It is a beautiful sunny day on eastern Long Island, a perfect day for Governor Andrew Cuomo to mingle with the rich and powerful hedge fund managers and moguls who underwrote his campaign. He is raising money for yet another campaign, only months after his re-election. If you can afford to pay $5,000, you too might join the fun and share the canapés. The hedge funders have been his most reliable allies, and he repaid them by giving free rein to the charter industry, especially in New York City, where Mayor de Blasio had threatened to curtail their expansion. Cuomo derailed de Blasio’s plans, showing his disdain for mayoral control of the schools when the mayor doesn’t agree with him.
Ah, but what is this? Uninvited guests! The Hedge Clippers, labor activists who object to Cuomo’s love-the-rich policies and charter schools. You can read about it in the Wall Street Journal.
Busloads of labor activists and liberal operatives are headed Saturday to a place where they won’t be welcome: A fundraiser for Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a sprawling estate in the Hamptons.
Mr. Cuomo has become the primary target of the group calling itself the Hedge Clippers that protests the governor’s policies and his ties to the wealthy.
Their rise comes as Mr. Cuomo contends with a growing rift within the Democratic Party between his centrist approach and the liberal base, much of which doesn’t like his cultivation of support from Republicans and many in business.
The target of the Hedge Clippers this weekend is a $5,000-a-person East Hampton event in honor of the governor hosted by Daniel Loeb, a top hedge-fund manager based in New York City. Mr. Loeb is also a political fundraiser who, like Mr. Cuomo, has sparred with teachers unions and championed charter schools.
The showdown has tony communities in the Hamptons slightly amused and slightly on edge.
“Dan Loeb is thick-skinned and relishes a fight,” said Euan Rellie, an investment banker who summers in the Hamptons and is a friend of Mr. Loeb’s. “But no successful business person wants to be seen as a remote billionaire living with pitchforks at the hedges. Who would want that?”
The activists plan to fly aerial banners over the grounds of the Loeb mansion as Mr. Cuomo’s donors nibble canapés and sip cocktails on the lawn.
To be sure, Mr. Cuomo is hardly the only politician to be met with protesters at some of his events. But the Hedge Clippers are trained largely on one politician, and their pockets are deep.
Funded by the American Federation of Teachers, the group has been galvanizing liberal activists in Albany, Washington, D.C., and New York City since February.
“The larger point is the governor of New York should listen to everybody, not just the billionaires in the Hamptons,” said Michael Kink, a former state Senate aide who now runs a union-backed activist group and said he planned to attend the protest.
Multiple hedge-fund managers who declined to speak for attribution said they appreciated Mr. Cuomo’s opposition to new taxes and saw him as a politician interested in compromise.
They said they believed that charter schools were a better alternative to some of the city’s troubled schools. Many hedge funders identify as libertarians, said people in their industry, and don’t support a particular party.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“But the Hedge Clippers are trained largely on one politician, and their pockets are deep.
Funded by the American Federation of Teachers, the group has been galvanizing liberal activists in Albany, Washington, D.C., and New York City since February.”
Typical portrayal of the AFT as having super deep pockets–as if the billionaire funders are victims of intimidation by teachers, even as the billionaires and their political shills continue their campaigns to abolish public schools, bit-by-bit, bill-by-bill, tax cuts galore for the 1%.
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Yes –union pockets are actually very shallow –when compared to their enemies’. I’ve read that corporations outspend unions 15:1 on political races. Be truthful, NYT! Afflict the comfortable, not the afflicted.
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Perhaps it is really a going away party. Looking forward to his indictment later this summer.
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The hedge funders said “they believed that charter schools were a better alternative to some of the city’s troubled schools.” The hedge fund crowd does not seem to understand that through the process of selective admissions, the charter school is a viable alternative only for those that cut the muster. How is a selective charter school a better solution for all? Those students with the most needs remain in a more impoverished public school because money has gone to the charter. Is this how a democratic system should work?
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It is worse than you think. Success Academy – on whose board Daniel Loeb sits — has DROPPED any lottery priority for at-risk kids zoned for failing public schools. Instead, the only lottery priority is for the lucky students who live in the district where they are opening their newest schools. We aren’t supposed to notice that they keep opening more and more schools in very wealthy neighborhoods and not surprisingly, many of the newest schools have primarily AFFLUENT students, not at-risk kids who don’t have better alternatives. There are already two Success Academy elementary schools in District 2 in Manhattan — which is one of the wealthiest districts not just in NYC, but in the country — and the only reason there aren’t 3 is because some intrepid parents embarrassed Success and the SUNY Charter Institute last October when they showed how many empty seats there were in those District 2 schools they already had, while meanwhile there were long wait lists for their one school in poor Bronx districts (where they were NOT looking to open more schools). Technically, SUNY has approved the third school in District 2 because the withdrawal was too late! So perhaps Success WILL open its 3rd school – making sure the children of very affluent families in midtown Manhattan can all attend her school while the students in the Bronx will just have to wait since the one school (or no school) in their district is full and somehow wealthy District 2 needs a third Success Academy school before the Bronx districts get their first or second one. Hmmm…..I guess Daniel Loeb REALLY cares about those at-risk kids, doesn’t he? I wonder what he thinks of all the wealthy parents who keep telling us how much they love getting a private school experience for free when they get to send their kids to Success Academy since they just happen to be able to afford to live in District 2! Nice of him to spend his money helping to educate so many of the children of other wealthy folks.
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I like how the WSJ describes Cuomo’s approach as “centrist”. So a centrist democrat is a democrat who cultivates Republican support, is anti-Union and anti-teacher, and favors the privatization of public education. Which is why Bernie should have our support.
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I wonder how many of their invited guests are profiting from the education business market, especially charter schools.
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It’s not really about profiting with many of those people, who have enough billions to last them 1000 lifetimes. It is about keeping their taxes low by justifying the slashing of public school budgets. See, Eva Moskowitz, their hero, keeps telling politicians that small class sizes don’t matter – large class sizes for at-risk kids are perfectly fine! (I am not making this up.) And she keeps telling politicians that those schools don’t need more funding — they have PLENTY of funding! See, the problem is that those public schools aren’t following her special Success Academy recipe to teach those kids with less funding. If only they used Success Academy’s teachers, every child in those failing schools would become scholars without needed a dime more in funding.
The irony is that the NY Times and other journalists have let her get away with spouting such nonsense — if the things that Eva Moskowitz claims came out of the mouth of Sarah Palin, they would actually take the time to fact check the outrageous claims and point out the “Pinocchios” in them. The first Success Academy schools in poor neighborhoods had horrific suspension and attrition rates because their program didn’t work for so many students and no one was there to say “hey, maybe if so many at-risk kids are leaving, you should acknowledge that your system isn’t even working for the at-risk kids with the MOST motivated parents, so you might stop bashing the schools that do teach those kids instead of claiming that they should be able to do it with large class sizes and no money. ”
But no one has dared to say that to her, and when Success Academy realized that so many of the at-risk kids (with motivated parents!) in their schools couldn’t be educated in their system, they simply dropped priority for them! And proceeded to look to new neighborhoods where lots of affluent students with college educated parents lived. It’s truly a shame that Daniel Loeb’s millions are giving lots of those affluent students a private school education while the truly at-risk kids are the victims of the lies promoted by a charter school that does NOT have a secret recipe for failing schools but pretends over and over that it does. Their schools will never see an increase in funding because Eva Moskowitz has “proven” those schools don’t need it.
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Why look for “affluent students”? Because higher income =higher test scores.
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Higher income = higher test scores AND higher income = less expensive to educate since most of those children have college-educated parents who speak English at home and have begun their children’s education long before they enter Kindergarten.
Everyone knows that it is less expensive to educate higher-income students than at-risk students if you KEEP the at-risk students who might struggle. If you get rid of the expensive at-risk students who don’t “fit” (meaning they won’t achieve good test scores), you can probably save lots of money, giving you more to spend on marketing to the affluent students.
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Can’t make this stuff up. It’s for real and most gross.
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I am almost afraid to look at this kind of think since Citizens United came out. Best government money can buy hardly describes it any more.
In so very many ways I fear for the country and planet my children and grandchildren will inherit. I write letters and have even taken to the streets a few times when my health allowed me to do so but it is discouraging at times.
BUT
“Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.”
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