards the private sector.
handing over public schools buildings room by room to privately own charter schools.
wrenching local control away from communities.
demanding unfunded mandates that are driving public school districts into fiscal distress.
destroying teacher preparation programs.
whittling away at teacher education centers.
demanding standards that are not age appropriate for students.
forcing children to undergo hours and hours abusive high stakes tests.
labeled public sector unions as an evil force.
Let’s not forget, Cuomo was not endorsed by the New York state AFL-CIO and NYSUT. There is a reason this Democrat was shunned by labor. His agenda is anti-labor and is driven by his hedge fund millionaire campaign donors. That’s why he lost just about every county and every region in the state except for where his hedge fund millionaires poured in tons of cash.
His agenda is quite clear, he has a vendetta against those who turned their backs on him and squashed his presidential aspirations. He is willing to sacrifice the futures of the children, of the Empire State, all the while handing parts of a multi-billion dollar public asset to privateers.
As evident in his decisions to end any oversight on ethics he has ordered all of his administrations e-mail and correspondence to be purged on a regular basis. Cuomo is counting on a world of darkness and despair as he slams the door on open government. We are on to him, and he won’t get away with this.
Cuomo wants us to believe the sun in New York State Seal is setting on the era of public education and open government. It is time to stand up and speak out and tell the governor that the citizens of the Empire State will not allow that sun to set on our most important assets, our children and our public schools.Seal_of_New_York.svg
Stand Up, Speak out for public education. Let the sun shine as we share the successes of public education in New York. Nassau County’s forum- “Stand Up and Speak Out for Public Education” is on March 12 at Westbury High School. More information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/StandUp4PublicEducation. #allkidsneed you to be there.
This baloney has a first name,
its A N D R E W, this baloney has a second name,
its C U O M O. Oh, I’d love to see it go away,
and listening to his evil rhetoric you’d have to say,
since campaign donations started this fight,
we’ll refuse this agenda with all our might.
DAM, am I a poet yet?
This was my first comment on the source thread, to a poster who suggested that NYS had no standards-comparison prior to PARCC:
NYS always had standards to measure the value of a h.s. diploma. In my day (’60’s), a Regents diploma was needed to underpin further academic education, i.e. college. A non-Regents diploma was adequate for immediate employment, or for further vo-tech education. What has changed?
(1)Politics: today, the Regents board is politicized & thus is poised to replace Regents exams with PARCC. Just my opinion, but in view of NYS’ once very high ed ranking among the 50 states + my thoroughly-researched understanding of Common Core & its aligned assessments such as PARCC, we’ve taken a big step down, thanks to Cuomo, Tisch, et al
(2)although we still have BOCES– hanging by a thread– the vo-tech picture has changed drastically over the 40 yrs since I was a NYS student. Any homeowner in need of maintenance knows that the non-college, trades-oriented track is desperately needed in today’s high schools– such jobs have gone to the underqualified, the fly0-by-nights. & the immigrants ever since our 2-faced govt-industrial complex started responding (in the ’80’s) to automation & globalization by calling for all to be “college-&-career” ready, while outsourcing mfg & importing cheap STEM engrs from the 3rd world.
This was my second comment on the linked article, in response to a poster who suggested that Cuomo, albeit a Democrat, was finally applying accountability to NYS’ situation of being biggest ed spenders with lowest results [w/an anti-union comment thrown in]:
One wonders if you’ve read the post. You’ve got your version of accountability thanks to your friend Cuomo; it seems to show at least LI is getting what they’re paying for. [Actually what it shows is LI leads the NYS pack, thanks to best-paid & brightest enclave with public transportation to highest-paying jobs in NYS.]
NYS can go ahead & follow Cuomo’s lead, more than doubling the share student scores on stdzd tests make up teacher’s/school’s “scores”, so as to pinpoint areas for school closings/ teacher firings. LI will still come out at the head of the pack. All it will show you is what you already knew, that the poor, disabled, & ESL (disproportionately educated in urban public schools) are the most expensive to educate. Then you can fire their teachers, close their schools, & bust them down to a churn of cheaper fly-by-night charters w/low-paid underqualified teachers . Perhaps your school taxes will go down for a while (until corporate charters figure a workaround to get more of your taxes).
The expensive-to-educate will still be there; some will make it in charters, others will be bounced back to the publics [whose ability to help these kids will be further strapped by the flow of public funds to charters].
Bottom line? More poor kids without job opportunities to crime & prison (paid for by your taxes)
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What this tells me is that the tenure laws are working and effective. Those teachers that aren’t effective aren’t granted tenure and leave teaching. That’s why there is a high percentage of teachers rated as effective. It’s amazing that schools do as well as they do considering the fact that non educators like Cuomo determine education policy.
I’m not surprised that schools outside the larger city districts are continuing to do well, despite the challenges thrown at them in the past decade. Local communities still support their schools overwhelmingly.
NYS has had high standards and a strong, diffuse SUNY system that produces good teachers. I emphasize diffuse because the many SUNY campuses spread throughout the state are built on the old “normal” schools that prepared teachers. SUNY de-emphasized both sports and national fraternities/sororities when it incorporated in 1948, which has also helped, in my opinion, keep the focus on academics.
We also have a state income tax, unlike other states that struggle to fund education. (I’m sure “Tim” will show up to tell me how we are not getting a good ROI on that, but I disagree.)
We are a densely populated state with millions of students, parents and other *stakeholders* in education, public and private. Cuomo messes with us at his peril.