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.

Teachers in Philadelphia recently had their contract pretty much tossed in the trash. Step-raises were abolished, and teachers will be forced to pay into health care. This is ostensibly because the district is desperate for money. Why?

The SDP faces a $300 million budget shortfall largely created by slashing state education aid by $1 billion, and abandoning a state school funding formula designed to increase resource allocations to the highest need schools and districts

Yet they've got $400 million to build a prison, in case their priorities are not yet clear enough. It's illegal in Philadelphia for teachers to strike, just as it is in New York. But in New York, where UFT just went six years without a contract, we have the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law. This amendment keeps existing contracts in place until and unless a new one is signed.

Rob Asorino doesn't much like the Triborough Amendment. He says it's choking the government. This, of course, is the very same government that refuses to tax the wealthy BFFs of folks like Astorino and Cuomo, preferring to drastically cut education and, among other things, send police out on missions to ticket  dangerous people like you for much-needed funds.

It doesn't matter to Astorino that we don't have the most basic tool of unionism in our repertoire, the right to strike. Astorino thinks we sat around like zillionaires for six years, laughing at Bloomberg as he denied us our contract. But Astorino can't have it both ways. If he wants to change the reasonable Triborough Amendment, let him repeal the draconian Taylor Law.

If he doesn't want to do that, he may as well be Scott Walker, who happens to be his enthusiastic supporter. Actually, no one in Wisconsin knew Walker was going to decimate union either. But Astorino's insistence that we have an advantage is an outright falsehood. Triborough is simply a small compensation for a fundamental right that we don't have. There are draconian penalties for teachers who strike in NY.

In fact, I wouldn't put amending Triborough past Andrew Cuomo either. Cuomo pretends to be a "student lobbyist," but he maintains a Gap Elimination adjustment that strangles districts of state aid, while concurrently preventing them from raising taxes for than 2% or rate of inflation, whatever's lower. Essentially, he's ensuring worse service in public schools even as he stands up for Moskowitz and privatization.

Cuomo is awful, unacceptable. But it's quite clear he has to, from time to time, at least pretend to be a Democrat, rather than the self-serving opportunist he is. Cuomo was the first Democrat for whom I declined to vote, and I'm not changing my mind this time around. But any teacher who votes for Astorino may as well be voting for his BFF Scott Walker. Teachers can ignore who Astorino is, and vote for him anyway, but they're deluding themselves. I see no labor policy that differentiates him from his BFF Walker.

The only acceptable candidate for those of us who actually support education and working people is Green Howie Hawkins, already endorsed by Diane Ravitch. Maybe you think you know better than Diane.

But, having read three of her books,  I've yet to meet anyone who knows better than Diane. 

In another great victory, Governor Andrew Cuomo has defeated a challenge demanding that votes that say "yes" to supporting public schools be counted with equal weight to those who vote "no." The judge suggested the one-person, one vote thing was outmoded and unnecessary.

The judge struck down the NYSUT lawsuit demanding that people who vote "yes" to school budgets have their votes count equally.

McGrath noted the Brenner case in Missouri where the U.S. Supreme Court authorized super-majorities, so long as the threshold was not set to discriminate against any specific racial, ethnic, or religious group.

Cuomo commented, "This is a great victory for not only the people of New York, but also for me, the student lobbyist. There's really no way I can help the students for whom I lobby better than by making sure that less money goes to their schools. With fewer teachers and huge class sizes, they'll learn that this world is a tough place, and that they have to fight for everything they want. Unless, of course, your dad is Governor of New York. For example, I've had everything handed to me on a silver platter, and my kids go to private schools where they won't have to put up with this crap."

Indeed, it appears the only crap with which Governor Cuomo has to contend is Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade, but who really knows whether she actually eats that stuff when she isn't on TV? I mean, with all that money they save when they refuse to pay taxes on home improvements, you'd think they could go to a restaurant once in a while, or even hire someone who actually knows how to cook.

In any case, after Andrew Cuomo's spectacular defeat of NYSUT, he's become emboldened to extend the supermajority concept to gubernatorial candidates. In fact, armed only with the big stick pictured above, he visited many undecided Senators and Assembly members, and beat the crap out of them until they agreed that any opponent would need to achieve a 60% supermajority to defeat him in the November election. Expedited legislation now appears inevitable.

"I'm a reasonable guy," stated the Governor. "I could've made it 90%, but I won't do that unless my numbers drop sufficiently to make it necessary. I am the government, damn it, and after this I'm gonna be President. We won't have had all that nonsense about hanging chads when it takes 60% of the vote to defeat me. One man, one vote is obsolete. By the time I'm through, one man, one and a half votes will be the norm. At least for those people who vote the right way."

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.

It's sad that New Yorkers have such miserable choices in our two-party system. Lately I've been encountering a sea of "anybody but Cuomo" tweets and anti-Cuomo tweeters, but they seem to regard Rob Astorino as an alternative. In his favor, he publicly opposes Common Core, and is unequivocal about it. But there are issues.

Execrable though Cuomo is, he at least has to pose as a Democrat from time to time. That's not enough to make me support him, but it means he has to think twice before he goes after, say, the Triborough Amendment that keeps our contracts in force until we negotiate new ones. This is particularly important to UFT members who've just gone 6 years without a contract. Imagine what Mike Bloomberg would have done if he'd had carte blanche to impose whatever he felt like. Doubtless we'd be working for 8 bucks an hour with no health benefits and he'd have pulled our pensions to pay for a better penthouse for Cathie Black.

Astorino has no such compunctions. He's not only criticized Cuomo for failing to attack the Triborough amendment, but he's also written an op-ed in the NY Post expressing opposition:

Consider the situation now in Westchester: All eight public unions are now working without a contract — one of them in its fourth year. But wages aren’t frozen at previous contract levels. Workers still get the longevity and step increases built into the old contract — hikes that often equal or exceed “regular” salary increases.

This is the same thing Bloomberg often said of teachers as he denied us a contract. Astorino interprets step increases he agreed to as raises. Actually they aren't. They are agreements between labor and management. Note also that Astorino had allowed all of his union contracts to expire. Does that remind you of a certain NY ex-mayor?

Astorino claims we have no incentive to negotiate because we're already getting raises, and compares demands for retro pay to Alice in Wonderland. If that's not enough, Mr. Astorino is a charter enthusiast. We haven't seen him criticize Cuomo for standing with Moskowitz against our progressive mayor, and we have no reason to expect he'll do so. His positions on women's rights, which he claims are irrelevant, are less than inspiring. He opposes gay marriage and gun control.

If we are to discount his opposition to the Triborough Amendment, most troubling is Astorino's position on taxes. Astorino's got a great point when he points to our illustrious governor as a tax evader, but when he complains of how high NY State taxes are, those are dangerous waters for those of us who support public education.

Districts have been pretty much robbed by the Gap Elimination Adjustment, which cut much-needed state aid. Combine with that Cuomo's limit on raising property taxes to 2% or cost of living, whichever is less, and districts are being forced to do more with less. The reality is many districts can only do less with less as teachers and support staff are laid off and class sizes skyrocket. If that's not enough, ask yourself why Wisconsin's notorious Governor Scott Walker is fundraising for Astorino. Is there a single public school supporter who wants a Scott Walker system in NY State?

If you're a registered Democrat run, don't walk, to support Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu in the Democratic Primary. If that fails, vote for Green Howie Hawkins in November. Neither of the major candidates merits our support, and Astorino appears to be nothing less than an incipient disaster for those of us who actually have to work for a living.