There have long been rumors that Cuomo didn’t pass the bar exam until his fourth attempt. Some have been repeated here. Casey Seller of the Albany Times-Union says it is a false rumor. She says the Governor passed on his first try.
I think many people believed the rumor because it seemed to explain why Cuomo is so hostile to teachers and wants to make their lives miserable.
So if the bar exam rumor is untrue, there must be another reason why the Governor doesn’t like teachers. Wonder why? Why is it he doesn’t like public schools? Why doesn’t he support separation of church and state? Why does he want to transfer money from public schools and give it to religious schools? Why does he want to give tax credits to the rich to subsidize private and religious schools?
What do you think? No rumors, please.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For me, it seems that Eva Moskowitz and her hedge fund backers represent the kind of money Cuomo believes he needs to attain higher office. Therefore, he will do anything to stay in her good graces, even though he should know that her record is abysmally poor and is based on being able to buy what she wants. The statistics concerning her “Success Academies” are too good to be true and may very well be an indication of her paying testing companies such as Pearson to get advance information, including questions and answers, in order for her students to be able to record higher scores.
LikeLike
I don’t believe Success Academy needs to get advance information to have their students do well on exams. What they do is very obvious if you look at data.nysed.gov and see what happens to the cohort of students from when their schools are established to the first testing grades and beyond. In short, in most of their schools with high poverty populations, a good number of students disappear over the years. Democracy Builders — a pro-charter group — just did a big study about this that was all but ignored in the media.
What can’t be ascertained from data.nysed.gov is what students are replaced by better students, which may very well ALSO happen. But you do certainly see large numbers who seem to disappear from the cohort during certain years. The total class size shrinks.
Except — and there is always an except — if you look at their first high income school – UWSA – which has 70% middle class and affluent students. Unlike the Harlem Success Academy schools in the very same district, UWSA added at least 18 students to their 3rd grade class (the first class to be tested). I say “at least”, because not only did the total number increase, but the number of African-American students decreased, so most likely it added even more than 18. Were any struggling students replaced by better ones? We can’t know, but we do know lots of new ones came in that year.
The only oddity in testing that seems unusual is that two charter schools — Success Academy and Leadership Prep Ocean Hill — had remarkably high 3rd grade math test results. By that I mean that not a single student — not one – at UWSA or LPOH scored below standards. They had a higher % of 4s than either Anderson or NEST+m, and far better than other g&t schools, even the other citywide schools. I would certainly like to know if both schools used the same prep material and where it came from.
LikeLike
Eva needs to address why her high performing students cannot be successful on the admission tests to NYC’s competitive high schools. I suspect she is using the Rhee plan for improving test outcomes!
LikeLike
Good pt. Memphis Louie it might be b/c admission tests are sent out to be corrected where Success Academy is one of the few schools allowed to correct their Math & ELA ‘in-house’.
LikeLike
No Checks & Balances, No Transparency, No State observations or Investigations…a DREAM for those who thrive on: It is too good to be true way of educating our children. THE implementation of the better mousetrap! The snake oil salesmen!
And, of course, shaming those who question the results – calling them racists, because they believe that POVERTY is related to achievement. NOT if you ONLY condition chanting kids with GRIT?
Back to Eva: there is too much smoke…
We have much evidence of how people lie with statistics.
We know too much about children, poverty, testing, education, GREED, LYING, SOCIOPATHS, sociology, and shysters who try to sell us that same swamp in Florida, year after year.
LikeLike
We advocate for a constituency which neither enriches his war chest nor votes.
LikeLike
I think the answer to your questions is simple, Diane: he’s a mean and nasty SOB. He takes pleasure out of grinding people into the dirt. He was like that as a teenager when he was known as the “hatchet man” for his governor-father. I think that is his psychological makeup, and he really can’t help himself. I’ve met several people who worked for him at various points in his career, and they ALL said they would never work for him again.
LikeLike
Truth be told, Catholic school families do not want government funding. It is being forced on us and we are not happy. Government funding requires us to be ruled by the government – we are no longer truly private . Our schools are being ruined by the common core!
LikeLike
So f-ing what he passed the bar exam on the first try. So did thousands of other people.
LikeLike
His mother was a teacher.
One could explore that further if others have facts.
That could explain such hatred.
Both sons, Chris & Andy have similar personalities….
LikeLike
Perhaps he is blinded by his religion. Perhaps he is a hardliner and sees things that are not Catholic as prone to sin. Perhaps these feelings are unconscious. I’m not trying to insult in anyway the Catholic religion. My closest friends are Catholic and my own mother was formerly a Catholic. It does however foster black and white thinking. Shades of gray are not tolerated. And to understand the complexity of education reform one needs to accept the complexity of the issues and seek solutions which tread gently on middle ground. His views are severe and seek to eliminate and destroy, much like a religious war.
LikeLike
As a Catholic and a public school teacher, I feel that I must disagree. To attempt to explain this governor’s severe views on education by pointing at religion, is at best short-sighted and unfair. I am amused to read about your explanation of my faith, and refer to Cuomo’s stance as being influenced to seek to eliminate and destroy, much like a religious war. I deeply resent your implication and snap assessment of this leader because of his Catholic upbringing. I am far from being a cheerleader for this governor. I bristle at each provocative advertisement and at every egregious insult to public school teachers that Cuomo is so fond of pitching. But I implore you, please don’t point your finger at merely one of perhaps many reasons for this leader to be as contentious and mean spirited as he is, and jump to quick conclusions. We have enough Catholic bashing and most of us are sick of it.
LikeLike
Cuomo likes political campaign contributions. Teachers are by and large members of the middle class. They are not in a position to donate much. Cuomo does the bidding of his masters.
LikeLike
Ed Koch’s assessment of Andrew Cuomo:
http://nypost.com/2013/01/12/ed-koch-called-gov-cuomo-a-schmuck-when-he-was-unable-to-congratulate-him-on-win-documentary/
LikeLike
Exactly!
That covers it for me!
Mayor Koch hit the nail on the head!
No hope that he will be anything else or different.
The Schmuck!
LikeLike
Thanks Mayor Koch…you said it for all!
LikeLike
I honestly believe he has been given this task- the biggest school system in the nation- by the bankers and corporate leaders- set NYC public schools on the road to privatization. This will give more control to the Powers That Be via profit taking, dumbing down the masses and weakening the last strong unions. If accomplished, Cuomo will be granted access to the primrose path to the presidency- he’ll be a ‘made man’ like all the recent presidents- hand picked and anointed. I don’t believe anything else can explain it adequately.
LikeLike
I have no idea what background he has, and I don’t give a rat’s bladder when/if/how often he passed the bar exam. The man is an insufferable cloaca.
LikeLike
Everything Cuomo does is for political expediency. Teachers have always been an easy target. It was just a matter of time before our turn for the firing squad came.
Cuomo actually does support separation of Church and State. He would like the Church to be so separate it disappears. He has even invited religious people to leave New York. Again, his “support” for parochial schools is merely political. He will stab them in the back once he gets what he wants, just like he did to the teachers union after his re-election. And NYSUT is STILL begging for scraps.
He knows that any money he gives to private and religious schools will never be enough to fund a real education for children of families who are not wealthy. They will be just as crippled WITH state aid as the public schools will be WITHOUT it.
The American Public School system was originally designed to form a docile citizenry of “commoners” who could be smart enough to work in the factories producing goods that they themselves would buy in order to help the rich grow richer. We’re upset because we are now seeing the beast reaching its fruition. Cuomo, like any other politician, knows how much power he can derive from this arrangement. The attainment of that power is his only motivation.
People like Cuomo love to use the word “reform” because it makes them sound like they want to fix things. They know there is nothing to fix; that the education system is actually doing what it was made to do, that is, utterly disable the majority of Americans. “You can’t fix what ain’t broke.” What Cuomo fears is that the people are beginning to realize this, and are stepping closer to the decision not to fix the beast, but to kill it and start anew. That would ruin him and all of his cronies across the nation.
But how do you kill the Beast of a Thousand Teats when it feeds so much of the state and national economy, agencies and corporations with its malicious milk? Like a metastasizing cancer, can it be destroyed without killing the patient?
I fear we have waited too long.
LikeLike
Cuomo is a double dealing, back stabbing, manipulating liar, so maybe he cheated on his own bar exam.
LikeLike
Can you prove your accusation?
LikeLike
Can you prove charters do a better job than public schools with the same populations? Can you prove Common Core is helping children? Can you prove merit pay works? Can you prove more testing is the way to help children become intelligent citizens? Can you prove teachers are the sole reason for a child’s success? Can you prove Pearson is a competent testing company?
A lot of us are looking for and waiting for proof, nowadays. Please, wait your turn.
LikeLike
The “double dealing, back stabbing, manipulating liar” part is all part of his public record for anyone with eyes to see. The “cheated on his own bar exam” part wasn’t an accusation, it was a “maybe” based on the evidence of his public career so far.
LikeLike
Can you disprove his accusation?
See Raj, two can play your childish game.
LikeLike
A sample:
http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/empty-promises-time-and-again-andrew-cuomo-fails-to-deliver/
http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/buffalo-news-editorials/cuomo-breaks-a-promise-by-halting-the-moreland-corruption-investigation-20140416
http://www.beaconstreets.com/post/72753464187/gov-cuomos-promises-are-bad-policy-although
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo late Monday rejected a bill that would have protected teachers from poor student scores on Common Core-based tests, six months after he himself negotiated and proposed it.”
http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/new-york/2014/12/30/cuomo-vetoes-common-core-bill/21042145/
“If you’ve been following along with our AIG Financial Products bonus coverage, you know that many AIGFP employees feel they got a raw deal from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. They claim that Cuomo okayed their bonuses and later stabbed them in the back for political gain when the bonuses became controversial. Cuomo, of course, denies he even knew about the bonuses.”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-did-andrew-cuomo-know-about-aig-bonuses-and-when-did-he-know-it-2009-4#ixzz3bjYvmxHU
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-did-andrew-cuomo-know-about-aig-bonuses-and-when-did-he-know-it-2009-4
http://www.actnowny.org/8934/gov-andrew-cuomo-r-ny-betrays-us-again-long-island-edition/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/andrew-cuomo-corruption/
http://nypost.com/2015/01/26/cuomo-on-edge-as-federal-corruption-probe-continues/
http://www.ibtimes.com/cuomo-officials-directed-state-loan-cuomo-donor-center-corruption-probe-1807476
http://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-investigation-looks-at-cuomo-and-moreland-commission-referrals-1407459680
LikeLike
I doubt if one can so easily facilitate cheating on the Bar exam. … It’s not impossible but perhaps highly improbable.
I am resigned to the fact that Cuomo might not have cheated at all and/or did pass on the first try.
I would also posit that Raj is among the most amusing writers to come along since Stephen King. It’s been a long time since I was spooked, repulsed, horrified, and entertained all in the same reading.
Raj, I defend you.
The rest of you should stop picking on poor, limited, non-actualized Raj who has never been in a teaching trench before with K-12.
Raj, just ignore them, and just keep on being you and writing. The rest of us will make some popcorn and hope we don’t bust a gut reading your latest absurd and juvenile thoughts . . . .
Pass the popcorn, please . . . .
LikeLike
He passed the exam in 1983. He was still young. I bet his brain was much more acute than today.
LikeLike
I was a horrible test taker and so was our daughter. But Cuomo may be a good test taker and he is so limited in his ability to understand those differences in others that he doesn’t understand that everyone isn’t like him. In fact, he expects everyone to be like him or they are losers to be swept aside.
LikeLike
Andrew Cuomo sat on President Clinton’s Presidential Council on Sustainability which began the process of implementing Agenda 21, the inventory and control of all resources including human capital. Data collection is an important aspect of the Common Core which is why he is adamant about surveillance, inventory and control.
Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) initiative divided the state into ten regions, giving power to unelected regional managers.
New York has spent $53 million on TV ads to promote its tax-free zones, called Start-Up NY. Yet the program in its first year produced just $1.7 million in investments and 76 jobs.
Start-Up NY allows businesses to move into tax-free zones on or near college campuses and pay no taxes for 10 years.
Andrew Cuomo has budgeted $150million to “restructure government” in New York State.
This year he’s proposing a $1.5 billion economic development contest that will pit seven upstate regions against each other. The three regions who submit the winning proposals for how they would use the money will each get $500 million. Almost immediately, the contest was dubbed Cuomo’s “Hunger Games.”
http://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/index.ssf/2015/03/andrew_cuomo_hunger_games_new.html
Opinion: Cuomo doesn’t just hate teachers. He hates the taxpayers and the people of New York.
LikeLike
Why couldn’t 7 regions each get ~$200 million for a proposal that met certain criteria? That would help employment, local economy in all those regions.
LikeLike
I liked this article for a slightly psychological explanation of his possible dislike for his mother — although his father comes out sounding worse. His childhood was also financially insecure. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/16/albany-chronicles But mainly I agree with those who say he is just an opportunist who wants to win. He hates thinking of any kind – only values action.
LikeLike
This attack on our public schools and our educators is all about Andrew Cuomo; nothing more, nothing less. It’s wasted energy to put any more thinking or speculation into it than that.
The people who loathe our teachers also detest the very idea of free, universal public education; some of these people are solely driven by extremist ideologies that are fervently opposed to the very concept of the public school.
Some are frustrated and angry that their well-crafted and well-funded plans to “tap into” the taxpayer funding for our schools have only yet produced a relatively small flow of public dollars into their own pockets when they clearly thought that by 2015 it would be more like a fire hose.
This group is the one funding—and thus driving—The Privatization Agenda. They have seemingly endless gobs of cash to bestow upon anyone who is willing to help them with their ultimate objective; a private, corporate takeover of our nation’s public schools.
And this is the group—A.K.A. “Wall Street” or “Hedge Fund Billionaires”—that has funded Andrew Cuomo’s campaigns so lavishly and to whom he could not be more pathetically obsequious.
And this is all we need to know to understand who Andrew Cuomo is and the motivation for his attack on teachers, parents, and our public schools.
LikeLike
Not rumor….let’s just say I know of someone who labored alongside the young Andrew Cuomo, before his devil horns had fully grown in. (Albany people are so afraid of this guy that they don’t want to have their names mentioned in the same breath with his, even years later.. he’s sort of like a mini-Voldemort.) The word is that Cuomo wasn’t an idiot….but he wasn’t especially intelligent either back in the day. I guess one could say he’s smart enough to know he’s not the brightest guy in the room.
Which, if you’re a nice person, well, you can certainly come to live with that fact. Actually, that realization growing up might help to make you a more empathetic person. We all have our strengths, of course.
But, as that bumper sticker succinctly puts it, “Mean People Suck”. And, because Andrew Cuomo apparently is a damaged, vindictive, mean human being he probably loathes everything that makes him feel inferior. (What did Machiavelli’s Prince say about despising the weak? That lesson is in school.)
I don’t know. I never met Andrew Cuomo. I applied to go to his New Year’s soiree five months ago. I’m still waiting for the call from Albany. (Not.) I really don’t like hating people this much. But this guy skeeves me out more than Nixon did. Hell, I see Chris Cuomo on TV and I even dislike him! And, what did HE do? He’s only Andrew’s kid brother. It’s like collateral hate. Not good.
But, you know, maybe there is something in the family’s genes. I always sort of chuckle to myself when I hear people reminiscing about Saint Mario of Cuomo. Yeah, I met Mario once when I was working as a reporter and we were waiting backstage at the old Concord Hotel. He helped me play a bit of a practical joke on someone -which was cool.
But make no mistake that Mario Cuomo had a significant vindictive streak, too. I happen to know of one local politician here who had to take a very LONG walk down a hotel hallway to a room where Mario proceeded to tear him a new one…..and that was only the start of his banishment.
Actually, one of the first political things I did when I got hired as a teacher was to do my bit in a letter writing campaign to Cuomo the Father. Mario had screwed New York teachers somehow and I can remember putting together this big letter of complaint. Such is politics.
But it is truly sad and demented when our children get damaged in the fray. Andrew Cuomo has taken vindictiveness to a new level, a new low. He seems to be a truly dangerous individual.
LikeLike
I thought this argument for vouchers, from the NY Lt Gov, was amazingly weak:
“There are roughly 4,500 public schools across the state – many of which are at capacity or overcrowded, and some are even utilizing trailers as classrooms. One hundred seventy-eight of those schools are failing, and many of them have been for 10 years or more.
Now imagine if the more than 400,000 students who are currently in charter or private schools – representing approximately 15 percent of the state’s student population – had to attend one of those at-capacity, overcrowded or failing public schools. Who benefits from that scenario? Surely not the public school students who would find classroom space and resources stretched even further.
The truth is that all schools – public, charter, parochial, private – deserve our support. That’s why the governor has proposed the Parental Choice in Education Act, to ensure that every student and their family are supported in some way by the state, no matter where they go to school.”
It’s a mess. Completely incoherent. She says the voucher program will help public schools because the donors will support after school programs in public schools. Religious school and charter school donors will now donate to public schools? What? When has that ever happened? I don’t think she believes this stuff herself- SHE can’t even defend it.
http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/05/lt_gov_kathy_hochul_private_schools_also_deserve_state_support_commentary.html#incart_2box_opinion_index.ssf
LikeLike
My guess is that Cuomo sees that: More people (those who PAY taxes) are moving out NY than are moving into NY. Even retiring teachers (with tax-free pensions if they stay in NY) are leaving NY in favor of states with lower taxes and costs of living! NY is the most heavily unionized state in the nation, which means it has the highest number of pension obligations. Perhaps Cuomo believes that if he can get more kids into private, charter, religious, online or homeschool situations, it’ll help solve the pension funding problem.
LikeLike
There is a unique aspect of freely elected school boards. They cannot always be controlled by powerful politicians. In St. Louis, Mayor Slay, who is very successful in his own elections, used to have control of the school board, simply by endorsing who voters should vote for. One year, in the wake of such stupidity as hiring Roberti to do the double duty of being superintendent, and turning the school around…..at a salary of 500,000 dollars, the voters rebelled and elected good people who were not going to put up with that sort of krap. No problem……within two years, with the help of a couple of billionaires, he put the voters in their place…..an illegal takeover of st. Louis schools, and a three person appointed board. Last summer, you printed a piece from Stanton Lawrence, former superintendent of Normandy in Missouri, which talked about some of the actions of the appointed state board, and the appointed commissioner…..he characterized it, accurately I thought, as borderline criminal….the ends justified the means….disenfranchise black voters…take away their right and more importantly their responsibility to try to deal with their public education problems. Cuomo is an extreme example, but keep an eye on the power factor…….it can kick into high gear when people do not vote for the right people…..this right to vote thing, especially for minorities where unions are a factor……must be limited.
LikeLike
The Cuomo family is like the Bush and Clinton families.
Recurring nightmares that will not go away.
LikeLike
Mommy Mathilde was a teacher in the district I attended as a child, but I entered as a kindergartner about two years after she left to become a full time mommy.
Baby Andrew probably hates mommy. Daddy was never around due to his career, and maybe mommy made excuses for that.
Mommy was a teacher.
Therefore, Baby Andrew hates teachers.
Infant terriblé all the way; case closed.
LikeLike
He is being bribed by donors. It really isn’t hard to figure out. Lots of these fake “Democrats,” including Obama and Duncan, are on the take. They don’t care about democracy or its institutions at all.
LikeLike
In re: Cuomo, Obama, Duncan, and any other Democrat you consider “fake”, I can honestly say that I’ve never met a Democrat who doesn’t like his/her profits or donations as much as any Republican.
LikeLike
I think Cuomo’s unique style of loathsomeness (after all, he seems to be not just disliked, but despised, by just about everyone who’s ever come in contact with him) is based on a combination of things:
– He’s an unpleasant looking man, and you get a strong sense that his ugliness is a projection of his character. As has been said (I’ve seen it attributed to Coco Chanel and Nelson Algren), “At twenty you have the face you’re born with; at fifty you have the face you deserve.”
– The Reptilian portion of his brain, where fear, aggression, avarice, power-seeking and vindictiveness reside, must be abnormally large.
– Definite Mommy and/or Daddy Issues.
– Last but not least, his political interests dovetail perfectly with those of the education reform industrial complex and its various venture capital funders.
Finally and separately, as others have pointed out, people have to give a rest to the “How Andrew must have broken his (sainted) father’s heart!” thing. I don’t know and don’t especially care what father and son’s personal relationship was like, but they were politically much closer than usually acknowledged.
Mario Cuomo’s reputation as a strong progressive is based almost entirely on one speech he gave, at the 1984 Democratic convention, which was also the last time the Democratic Party nominated a traditional New Deal Democrat. Other than that, Mario was a centrist Democrat who bragged about building more prison cells than any Governor in NY history, and passed repressive and racist drug war legislation. Probably the only truly liberal thing he admirably held to and paid a political price for was his opposition to the death penalty. Mostly, his time in office was congruent with the center-right politics of his time, and he was much closer to being a Clintonesque, Third Way Democrat than people are willing to admit.
Also, after leaving elective office, he wasn’t always careful about the company he kept, signing his name to ads from the very icky Peterson Foundation, whose entire reason for existence is to undermine support for and privatize Social Security.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/mario-cuomo-was-not-the-liberal-beacon-hes-made-out-to-be
LikeLike
.?? What possible connection could there be between not passing the bar exam and “hating” teachers? Why would any major political choices be motivated by quirky personal neuroses? These are just distractions from the real issues.
LikeLike
I fully believe that Cuomo, like Chris Christie (and Cory Booker who shares the same donors with CC tho one is a Rino and one is a Dino…there is no difference between the parties any longer – look to Dino Obama and his blatant destruction of public schools) are beholden to their donors, who do, indeed, run the world. When Citizens United is decided by our Judges to be the law of the land — where the 1% can donate as much as they like, and still hide behind super PACs, and buy their politicians into office – – what the rest of us want doesn’t matter.
Cuomo, and the rest, will do the bidding of their masters. The rest of us can eat cake.
LikeLike
The words, “Let them eat cake.” was propaganda leaked by the Jacobins to make people angry enough to revolt and overthrow the French monarchy. Marie may not have uttered those words at all but they served a purpose for those who were looking for a particular result.
At this point our politicians can say whatever their handlers want them to say….it is quite meaningless to anyone who has been paying attention.
LikeLike
He finally passed on his fifth attempt
LikeLike