When folks who make half a million dollars a year have problems, you'd better believe Andrew Cuomo has solutions. If that bad old Bill de Blasio won't give Eva Moskowitz free rent, well, he'll just take our tax dollars and give it to her.

The Post is very happy about that. That's because Murdoch cares deeply about poor people. I mean, he doesn't want to raise their minimum wage, and he probably doesn't think they should have a minimum wage, but it's very important we have charter schools. How else will someone who's never taught a class in her life become an education expert and get paid 500K per year?

After all, folks like that had to suffer through the millionaire tax that Governor Andy, in a principled stand got rid of. Now that they have that money, he can happily take it away from suburban kids via a Gap Elimination Adjustment that gives them less money. As we all know, the less money people have, and the less support we give our children, the better off they are. Everyone was delighted when the new Common Core tests failed 70% of our children, and the only way to keep up Governor Cuomo's brilliant stats is to give them even less.

Of course, things are different when it comes to Moskowitz Charter Schools. In institutions like these, kids have the opportunity to raise their test scores until they just can't get any higher. What parent wouldn't be thrilled to have their kids get great scores? And if they don't, they can be part of the kids who disappear and get sent back to public schools, who Eva and her pals happily label failures. Look at that school down the road that took back all the kids we "counseled out." It's a dropout factory!

Of course the dropout factories take everyone. We take the kids who just arrived in this country, and a lot of them end up in my classroom. I'm very proud to teach them, and if Eva doesn't want them, I do!

We also take kids with all sorts of special needs who aren't suited to Eva's test factories. It's not much of a challenge teaching kids when they all have proactive parents. It's even less of a challenge when those who take on this task get rid of kids who screw up their stats rather than take credit for them. When another charter guy, Geoffrey Canada, saw his scores weren't going the way they wanted, he simply dumped an entire cohort. Way to take bold action, Geoff! Wonder why they didn't bring that up on your American Express commercial, or Education Nation, or on Oprah. Go figure.

Anyway, it turns out that Governor Cuomo passionately supports any cause that earns millions for his campaign fund. It's simplicity itself. You give a politician a million bucks, and he pays you back several times over with tax dollars.

Eva's hedge-funders know a good investment when they see one.

Charter school operators, who enroll about 6% of the city's students, are recoiling in shock from Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio's decision to represent the other 94% of city schoolchildren in his transition team. Don't they read Gotham Schools? If they did, they'd know that charters should be covered at least half the time, if not all the time.

What is with this guy, including public school parents like Zakiyah Ansari on his team? Doesn't he know she's an advocate for public school children? Mayor Bloomberg never paid the slightest attention to her. Bloomberg knew that what was important was finding ways to pay charter operators three times what the NYC schools chancellor made, and indeed there are now several charter moguls raking in big bucks as a result.

How are Bloomberg's BFFs going to continue hopping onto the gravy train if this trend continues? Are we going to actually spend city funds on public schoolchildren instead? That would be an outrage. Why would entrepreneurs come to NYC if they can't make money off the sweat of our children? It's bad enough we outlawed child labor. Now, just when we're finally figuring how to make money off the little urchins, along comes liberal de Blasio to throw a monkey wrench into the works.

Naturally charter school advocates are outraged. Eva Moskowitz made her kids, their parents, and her at-will employees march in protest. This drew multiple stories from Gotham Schools, and perhaps de Blasio missed them. Gotham, of course, roundly ignores UFT rallies to stop Mayor Bloomberg from pushing his policies onto the mayor-elect, because such rallies are of no importance whatsoever.

Naturally, charter advocates, like Gates and Walmart, want to get their money's worth. That's why they fund Gotham Schools. But if Bill de Blasio won't take their money, how can he represent them.

After twelve years of a mayor who exclusively represented corporate interests like charter schools, a mayor who did whatever he wished on his fake school board, are we going to have a mayor who actually represents the interests of our children and their parents?

What would that New York look like?

For several weeks now, I've been writing about the new program my school has been using to keep track of student data. It's called Skedula, and it's largely unpopular in my building. It just seems like you always need to do three things instead of one. Furthermore, though most of my colleagues use ipads, there is no ipad app. The rep came to our school several weeks ago, and assured us we'd have one in two weeks. Now I hear the real roll out date is sometime in December.

If that's the case, Skedula ought to refund half of whatever they charged us. If they knew their program wouldn't serve our needs and sold it to us based on an app that wasn't even out yet, shame on them.

But there are other questions I have. For one, I'm hearing schools Mayor Bloombucks tried to close were required to use Skedula. Perhaps this program was seen as having the ability to make ESL students speak English and special ed. students overcome any and all disabilities. Or perhaps someone thought it was a good idea for its parent company, Datacation, to make money. I mean, sure, it's not Eva Moskowitz, but it's always important for The Right People to make money. Of course I'm not talking about educators, the only city employees Mayor Bloomberg did not see fit to give an 8% raise for the 2008-2010 bargaining round.

Another thing I wonder, and this appears verified by Skedula itself, is how on earth they got access to STARS, the DOE database usually open only to administrators. I know for a fact that other programs do not have this access. At my school, in order to use Daedalus, administrators constantly had to do updates within the building. How did Skedula get an automatic connection?

So, with favored treatment, and a seriously flawed system, one wonders whether Skedula is the Next Big Thing. For example, I've read that ARIS, the 80-million dollar boondoggle our financial wizard of a mayor is about to trash in favor of a yet-undetermined state system. Is Skedula as crappy as ARIS? So far, I'd say yes. And were it to be imposed statewide, like an epidemic, I've no doubt Andrew Cuomo, the student lobbyist, and his merry band of hedge fund magnates/ education experts could endeavor to make it even worse.

Because when it comes to pointless nonsense, no one takes a back seat to Cuomo and Bloomberg. That's a good thing, because given their massive egos, there won't be room in the back seat of the largest, ugliest Hummer limo in the great state of New York.

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo does not much care for those who'd occupy Albany. So he directed the police to arrest them. No namby-pamby First Amendment tolerance for him. Oddly, the police, perhaps cognizant of the fact they are working people, decided it was a bad idea, and declined to follow up. The protesters moved and police decided provoking a riot might not ultimately prove beneficial, despite the Governor's druthers to the contrary.

Why is Governor Andy so miffed with the protesters? Well, it could be their new nickname for him, Governor One Percent. After all, Governor Andy has taken a principled stand against taxing the richest one percent, opting instead to cut schools, services for the poor, and cap salaries for people who actually need to work. After all, how will he get tens of thousands of dollars from the Koch brothers if he stands up for those unwashed working people?

It appears, though, that Governor Andy is a sensitive guy. He doesn't much care for people disagreeing with him, you know, democracy and all. If he could just lock up those darn protesters, maybe those local newspapers would stop covering them! But darn it, when he gets involved, they just keep, you know, writing about it. That damn freedom of the press thing has got to go, if Governor Andy is to govern in the style he chooses.

And this is curious, because then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stated politics had no place in policing. The thing is, though, with ruthless opportunists like Governor Andy, neither politics nor principle can get in the way of an overriding philosophy like, "I'm me, I can do what I want, how I want, whenever I want."

It's pretty scary when people with such juvenile mindsets attain positions of such power.


Thanks to Reality-Based Educator

Being middle class, or maintaining a middle class for our children, will be a tough battle, even if Wisconsin's corporate puppet Governor Scott Walker gets his comeuppance. (Wakening voices in our country suggest it's coming.) Still, you'll hear a lot of arguments from reasonable-looking shills like NY Times columnist David Brooks--here's how it goes--private workers need a defense against bosses who want to maximize profits. Public workers, he suggests, have no such need.

This is utter nonsense. Politicians like Walker indulge in Shock Doctrine. Walker not only took advantage of a crisis, but actually created it by initiating a tax break that caused the shortfall he claims, with a straight face, he must eliminate collective bargaining in order to close. He's also heavily financed by New York's Koch brothers, a fact even the staid New York Times editorial board arose from its slumber to note this morning.

Brooks speaks softly, wears a tie, but gives the appearance of reason by deliberately withholding vital info from his readers. He fails to acknowledge, for example, the tax breaks that created the crisis, and fails to note that the legislation not only cripples unions, but also allows Walker to sell public utilities via handy no-bid contracts. There's also implicit criticism there, more explicit elsewhere, that because folks like Walker are democratically elected, they're somehow beyond reproach. This is the same canard Bloomberg trotted out when he complained of loud protests at his thoroughly undemocratic PEP meetings. In fact, as Paul Krugman points out, moneyed interests dominate our society, caused the economic meltdown, and now manipulate politicians like Walker with ease.

One argument that I keep hearing from even people like Krugman is that we must give back something, usually meaning a reduced pension. It wouldn't be necessary to give back anything if the wealthy, partying since Ronald Reagan came to office, would pay their fair share. Yet people say, "Gee, why should public workers have a decent retirement and health benefits if I don't?" A more sensible question would be, "Gee, why the hell don't I have a decent retirement and health benefits?"

And the attack on LIFO is the same thing. The fact, as most readers of this blog know, is over our careers we've made less than our equally-educated private sector counterparts. In fact, city teachers have made far less than our suburban counterparts for most of our careers. I remember meeting a Long Island teacher with ten years fewer experience than I had who made 10K a year more than I had. Perhaps the disparity is no longer quite so outrageous. But that's not the point. What is?

The billionaires who sponsor these things are the same ones who attack LIFO. And the goal is the same--to get rid of employees who make too much money and keep a low-paid work force. Said work force will have no collective bargaining and be in constant fear of being fired for speaking out. This is clearly the agenda of the Koch brothers, and it's reflected in Fox News, the New York Post, Mayor Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee, DFER, ERN, E4E, and whatever other offshoots billionaire money creates.

1. Make friends with Michelle Obama, wife of corporate friendly, faux-Democrat Barack Obama.

2. Stock some healthy items, along with the aisles of cheap crap for which you're renowned.

3. Place these items somewhere in your megastore, next to the stuff made in some third-world rathole by people who work for 18 cents an hour.

4. Get her to talk about it in front of your logo, making it appear the American government endorses your company. Point out to President such a move will make him appear business-friendly, rather than the socialist Glenn Beck keeps saying he is.

5. Make sure she gets onto NPR, so all the liberals who don't realize Obama is a corporatist will flock to Walmart for baby carrots.

6. Then, sit and count the pile of money you've made after paying your non-unionized workers the pittance they get, largely as a result of decades of preventing unionization. Try not to publicly dive into pile headfirst, a la Uncle Scrooge.

Uncle Joel Klein, the man who couldn't do to Microsoft what European antitrust regulators could do (i.e., beat them completely in an antitrust case), writes in today's NY Sun that "pay for performance" is the way teachers should be compensated.

Uncle Joel uses "business" as his model for how to make public education better and schools more successful. He says in business, the following are everyday ideas:

1. Successful firms pay more for what's worth more

2. They create incentives that motivate employees to work harder and more effectively

3. When they're failing to produce results, they shut down.

He says in public education, these ideas are "foreign," and life-tenure, lock-step pay, and seniority rules "stifle motivation and provide no incentive for teachers to work harder and better."

Uncle Joel's solution is simple - bring business-like "pay for performance" to schools and measure it by "our sophisticated new accountability system" (i.e., batteries of standardized tests, including the Regents, the PSAT, and the additional 8 standardized math and reading tests added this year as part of his "no-stakes" testing program.)

Because the pay for performance will be school-based and not individual-based, he says this revolutionary change in teacher pay will not only encourage better individual performance but more collaboration between teachers at schools.

Married to his business metaphor, Klein compares merit pay to stock options:

This school-based incentive structure, in effect, borrows an important concept from business — stock options. When companies give stock options to their employees, they attempt to align their employees' interests with those of the business' shareholders. If a company's stock rises, both the people who work at the company and the people who hold stock in the company experience a direct financial benefit. This gives employees an incentive to behave in ways that will enhance performance and thereby boost the company's stock price.

If only one employee is successful, the stock price is unlikely to rise significantly, just as in our plan, if only one teacher is successful, a school's students are unlikely to perform substantially better.

Only if many are successful and only if the best teachers help their colleagues identify challenges and improve will entire schools succeed and will teachers then become eligible for more pay. This will encourage individual teachers to do their personal best. It also will encourage collaboration and teamwork, as teachers share both responsibilities and rewards.

Klein finishes his piece by noting that the pay for performance program goes into effect in 200 schools this year (there is no mention of the program being contingent upon the passage of the 25/55 pension change.)

All right - let's look at Uncle Joel's business metaphor a little closer.

First, Klein's assertions that "successful firms pay more for what's worth more" and "they create incentives that motivate employees to work harder and more effectively" are belied constantly in the business press where you read about the kinds of compensation company CEO's like Citigroup's Chuck Prince or Home Depot's former CEO Robert Nardelli pay themselves.

Currently Citigroup is in danger of going belly-up as a result of business decisions Prince made related to sub-prime mortgages and structured investment vehicles (SIVs). Citigroup may have to take a complete loss on as much as $100 billion dollars in SIVs. Conditions are so bad at Citigroup that Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson helped sponsor an $80-$100 billion dollar bank bail-out with Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wachovia coming to Citigroup's and Prince's rescue. In addition, Citigroup's stock has plunged since Prince took over (losing at least $15 a share.)

Has Prince lost his job at Citigroup? Nope. Will he fail to pay himself a bonus this Christmas? Doubtful. You see, pay for performance is only for the people under Prince at Citigroup.

Certainly Home Depot's former CEO Robert Nardelli never failed to pay himself a bonus (he took home about $200 million in base salary, bonuses, and perks) even though his company's stock was down 13% during his tenure. Nardelli had $3 million of his bonus "guaranteed" annually no matter what happened to his company or his company's stock. He's gone from Home Depot now, but not until he took the company to the cleaners for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Prince and Nardelli are not the only examples of business people at the top receiving gobs of money no matter how they perform. As for the actual workers in business, they're simply cogs in the machine to be laid off at will when companies need to squeeze costs and/or raise their stock prices (in the business model metaphor Klein is Prince/Nardelli and teachers are the workers, of course.)

Klein also asserts in his Sun piece that "when businesses fail to produce results, they close down." But this isn't necessarily true either. As I related above, Citigroup has made huge business mistakes, yet the federal government felt the need to arrange a bail-out for the company.

In addition, last month, the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points in order to help save the financial industry and Wall Street from a self-created global credit crunch that threatened to cause some businesses to go under and thousands of financial workers to lose their jobs. The Fed is expected to lower rates again later this month. Again, if Klein's assertions were true, the Federal Reserve would have taken no action and allowed the free market to work its magic.

Business fetishists like Uncle Joel have a habit of saying publicly that in business only performance matters and compensation is ALWAYS based on performance. But even a perfunctory reading of the recent news in the business newspapers shows these assertions to be simplified at best, completely dishonest at worst.

There are other parts to the school-as-business metaphor I'd like to examine in future posts (like how business these days is mostly short-sighted and stock-driven, privileging quarterly performance over investment and long-term performance.) But for today, let's just note that in business, compensation is often based on cronyism, connections, and position within the company, not merit or performance.

The way the new merit pay program is set up by Klein and the UFT (with a panel of 4 deciding who receives the compensation in a school), I have a strong feeling that pay for performance will also be based on cronyism, connections, and position within the school and not actual merit.

...but just forget about that banjo on your knee nonsense. Kids want cell phones in their pockets. And Alabama has leapfrogged ahead of New York City by instituting a more reasonable cell-phone policy.

In July, the district adopted a policy where its 4,500 students are allowed to carry a phone, but risk having it confiscated until the end of the day if they use it or it goes off during school. A second infraction requires a meeting with a parent.

I'd go with the parental meeting on the first infraction, but it appears to me an overwhelming majority of kids in city schools (or mine, at least) are carrying cell phones. It's counter-productive to make rules that will not be followed and can't be reasonably enforced.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg is in California, explaining why Los Angeles should follow the NYC model of oversized schools, meaningless mandates, and no meaningful mprovement in education. To show where his heart is, he's also attending two fund-raisers for Arnold Schwarzenegger. You may recall the governator referring to nurses and teachers as "special interests," while letting Enron slide on 9 billion they stole from the public.