Charters Outspend Us, While We Spend Millions Praising Cuomo

It kind of freaks me out to read that Eva Moskowitz and her reformy BFFs have outspent union on lobbying. And by quite a bit, too:

In all, labor groups and their key allies on education issues spent $8.3 million on political activity in 2015. Charter schools and their influential lobbying arms spent a little over $9 million, and tax credit advocates, $5.7 million, according to the lobbying and campaign finance reports.

So they're outspending us on two fronts. First, on charters, which is a great way of getting public money into private hands. They have great commercials, telling us to support the noble and principled Andrew Cuomo as he struggles to fire all those crappy unionized public school teachers. After all, the test scores are down, and that's what matters. Who cares if the tests are all new and we've set the cut scores to make everyone fail? That's not in the commercial, so no one knows it anyway.

The second front, of course, is the tax credits that will pay for John King to send his kids to a Montessori school, thus sidestepping the awful programs and tests he's imposed on everyone else. And if you want to send your kid to that school, well, that's fine as long as you can pony up the difference. This is another great way to help rich people have more money to invest, always a priority for the politicians they've bought, like Cuomo and King.

Now I've watched NYSUT and UFT celebrate for the last two year that we didn't get this tax credit/ back door voucher program. While they didn't achieve anything good, at least they've put off one bad thing for another year. Problem, of course, is that every time you cut off one reformy head, another grows in its place. Last year, for example, they didn't get the tax credits, but they did get a teacher evaluation system that's even worse than the one we have now, and we did take away the right of unions to negotiate much of it. Now that we have that, and Michael Mulgrew has thanked the Heavy Hearts Assembly for it, they can push even harder for the tax credit.

What really bothers me, though, considering that unions have spent all those millions, is that we've spent two or three of them on glitzy commercials congratulation Andrew Cuomo for coming to his senses on education. Unfortunately, it's plain that while Cuomo gives lip service to change, things are fundamentally the same. If you teach above grade 8, things haven't changed at all. And giving kids unlimited time to torture themselves with developmentally inappropriate tests was not precisely a victory either.

If you think Cuomo is a friend of education, you need look no further than his insistence that his idiotic tax cap be adhered to. Schools are allowed to raise their budgets by a whopping 0.12% this year, and no matter how high inflation gets it's capped at 2%. This comes from a man who musters the audacity to label himself a "student lobbyist." I listened to current NYSUT leaders discuss all the clever ways they'd get around the cap, and thus far they've failed to deliver, instead opting to spend member dollars telling the world what a swell guy Andy Cuomo turned out to be.

It's time for UFT and NYSUT leadership to get out of the ass-kissing, seat-at-the-table, Cuomo-praising business and start advocating for not only those of us who they ostensibly represent, but our students as well.

You MUST Vote Tomorrow

I don't think I've made it a great secret that, along with Diane Ravitch and others, I support Howie Hawkins for Governor. Cuomo is an ogre, an abomination, a bizarro version of his dad. He's said public schools are a monopoly that needs to be broken. He's taken money from DFER, from charters, and shows no evidence that he's actually thought about anything except which side would give him the most cash.

His Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, opposes the Triborough Amendment that kept our contract in place even as Bloomberg stubbornly refused to grant us the compensation increases he'd granted virtually everyone else. He supports vouchers, and has criticized Cuomo for not passing tax credits for those who attend private schools. Despite his lip service to being a public education supporter, no one could support public education and have such policies.

Howie Hawkins is a working person, and not only supports working people, but also speaks in favor of working teachers. In fact, his running mate is a former teacher. I realize he's not likely to win, but we'll be strengthening the Green Party and giving it better ballot placement by giving it as many votes as possible. Given the Working Families Party has sold out working families by suppporting corporate Cuomo instead of brilliant Zephyr Teachout, the Green Party is the only option for those of us who really believe that working people deserve a fair shake.

I will never, ever vote for another anti-public education candidate again. The first time Barack Obama ran, I voted for him despite reservations. He proved my reservations were not only well-founded, but not nearly strong enough. He took the odious education policies of GW Bush and pushed them into overdrive. The second time he ran, I voted Green. It was not enough, as people argued, that Obama was less odious than Romney. I can't support people anymore simply because they make me vomit less copiously than their opponents. I have no idea why Americans, the majority of whom don't vote at all, accept such miserable choices.

The first time Cuomo ran, he ran on a platform of going after unions. As a lifelong Democrat, I find it amazing that Democrats can run on such platforms. You're left wondering who hates you less, candidate A or candidate B. That's not enough of a choice.

But whatever you think, and whatever you choose, you need to make your voice heard. You may listen to me or not, but you need to get off your ass and vote tomorrow. We are role models and it's unacceptable for us to tell our kids we don't give a damn who controls their schools or makes decisions about their lives.

I always leave a few minutes early and vote before I go to work. Please take the time and do it too. Don't tell folks like Andrew Cuomo know you are nobody and will tolerate anything, because that's precisely what he'd like to hear, and precisely the message you give when you fail to vote.

Give Up the Ghost on Andy, Randi

Governor Cuomo uttered the words "public school monopoly" to the Daily News editorial board. This is an extremist statement, and I usually hear it from fanatical ideologues who care little or nothing about how important public education is. The thing these people have in common is a desire to dismantle it.

Of course, monopoly applies to businesses, not public services. You will never hear Scott Walker complain about a police monopoly because when the people rise up against him with torches and pitchforks he depends on the police to protect him. That's why, when a demagogue like Walker eviscerates collective bargaining and union for teachers, he leaves it in place for police. After all, if you're Scott Walker, you don't want some disgruntled police officer to say, oops, I'm sorry governor that the peasants have climbed over the fence and dragged you to justice.

AFT President Randi Weingarten dismisses it as campaign rhetoric, and has apparently taken the extreme step of responding with a strongly worded letter. Actually, we have no idea whether it's really strongly worded since the letter is not public. Nonetheless, a letter was written, a stamp was affixed to it, and an official government representative is likely dispatching it to our esteemed governor even as we speak.

Rob Astorino, Triborough Amendment opponent, supporter of vouchers and tax incentives that would weaken if not erase public education, opponent of abortion and marriage rights, saw fit to write a hollow and insincere letter saying he supported teachers. After all, as I frequently hear from Astorino supporters, his wife is a teacher. That's like saying Cuomo is sincere in his women's party line because his mother is a woman. In fact, if you want to go all the way on that, his ex-wife is a woman, and his girlfriend Sandra Lee is a woman too (even though she cooks things that women and other humans ought not to eat).

Astorino supporters I know offer vague anecdotes. Rob is a swell guy, they say. He would never do bad things. Even though he writes about dismantling protections and benefits for public employees, he probably doesn't mean it. Hey, people can change, and I don't need any stinking evidence they have. And just because Scott Walker does fundraisers for Rob doesn't mean they have anything in common. So what if Rob thinks Andrew Cuomo's crippling tax cap doesn't go far enough? For all we know he doesn't even mean it. After all, politicians lie all the time.

Randi appears to take a similar message from Cuomo's you can all go to hell sentiment. She says it's campaign rhetoric. When Cuomo says he knows teachers don't like being judged by junk science but he's going to make things even worse it's probably just loose talk. So what if he takes suitcases from cash from DFER and eviscerates mayoral control by more or less giving carte blanche to Eva Moskowitz? So what if he not only participates in but also helps initiate Eva's Albany demonstration?

Randi is absolutely right when she says Astorino is a poor alternative. But it's clear she will not use the same terms to condemn Cuomo. It's also a very good bet Cuomo will win a second term. After all, our union leadership pretty much made sure the most effective challenger who was not insane, Zephyr Teachout, did not win the Working Families line. 

Randi says NYSUT will go after Cuomo if he follows through. That's fine, but the time for NYSUT to go after Cuomo was at the Working Families Convention. Unfortunately NYSUT is entirely a subsidiary of the loyalty-oath-loving UFT Unity Caucus and would not dream of opposing Cuomo without their OK, even though Revive NYSUT explicitly promised they opposed him when campaigning.

So here's my open request to Randi Weingarten. Let's stop kowtowing to faux-Democrats who are bought and paid for by our enemies. Cuomo ran for his first term by saying he'd go after unions. That was when I decided, for the very first time, to vote Green. After all, who needs a Democrat who will go after unions? Isn't that what Republicans are for?

I will not vote for any more anti-public education candidates again, ever. Sorry Andy. Sorry, second-term Barack. And if Hillary spouts such bilge, then a pox on her house too. Let's stop pretending these people are our friends. In fact, let's work to see them unemployed as fervently as they work to see us unemployed.

I'm voting for public education supporter Howie Hawkins for Governor on Tuesday. I urge you to join me. And Randi, if you still vote in New York, I urge you to join me too.

On Astorino--Seeing the Forest for the Trees

There's not a whole lot of controversy over the fact that our esteemed Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is pretty much a loathsome reptile. After all, he's maintained a Gap Elimination Adjustment over public schools while concurrently imposing a tax cap that's made it almost impossible to compensate for lost funds. He's called himself a student lobbyist, but supports giving no votes to school budgets more weight than yes votes. And he circumvented NYC mayoral control when it appeared the mayor was no longer going to kowtow to Eva Moskowitz.

Perhaps it should be no surprise that on Twitter I see a few working teachers flocking to Cuomo's GOP opponent, Rob Astorino, because they think he's an improvement. Granted, Astorino opposes Common Core. I watched him speak to a group in Comsewogue about that. But Tea Party stalwarts, like Scott Walker, also oppose it. So if you're going to support Astorino, you have to look a little more deeply before you assume he's supportive of public schools. I mean, if that were the case, why would teacher union public enemy number one (or at least close, as there are so many nowadays) Scott Walker be raising money for him?

For one thing, Astorino opposes the Triborough Amendment. This is very important to NYC teachers, who just went 6 years without a contract, not to mention Buffalo teachers, who are still without one after a decade. The Triborough Amendment mandates that existing contracts remain in force until and unless they are renegotiated. In Astorino's NY Post op-ed, he suggests this gives us no motivation to negotiate. Its repeal or "reform" would certainly cripple our ability to bargain collectively, and this places Astorino sqaurely in Scott Walker territory. And for those who complain the Post piece is from 2012, here's Astorino challenging Triborough in April 2014. He also supports changing work rules and reducing pension benefits, according to that piece. Could he be alluding to eliminating collective bargaining, like his BFF Scott Walker did in Wisconsin?

It's pretty well-known that Astorino supports charters. I haven't heard quite as much about his support for vouchers and tax incentives for contributions to private schools. This is clearly a man who supports privatization rather than public schools. I'm seeing a right-wing GOP Tea Party guy here. And as for Cuomo's tax cap, Astorino not only supports it, but in fact does not think it goes far enough. And he's "cautiously supportive" of anti-tenure lawsuits.

Several people have commented to me both here and on Twitter that Astorino's wife is a teacher. They say he's a great guy. I watched the documentary Journeys with George and went away persuaded that GW Bush was a great guy too. I'm afraid that did not mitigate his positions. There are teachers who support Astorino, and I don't doubt that his wife is one of them. But Astorino as governor will hurt most of us, as well as those we teach. As far as I'm concerned, this real Republican not only represents no improvement over faux-Democrat Andrew Cuomo, but is potentially much, much worse.

I'm seeing November's election as largely a lose-lose. I don't vote for anti-public ed. candidates anymore. Cuomo was the first Democrat for whom I declined to vote, and this November I'll likely support Green Candidate Howie Hawkins once again.

It's a disgrace that neither major party offers a candidate who supports public education or working people.

Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain

As President Obama has stated repeatedly, he does not support vouchers. Sure he supports merit pay, charter schools, mayoral control, and his education secretary believes everything Mike Bloomberg says without question, but vouchers is where he draws the line. After all, there's no evidence they're effective, and one has to draw the line somewhere.

The only exception to the President's absolute opposition to vouchers is when he supports vouchers. But let's make it very clear, the President absolutely opposes vouchers except in cases when he supports them. So please respect the firm stand this President has taken.

After all, voters have repeatedly rejected vouchers all over the country, and the will of the voters is the heart of democracy, except when Mike Bloomberg thinks it isn't. So remember, President Barack Obama absolutely, positively opposes vouchers. Except when he doesn't.

The Next Best Thing

Well, charter schools are all the rage, but before the "reformers" could push charters, they were pushing vouchers. That's when we, the taxpayers, get to pay for out and out private schools, rather than "nonprofits" that pay the likes of Eva Moskowitz 370 grand a year. Doubtless Ms. Moskowitz gives it all to charity and lives in a cardboard box outside one of her schools.

In any case, vouchers are still alive and well in Milwaukee, and they seem to be doing a heckuva job:

Often they were forced to carry their desks over their heads. One student who wasn’t well fell asleep in class and had a pitcher of water poured over his head. Several students, including one who is just six years old, said that if they broke the school’s rules, they were punished by having their arms twisted behind their backs until they said, “I give.” A nine-year-old girl said she was punished by being forced to carry around a bag of sand. Others were made to do push-ups on milk crates until their arms throbbed.

And this at a cost of a mere 4.5 million to taxpayers. Well, that's certainly a more innovative approach than just making calls home and trying to force improvement. Doubtless that's why voucher schools like this one are so superior to public schools. The only problem, apparently, is that they aren't:

A recent battery of studies of the Milwaukee scheme by University of Arkansas researchers found that voucher students are doing no better academically than their peers in public schools

.

That's not all that impressive, is it? And studies like those perhaps explain why geniuses like Bill Gates and other idle rich ignoramouses now spend their time visiting and giving seed money to charter schools instead. Never mind the obvious--that 100% of charter school parents have proactive parents. Why do flunkies like NYC "Chancellor" Joel Klein write letters that not so subtly urge parents to pull their kids out of public schools and send them to charters?

Because there's a ton of money to be had in public education, that's why. Eva Moskowitz isn't the only one around here who stands to profit when we direct our tax dollars to private pockets. There's a potential bonanza out there, and the more public schools we can close, the more private entrepeneurs stand to benefit.

Clearly our abysmal health care system and financial collapse have taught us nothing. By privatizing our schools, moneyed interests want to make sure we never learn anything at all.

If You Like Joel Klein...

...you'll love Maverick Johny McCain. In September 2002, he predicted victory in Iraq would be easy. Then he said we could stay for a hundred years. He then made the rosy prediction that we could get out by 2013. With typical foresight (and hindsight), Maverick John is getting into bed with Joel Klein and Al Sharpton.

Now no one can deny that Joel Klein's educational "reforms" have proven just as effective as the Iraq War, and when you consider we're spending 3 billion a week out in the desert, Mr. Klein's 80-million dollar non-functioning computer seems a drop in the bucket. And while Mr. Klein left hundreds of kids to freeze in the streets on the coldest days of the year, at least opposing combatants weren't shooting at them. Not this year, anyway.

Mr. McCain, of course, supports school vouchers, while that nasty Barack Obama opposes them. This, apparently, is a big selling point for Mr. McCain. It's very clear that if we could only dispose of those nasty teacher unions and hire temporary employees for a pittance we could seriously lower Steve Forbes' tax bill. And honestly, if the United States of America doesn't stand for lowering Steve Forbes' tax bill, then what on earth does it stand for?

So forget that Maverick Johny has embraced Bush tax cuts, Bush's war, and the religious zealots he once stood up to. Forget that he was wrong from the beginning about Iraq, and continues to be wrong now. Forget his endless contradictions. Never mind that, despite frequent rhetoric to the contrary, he consistently votes against the interests of the men and women who actually fight the wars he supports. The important thing is he'll get more cash into the pockets of those who have more cash, and he'll oppose unions in education. It's all about giving the poor kids instruction in how to work long days and long hours for little reward.

After all, someone has to serve drinks at Steve Forbes' house. You tend to get thirsty a lot at poolside, even at the indoor pool.

Obama Open To Vouchers

Barack Obama told the AFT and the NEA last year that he did not support private school vouchers, but this week he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board that he is open to supporting private school vouchers if research shows they work.

The education "reform" group, Democrats For The Return Of Feudalism And The Six Day Work Week, immediately hailed Obama's flip-flop on the voucher issue:

The executive director of the lobbying group Democrats for Education Reform, Joseph Williams, said the response was unusual for a Democratic politician, praising Mr. Obama for making his bottom line helping children learn rather than ideology.

"I don't think anyone can call him a voucher supporter out of this, but it is an intriguing response," Mr. Williams said. "It is a different kind of answer than most of us are used to hearing from politicians."

It sure is.

Most Democratic politicians see the private school voucher movement as just another way for the privatization folks to get their hands on public money and continue to privatize as much of the government as they can.

For example, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton see the issue that way.

But not Obama.

You see, he's a different kind of Democrat.

He tells the NEA and the AFT that he supports merit pay based upon standardized test scores and says he now could support school vouchers.

He also thinks the problem with the American economy is not a greedy multi-national corporate system that rewards hedge fund managers, CEO's and the rest of the investment class over the workers but an education system that doesn't educate students as well as India does (never mind that in class-stratified India, only 75% of the population can actually read and more than 1/3rd of the population live on less than 40 cents a day - Obama thinks it's a model for the U.S. to mimic.)

Gee, he kinda sounds Republican-lite to me.

No wonder Whitney Tilson and the other values investors at the Democrats For The Return Of Feudalism And The Six Day Work Week like him so much.

He speaks their language - privatize, standardize, voucherize.

Rudy Stands Up

Ex-education Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken a strong stand for vouchers for private schools. Rudy, of course, has strong credentials in education. Under his tenure, every time the state raised aid to city schools, he reduced city aid by an equivalent amount (Mayor Mike was forced to abandon this practice in order to gain mayoral control).

It was also the reason a judge determined that the city could be compelled to pay a portion of the CFE lawsuit. Mayor Mike doggedly refused until the award was cut by 75%. He then declared the severely reduced award a great victory for the city since it entailed no mayoral oversight.

Rudy was also the architect of a plan to force welfare recipients to work in public schools. Rudy felt people chronically unable to find work were adequate adult role models for the city's 1.1 million schoolchildren. After all, his kids went to private school anyway, so what did he care?

Under Rudy's tenure, teachers were the lowest paid in the area, standards for hiring teachers were the lowest in the area, conditions were the worst in the area, and class sizes were the highest in the area. So Rudy knows a little about running public schools. He knows how to run them right into the ground.

When Rudy talks education, he hopes people think 9/11. Here in New York, everyone knew he was a bum on 9/10. Some of us have yet to change our opinions.

Budget Woes?

Vouchers will only get you so far. Sure, the money's good, but you can't expect it to get you through a whole school year.

Here's an idea. Why not just cut down on the food you serve the students? The national school lunch program will give you the money, and you can feed the kids mashed potatoes. Say it's for discipline, and just give them bread and water if things get really out of hand.

And for goodness sake, don't forget to charge the school lunch program for the days when you close the school. You have to be resourceful in the old education biz. That's the only way you're gonna make a buck.

Big Bucks Can Be Yours!

Are you sick and tired of that dead-end job? Marking papers not for you?

Well, what are you waiting for? Get off your fat keester and head down to sunny Florida! Start a school of your very own, and get other people to do all that nasty, time-consuming work. Meanwhile, head off to Disneyworld and ride Space Mountain. Or sit at a bar all day, get stinking drunk, and send the bill to Jeb Bush.

How can you do that, you ask? Well, accept vouchers at your school, but don't bother accepting the students. That way, you keep all the tuition, but you don't have to bother with those meddlesome kids (not to mention their pain-in-the-neck parents).

How can you too become a voucher entrepreneur? Send a cashier's check now for $500 to NYC Educator, and I'll include (at no extra charge whatsoever) my new pamphlet, entitled "How to Get Total Strangers to Send You $500."

So you don't forget, send before midnight tonight.

You Say Potato, I Say Voucher

After a recent federal report showed public school students score as well as private school students, a decision was apparently made that they needed to do worse, so as to expand the fiction of the evils of public schools. This will help promote the important goal of their elimination, and the consequent reduction in Steve Forbes' tax bill, which will promote freedom and democracy everywhere.

Therefore, Bush's education secretary, Margaret Spellings, introduced a new federal voucher program. Displaying the sensitivity that typifies this administration, she called it a "scholarship" program, so that people who oppose vouchers wouldn't think it was a voucher program. This is in line with previous government policies which referred to propaganda as "news"

This, along with the President's recent promise to veto any expansion of stem-cell research, ought to help shore up his religious conservative base. Conservative Christian schools, potential recipients of vouchers, found their eight grade math scores lagged behind those of public schools. This oughta help 'em forget.

Asked whether voucher schools would be subject to the same accountablity as public schools (which they often are not), Spellings gave a weasel of an answer praising accountablity and promising nothing whatsoever.

Thanks to reality-based educator.