Today, the New York Board of Regents will vote to approve the harsh and punitive educator evaluation plan that Governor Andrew Cuomo rammed through the Legislature last spring as part of a budget bill.
In doing so, the Regents will abandon their Constitutional authority over education policy. The New York State Constitution grants full control over education to the Board of Regents. It grants none to the Governor. The Governor does not appoint a single member of the 17-member Board of Regents. The State Legislature selects them. The Governor does not appoint the state Commissioner of Education. That is the job of the Regents.
Today the Regents will approve Cuomo’s plan to tie 50% of educator evaluations to student test scores. The Governor’s plan was shaped in his office, without benefit of hearings, public discussion, public debate, or expert testimony.
The Regents have the power to reassert their Constitutional authority. But they are weak. They will fold to the will of a Governor whose determination to rule is greater than the Regents’ commitment to the State Constitution. Or to the children, or to the educators, or to the best interests of education in New York.
Parents have been ignored throughout this charade of the Governor flexing his political muscle. They will have a chance to be heard next spring, when the tests are administered. More students will opt out, more than the 220,000 who refused the tests in 2015. Will it be 300,000? 400,000? This is parents’ only means to be heard. They will be heard.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
No disputing that public education is where we see the rapid demise of democracy and the rise of one-person rule.
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More nullification; stealth coup continues step by step; constitutional rights and rules being abandoned in favor or central undemocratic authority which favors private sector over public. The right-wing has been on a nullification campaign for several decades now, very effectively gridlocked Congress so federal oversight and intervention where it’s most needed–environmental, racism, workers rights, women’s rights, etc.–are paralyzed. The private sector loots a feeble but wealth-loaded public sector, transferring assets to its own hands.
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Good observation.
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Exactly, the public sector has to stop this wholesale fleecing and refuse to turn our tax monies to enrich private agendas. When they can’t get public monies, all this interest in the kids will be over to everyone but the teachers and parents.
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Perhaps we should turn our energies to campaign reform?
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Campaign reform will be resisted until it becomes a non-issue (when ANY candidate can more or less be self funded or get the baubles of campaign promotion provided by the same “gov’t” they seel to lead)
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I don’t know how these people will sleep at night knowing that the livelihood of teachers who have gone to school for years and have worked for years (many of them) will be evaluated in this unfair system. It boggles the mind.
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They don’t sleep at night, they sleep during the day.
Didn’t you remember that VAMpires sleep during daylight hours?
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Bingo.
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Can anyone tell me if their NY school got involved in protest letters and phone calls? If so, was it also done in NYC schools? I haven’t seen any emails from Mulgrew about this which makes me wonder if the Union did anything to fight this?
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Haven’t seen any emails from NYSUT or other state advocacy organizations about this. It doesn’t appear that teachers in my area have taken much action against this proposal either, at least publicly.
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NYSUT has made it easy for teachers to send Emails to their local Regents. My local union has put the word out to our membership to send a message. It is hard to gage who has and who hasn’t followed through. We definitely need to be better organized!!
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I was pushing, writing, talking, convincing. Unions have been waiting until there’s LOTS of citizen action to lead from behind. Mulgrew? Who’s that? Is he somebody important in the protection/promotion when it comes to a clever governor? I remember someone hopping and spitting on an AFT stage about how the common core was “ours” and he wasn’t going to let someone take our standards away.
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“The Regents have the power to reassert their Constitutional authority. But they are weak.”
No, they are powerful and they have chosen to exercise that (ruthless) power over children.
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..and over teachers
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Unfortunately a majority of the Regents agree with the Tyranagov- Rex. Perhaps we nee dot also place the blame on the legislature who appointed them.
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YESYESYES!…Time for a legislative clean slate.
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How about including in our pro-public-ed mission: get the money out? Campaign reform!
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The AFT and NEA have played so “nice” with the privatizers that it’s hard to tell one from the other. Why any bargaining agency would agree to allowing some mysterious formula be part of teachers’ evaluation is beyond me? I know all about the Gates’ money and the “seat at the table” explanation. Now you see what Cuomo can do. He can tweak and play with a bogus formula that the unions accepted. It is important to understand consequences of actions. For Randi it is embarrassing as she is a lawyer, and she basically signed a contract without reading the fine print.
Here’s a very good link in which Mercedes Schneider tries to make sense of why the unions are supporting the CCSS and VAM. https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/nea-aft-common-core-and-vam/
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There are March 2014 news articles where Weingarten states AFT will no longer accept Gates Foundation money for its Innovation Fund. Does AFT still accept GF $ for anything else? Where is NEA on accepting GF$?
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Her late move is sort of like locking the barn door after the horses have run away. To acquiesce on such an important issue without fully realizing the consequences for your membership is either naive or complicit.
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Exactly.
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The only thing thats even remotely shocking is that some people are shocked or aghast at this.
Its been clear for some time and was deeply predictable. It barely rises to the level of news. It was and has been a given.
This type of stuff will not be corrected by letter writing campaigns to representatives, or phone calls or rallies.
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You are absolutely correct NYSTEACHER. Time to look to Seattle and Chicago.
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NYS TEACHER,
You speak as an Albany insider. What should beleaguered parents and teachers DO? you say letters aren’t enough, but what is? Certainly, no one is telling these folks how to respond. Forget NYSUT or the PTA; they’ve been bought by Gates. When government does not listen to the people, when Opt Out is all parents have, and when teachers’ unions have abandoned teachers, what can be done?
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Disgraceful and these types of elite decision making, with no input from the public is becoming the norm. I say the public needs to stop it now! OPT OUT of this corrupt system. Let’s do it nationwide. They got it twisted, we hold the power, not the oligarchy of greed that has infested public education.
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Simple Observation of National PAC Donations(data from https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php)
#4 PAC Donor NEA $88MIL DEM $3MIL REP
#6 PAC Donor AFT $68MIL DEM $.3MIL REP
What Party is Cuomo?
Why are you surprised?
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They are also allowing NYSED to tie the NYS tests to indicators for schools in receivership. Basically any school under 95% will not be able to meet that goal. So we are saying that 180+ days of school boil down to six days of useless testing. Charming to see how we toss public schools under the bus.
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It leaves them with a constant supply of the “bottom 5%,” and you will always have a bottom 5%. It will permit a steady supply to charters.
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Try looking at Cuomo’s behavior this way, testing of this kind is his political tool to shame, guilt and sacrifice teachers and learners – it’s legally accepted medieval barbarism.
Demand Cuomo show the evidence that suggests testing and barbarism of this nature works to improve education or a learner’s educational acumen…yeah, there is none! And what Cuomo can claim with no evidence we can dismiss with the same.
Our society and education in particular is sick from being run by lawyers. Get educated, please look up the history of lawyers, the rule of law and the notion of justice going back to the god, Ma’at….it came from religion.
Lawyers are society’s priests. Cuomo’s a lawyer and like most lawyers, their belief in the methodology of shaming, guilting and sacrificing people is not good for education or society but lines their pockets with money running this “protection from evil education scam.”
Simply, testing of this nature is a sacrificial witch hunt, which historically is what priests and lawyers do. Until we in education and science shine the light on lawyer’s “sacrificial” behavior and their obsolete knowledge and throw these under-educated sacrificers out of education, there can be no sound education in this country. Period!
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If the Opt Out movement becomes a tool to force schools into receivership, then it will be turning parents own voices against them – particularly if non-participation equates to a failure for the school.
Then they’ll be able to say that parents are allowed to opt out…just be aware if too many do we’ll take your school away from you?
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Let us remember that the NYS Opt-out movement is dominated by middle-& upper-middle-class suburban schools which do not depend on Title I funds for solvency. Lots & lots more of them to be tapped & produce double the # of Opt-outs this school year. These schools can bring Cuomo’s & Regents’ policies down. You go, NYS Opt-Out!!
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Unfortunately a majority of the Regents agree with the Tyranagov- Rex. It seems to me we must also place the blame on the legislators who appointed them.
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Why do we need the Regents anymore? What is their role if they give their power to the governor?
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You are so right, Anthony. To hell with them.
The NYS Regents Board is elected by the state legislatures to 5-yr terms: they are the licensing and accreditation body that sets standards for schools operating in New York State, private and public, from pre-kindergarten through professional and graduate school, as well as for the practice of a wide variety of professions. They appoint the NYS Commioner of Ed. What a huge public trust!
But. Despite a govtl set-up dating from 150 yrs ago, they have proven themselves in recent decades to be completely susceptible to partisan politicization by party politics. They have proven unworthy of the public trust.
When I grew up in NYS in the ’50’s-’60’s, NYS & CA were at the top of the heap for state ed, qualitatively, by virtue of stats like %hs grads, SAT scores, caliber of college admissions. To get a Regents’ Diploma, I had to pass tests in each of five subjects. Regents’ exams were then created & vetted by a panel of top NYS educators. Each question on each exam had to be field-tested for three years to appear on the exam.
How the mighty (incl CA since Prop 13 & its once-free state college system) have fallen!
Today NYS Regents have sold their fine exams down the river in exchange for whatever questionable exam scheme the NYS gov’r/ legislature is peddling. Today PARCC, tomorrow something else, all tied into a questionable VAM scheme which is among the farthest-rightwing in the country despite the voters’ support of the Dem party. NYS Regents bought into Common Core & spent untold dollars creating the execrable EngageNY modules to shut the mouths of their K-12 teachers, encouraging them to give up academic freedom & teach the Core, lesson plan -by – lesson plan, the new-NYS way.
I might hesitate, thinking what about the fine SUNY system overseen by the Regents… but Cuomo’s ed-reform plan is clear, as is the neoliberal Obama/Duncan plan to continue this travesty into higher ed., & Cuomo follows their playbook. He has the Regents on board & another 3 yrs to go.
So I’m w/you, toss out the NYS Regents system.
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