There is this really cool feature about democracy. From time to time, people who have to win election to their seats in the Legislature or Congress actually pay attention to their constituents. That is happening in New York state right now. Governor Cuomo presented some truly bad ideas about how to evaluate teachers (as if he knows how to evaluate teachers), introducing tax credits for private and religious schools (aka vouchers), and expanding charters. He told parents and educators that he would not increase education aid unless his boneheaded plan was endorsed. But fortunately, we still live in a democracy, and the Legislature has made clear in recent days that they will not tie state aid to Andrew’s bad ideas. The gossip is that they will increase charters (too much money behind them to be ignored), but they will not tie state aid to acceptance of the Governor’s agenda.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Some in the media see through this charade, too.
Evaluating The Evaluations by Susan Arbetter
http://www.cityandstateny.com/2/83/education/evaluating-the-evaluations.html#.VP-x6Ib3arU
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Cuomo’s vanity, arrogance and greed will be his undoing.
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. . . not to mention his ignorance.
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I wish I shared your optimism that this nation upholds democracy. It is nice to see kernels of hope – trying hard to share the optimism! But then I read a Robert Reich piece that confirms what I always feel these days – the loss of checks and balances of our democracy thanks to campaign finance reform going to the highest bidders:
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2015/03/10/the-conundrum-of-corporation-and-nation/
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The hackneyed evaluation system is about as replicable as roulette. Waste of precious taxpayer money.
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SUNY has run out of charters to grant for NYC, although it has around 70 remaining for upstate. Rather than raising the cap, maybe the deal should be to allow those charters to be used for NYC.
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Then, most likely, Eva Moskowitz would double the number of her “no excuses” military style schools in NYC. It would probably mean that she’d double her salary, too, pocketing $1M each year for treating children of color (and, increasingly, the progeny of dupes with high incomes) as if they are wild animals in need of draconian boot camps.
I don’t support charters, but if there is no choice but “choice,” then I’d rather see less greedy people have a shot at creating humane environments for ALL children.
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I don’t support charter either, Cosmic. I oppose raising the cap when there are still “charters to be named later”. I would like charter schools abolished.
Short of that happening, I wish for a moratorium on all new charters until stronger regs are imposed. I strongly oppose opening more on the upstate cities that are already over-saturated (Exhibit A “Albany”) and also prone to fraud (Exhibit B “Greater Works” in Rochester), and I vehemently oppose forcing them into the rural areas.
I suppose there are a few less greedy charter lovers in NYC and around the state who will follow the original spirit of the Charter School Act, that charters find innovative ways to reach the most difficult students to educate. Let those groups have NYSED’s and SUNY’s surplus charters. I won’t hold by breath that will happen, but one can hope.
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So now’s the time to really ramp up the pressure and keep this momentum going. We’ve got to encourage everyone in New York State to write, call, fax, tweet….smoke signal….whatever it is you can do to communicate with your legislators and encourage them to dig in.
As the Times article linked above noted, “But talks may be intense.” There’s a whole raft of schemes that Cuomo is pushing. And, like those monsters in Godzilla movies, just when you think he might be done he’ll pop up again.
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There was a HUGE rally Tuesday night in Suffolk County, the estimated attendance was 2,500. Even if cuomo gets what he wants, the public will not stop fighting for public education. I would not be surprised to see entire districts refuse to give the state tests. Local legislators are starting to hear us.
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Nysut now says the rally drew 3000 people. Yet Long Island paper, Newsday, did not cover the largest pro public education rally since cuomo’s budget proposals hit the news.
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Youtube has a video of the closing words from Patchogue’s rally. It’s titled David and Goliath, and the superintendent’s words are outstanding. ( I hope the link works, I’m not so good at posting them)
I hope Diane posts the video on its own.
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This is a very hopeful development… thanks for serving as a catalyst in this movement to preserve public schools!
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This is the precise moment when calls for “no backroom deals” and no negotiating need to be heard. Every single idea that Cuomo and Tisch articulated in regards to teacher evaluation, tenure, and the 3020A process are devastating to teachers in NY State and are absolute game changers. There can be no negotiating on any of them. This is the moment NYSUT has to play its cards and steel itself (themselves?) to respond if any of the Cuomo proposals make it through. The only victory for NY teachers is NONE OF THE ABOVE!!!!!!!!
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“they will increase charters (too much money behind them to be ignored), but they will not tie state aid to acceptance of the Governor’s agenda” — truer words were never spoken. By this same logic, the legislature will maintain excessive standardized testing, CCSS linked curricula, large scale data management systems, technology based reform initiatives, etc. etc. So the drumbeat of privatization goes on …. because there’s too much money behind them to be ignored. Cha ching! When the legislature funds public schools, be careful with their assertions that charter schools are public schools and how much $$ is actually being funneled to these charter schools.
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Remember:
None of the Regents, nor the Governor, sends or sent their children to public schools.
They all send their kids to schools that would never think of judging the quality of a teacher’s instruction on an increase in student performance on a single test that meets a statistical expectation, especially when, according to the American Statistical Association, only 1-14% of the variation among student test scores could be accounted for by what the teacher did as opposed to all the myriad factors over which teachers have no control. (If this sounds like lunacy to you, you’re right.)
Even more amazing is the implication here: that if the only acceptable tool to judge public school teacher performance is a score on a test on which the teacher’s instruction has little effect, then all the important work that teachers, in fact, do–teach students to do research, to develop interpretations of history, literature, current events and to write about them, to learn the glories of music, the arts, and community service, to provide adult guidance to children, to encourage them to take risks to build their moral and intellectual capacity–is of no interest to “reformers.” Ergo, “reformers” do not want what really matters most to be part of a public school teacher’s evaluation.
And, to top it all off, none of these reformers believes in their own method, since they would be outraged if the private schools to which they send their own children judged their children’s teachers in the way they insist public school teachers must be judged.
This approach to improving public education reminds me of the use of liar’s loans to stimulate the American and world economy. How’d that work out for ya?
There are degrees of everything–this level of cynicism is really impressive!
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Sometimes I wonder if the Regents, the Governor, and all the other *reformers” even know or care about what goes on in their kids’ private schools
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Gald to know that NY state legislature is smarter than a clueless governor who is riding on his father’s coattail(with a letter M, stands for Super Mario?)
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Unfortunately, Governor Cuomo still has a lot of power over how education policy will work out in the budget. NYS politics is like siege warfare.
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Great piece on Andy, charters and hedge funds from Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/11/new_york_hedge_funds_pour_millions
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At least the Daily News is publishing some strong opinion pieces – even if you have to scroll through their website to get to it….
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/hedge-fund-execs-money-charter-schools-pay-article-1.2145001
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