Perdido Street School

Ben Chapman in the Daily News:

Two hedge fund billionaires dropped $1 million each on a controversial charter school advocacy group in April, the Daily News has learned.

Officials at pro-charter lobbying powerhouse Families for Excellent Schools have declined to name the nonprofit’s funders since it was founded in 2012.

But a July filing with the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics shows finance titans Dan Loeb and Julian Robertson both donated a cool million to the group.

...

Both Loeb and Robertson have a history promoting the growth of charter schools, but neither has been directly linked to Families for Excellent Schools until now.

Loeb, who runs an $18 billion investment group called Third Point, is network chair of Success Academy charter schools, the city’s largest charter network.

Chapman goes on to write that the $2 million in cash from Loeb and Robertson "is probably just a fraction of the income the organization will receive in 2015."

And indeed, that's the case.

Families for Excellent Schools has broken lobbying expenditure records in the past (see here) and drops a huge amount of cash on lobbying on a regular basis (see here.)

They've got a lot of money to burn and they use it to help Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies.

Success Academies likes to maintain a distance from Families for Excellent Schools, claiming the two organizations are not linked or coordinating, but that's laughable on its face.

When FES released a race-baiting ad a few weeks ago, Eva Moskowitz of Success was one of the few to defend FES and the ad.

Though FES doesn't reveal its donors, we know at least one of those donors has substantial links to Eva (as Chapman reported, Dan Loeb chairs the SA board.)

And they often seem to coordinate "rallies," with SA students, parents and teachers making up much of the "audience" at the FES political functions (indeed, Eva even closes her schools for these rallies.)

They also coordinate messages, with both FES and Moskowitz hitting on the "De Blasio hurts black children" message in ads, press conferences and newspaper op-eds.

Families for Excellent Schools is the propaganda and political wing of Success Academies, spending millions in cash that appears to be raised from many of the same sources that SA raises its cash from, to promote Eva Moskowitz's political agenda.

The two entities can claim they're not one and the same all they want - with SA chair Dan Loeb revealed as an FES donor as well, we start to see just how closely linked these entities really are.

Governor Cuomo came through for charter schools once again this legislative session, raising the charter cap by 180 and imposing a ton of new mandates on public schools that do not count for charters (i.e., the teacher evaluation system.)

And so the charter school supporters will pay Cuomo back for his political largesse:

Hedge fund manager and charter school advocate Daniel Loeb is standing by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

On the evening of Saturday July 11, he and his wife Margaret Munzer Loeb will host a fund-raiser for Cuomo at their residence in East Hampton, according to an invitation sent out to multiple donors and acquired by Capital.

Individual tickets for what is billed as an "intimate reception" will cost $5,000 each, though host committee sponsorships "are available."

Loeb had no comment as to why he was fund-raising for the governor.

He and his wife have donated to the governor in the past.

The Third Point C.E.O. serves on the board of StudentsFirstNY, a pro-charter advocacy group whose board members also include former schools chancellor Joel Klein and Success Academy Charter Schools founder Eva Moskowitz.

Loeb also chairs Success Academy's board and is one of Moskowitz's most stalwart supporters and defenders.

The hedge fund managers/charter school supporters started paying Cuomo off with cash before he ran for governor and it continues all the way until today.

He's gotten more than $4.8 million dollars in contributions from 570 hedge fund managers since 2000.

In addition, some of those same hedge fund managers contributed millions to a charter school shell group called Families For Excellent Schools that ran ads and lobbied for charter causes on Cuomo's behalf. FES was the winner in "Who Spent The Most Money Lobbying?" competition, dropping $9.7 million in 2014 on lobbying expenditures.

Then there was the shadowy group called the Committee To Save New York that spent millions on pro-Cuomo ads touting the governor's agenda. The group raised $12 million dollars from just 20 donors to help Cuomo out politically.

CSNY closed up shop when the law was changed and donors and contributors had to be revealed, but you can bet that there were some of the same names on the CSNY list that are on the Families For Excellent Schools, Students FirstNY and Success Academies list.

And let's not forget that StudentsFirstNY helped create New Yorkers For A Balanced Albany, an independent expenditure committee that dropped $4.2 million in support of a Republican takeover of the New York State Senate - having Republicans in charge in the state Senate has helped Cuomo push through his pro-charter, anti-public school agenda.

Judging from how much they've paid him over the years and how they continue to pay him now, shilling for charter schools and education has been a very profitable enterprise for Andrew Cuomo.

Here is a commentary by Kathy Holhul at Syracuse.com in which she asserts overcrowding and poor building conditions in public schools are good reasons to support more charter schools and tax credits for private schools:

Many critics try to argue that alternative schools, such as religious and charter schools, are somehow hurting the overall education system by taking away resources from traditional public schools. They argue that the governor should revoke all support for religious or charter schools – effectively abandoning those students – to focus just on public schools. They claim that this would be fair, but this just doesn't stand up to reason and here's why: 

There are roughly 4,500 public schools across the state – many of which are at capacity or overcrowded, and some are even utilizing trailers as classrooms. One hundred seventy-eight of those schools are failing, and many of them have been for 10 years or more.

Now imagine if the more than 400,000 students who are currently in charter or private schools – representing approximately 15 percent of the state's student population – had to attend one of those at-capacity, overcrowded or failing public schools. Who benefits from that scenario? Surely not the public school students who would find classroom space and resources stretched even further.

Can you follow the logic?

Many public schools are overcrowded, there's not enough space to house students in classrooms so decrepit trailers are used instead - and the way to solve these problems is to take money that could go to public schools and alleviate overcrowding and build new facilities and give that money to charters and private schools instead.

This is the same Kathy Hochul that AFT President Randi Weingarten robocalled for during the Democratic primary, claiming she was an excellent advocate for public schools.

Here's some advocacy for you - Hochul says public schools are overcrowded and falling apart, so let's take money that could go to public schools and give it to charters and private schools instead.

Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News:

Hedge fund executives have unleashed a tsunami of money the past few years aimed at getting New York’s politicians to close more public schools and expand charter schools.

They’ve done it through direct political contributions, through huge donations to a web of pro-charter lobbying groups, and through massive TV and radio commercials.

Since 2000, 570 hedge fund managers have shelled out nearly $40 million in political contributions in New York State, according to a recent report by Hedge Clippers, a union-backed research group.
The single biggest beneficiary has been Andrew Cuomo, who received $4.8 million from them.

...

But the direct donations don’t tell the full story.

In this era after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case, the indirect contributions are even more astounding.

Take, for example, a group called New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany. It financed a massive advertising campaign late last year aimed at keeping the state Senate in Republican hands, largely by blasting upstate Democrats as tied to Mayor de Blasio.

That group received $3.5 million from just six hedge fund backers of charter schools.

...

Two other pro-charter groups, Families for Excellent Schools and the political arm of Students First New York, spent more than $10 million last year on their lobbying effort.

If you're a reader of this blog, you know that Andrew Cuomo was on the take from the hedge fund managers long before he became governor.

As the NY Times reported in 2010, Cuomo met with these same hedge fundies who have donated so much money to these pro-charter front groups in a hotel room and took a suitcase full of campaign cash and promise for even more future campaign cash back to the office with him:

When Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet certain members of the hedge fund crowd, seeking donors for his all-but-certain run for governor, what he heard was this: Talk to Joe.

That would be Joe Williams, executive director of a political action committee that advances what has become a favorite cause of many of the wealthy founders of New York hedge funds: charter schools.

Wall Street has always put its money where its interests and beliefs lie. But it is far less common that so many financial heavyweights would adopt a social cause like charter schools and advance it with a laserlike focus in the political realm.

Hedge fund executives are thus emerging as perhaps the first significant political counterweight to the powerful teachers unions, which strongly oppose expanding charter schools in their current form.
After hearing from Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Williams arranged an 8 a.m. meeting last month at the Regency Hotel, that favorite spot for power breakfasts, between Mr. Cuomo and supporters of his committee, Democrats for Education Reform, who include the founders of funds like Anchorage Capital Partners, with $8 billion under management; Greenlight Capital, with $6.8 billion; and Pershing Square Capital Management, with $5.5 billion.

Although the April 9 breakfast with Mr. Cuomo was not a formal fund-raiser, the hedge fund managers have been wielding their money to influence educational policy in Albany, particularly among Democrats, who control both the Senate and the Assembly but have historically been aligned with the teachers unions.

They have been contributing generously to lawmakers in hopes of creating a friendlier climate for charter schools. More immediately, they have raised a multimillion-dollar war chest to lobby this month for a bill to raise the maximum number of charter schools statewide to 460 from 200.

The money has paid for television and radio advertisements, phone banks and some 40 neighborhood canvassers in New York City and Buffalo — all urging voters to put pressure on their lawmakers.
...
The financial titans, who tend to send their children to private schools, would not seem to be a natural champion of charter schools, which are principally aimed at poor, minority students.

But the money managers are drawn to the businesslike way in which many charter schools are run; their focus on results, primarily measured by test scores; and, not least, their union-free work environments, which give administrators flexibility to require longer days and a longer academic year.

It also does not hurt that the city’s No. 1 billionaire, Mr. Bloomberg, is a strong charter school supporter. He is the host of the fund-raiser for Mr. Hoyt, and at times, Democrats for Education Reform seems an extension of the mayor’s own platform.

Besides more charter schools, the group and the mayor have called for ending the use of seniority as a basis for layoffs and for granting principals more power to fire teachers they consider ineffective.

Mr. Cuomo also has expressed support for charter schools. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to answer questions about the breakfast at the Regency, but Mr. Williams said it had gone well.

“We said we were looking for a leader on our particular issue,” he said, and as a result, when Mr. Cuomo is next required to disclose his contributors, “You will see a bunch of our people on the filing.”

Same old story with Cuomo - hedge fundie cash goes into his coffers, education reform policies come out of his office and (almost always) into law.

Former Assembly Speaker Silver has been indicted for monetizing his office and taking $4 million in kickbacks and bribes.

Governor Cuomo, who has taken even more than Silver from the hedge fundies to push their privatization plans, remains free and clear to continue to push for his donors' policies.

Fred Dicker explains why Andrew Cuomo has no chance to be president:

Top New York Democrats are whispering for the first time that Hillary Rodham Clinton may not be their presidential candidate next year. And while they’re far from agreeing on who it might be, they do agree on one thing: It won’t be Gov. Cuomo.

“People in the party all hate him,’’ one of the state’s best-known Democratic operatives told The Post.

A prominent Democratic elected official added, “There’s an ABC factor at work here. It’s ‘Anybody but Cuomo’.’’

In a series of interviews remarkable for their hostility toward Cuomo, several top Democrats well known to the public told The Post that should Clinton be forced to abandon her quest for the presidency by the scandal over her private State Department e-mail accounts, there is no clear alternative for New Yorkers.

...

“But who it won’t be is Andrew Cuomo,’’ the activist added.

... 

Said another prominent Democrat, “Two years ago, there’s no question Cuomo was a serious contender for the nomination.

“But if he were to run in a primary today, I’m not sure his own brother would vote for him. From the Moreland scandal to his failure to champion progressive issues to his fight with the teachers unions, he’s screwed himself.”

Interesting to see the fight with teachers make it to the top of the list for reasons why Cuomo has no backing from Democratic circles to run for president.

In the past, bashing the teachers and calling for "tough reform" has helped some Dems - most notably Barack Obama.

But it's not 2008 anymore - this is the post-CCSS Era, the Opt-Out Era, when parents and students are rising up all across the country to fight corporate education reform.

Bashing teachers and blaming them for all the ills of society doesn't work as well in 2015 as it did in 2008 or even 2011 when Cuomo first took over as governor of New York.

Cuomo's reaping the consequences of his teacher-bashing - this is the best part of the Dicker column for me:

A national Quinnipiac University poll last week found Clinton backed by 56 percent of Democrats, followed by 14 percent for Warren. Cuomo, who received 4 percent last May, received no backing at all.

No backing at all for Cuomo.

Love it.

From Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—More than 1,000 teachers and public education advocates marched through the Empire State Plaza concourse on Monday, clogging security checkpoints into the Capitol and rallying on the Million Dollar Staircase in a boisterous protest of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s education reform proposals.

Led by New York State United Teachers, the primary opponent of Cuomo’s plans to overhaul the state’s teacher evaluation system and tenure laws and boost charter schools, protesters arrived from around the state in 15 buses as well as by car from local school districts.

Carrying signs and even a cardboard cutout of Cuomo adorned with a NYSUT scarf, they chanted, “hey, hey, ho, ho, this corporate greed has got to go,” “shame on you” and “this is what Democracy looks like.”

Members of both houses of the Legislature attended the rally as it reached the Capitol staircase that’s in between the Senate and Assembly chambers. Assembly education committee chair Cathy Nolan, a Queens Democrat, was met with cheers when she encouraged teachers to continue to fight for school funding and respect for their profession.

“You have to be here to make your voice heard, or you will not be,” Nolan said. “I know it’s not easy, but it matters.”

The response from the Cuomo administration?

Their voices were heard in the hallways outside the chambers, and apparently also by the Cuomo administration, whose offices are on the second floor. Their screams further motivate the governor to pursue his agenda, spokesman Richard Azzopardi said in a statement.

“The governor is fighting to reform a system that spends more money per student than any other state in the nation while condemning hundreds of thousands of children to failing schools over the last decade,” Azzopardi said. “The louder special interests scream to protect the status quo—and today they were screaming at the top of their lungs—the more we know we’re right.”

Classic authoritarianism from Cuomo.

He doesn't care that the polling shows the public backs teachers, he doesn't care that parents and teachers are fighting against his agenda.

All he cares about is ramming through a privatization agenda that has been bought and paid for by his Wall Street and hedge fundie constituency, one that will enlarge the charter school sector, set up more public schools for failure by putting ever more mandates onto them (but not on charter schools!) and put in place a state takeover policy of schools and school districts that will allow private entities to take them over, cancel union contracts and run them the way they want.

Via State of Politics, here is part of the letter Karen Magee and Andy Pallotta sent to Cuomo, Tisch and the shill who's filling in temporarilty for John King:

New York State United Teachers is seeking your views on several important questions raised by the upcoming Success Academy event. As a matter of policy, should Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc., as taxpayer-funded public schools, be permitted to close their doors and transport students, parents and staff to Albany for a rally? Even if they use substantial private funds, is this the “right thing for students?”

...

“If school boards and superintendents in the state’s nearly 700 school districts also wish to close en masse for a day and transport thousands of their students, parents and staff to Albany to lobby for additional state funding, would that be permissible? Would you consider closing traditional public schools for a rally to be good public policy and the ” right thing” for all students?”

Cuomo is of course on the charter school payroll, with charter operators and their supporters contributing significant amounts of money to both his campaign coffers and the state Democratic Party coffers (which has used that money to run ads promoting Cuomo and his agenda.)

He's also expressed much adminration for both charter schools and the people who own, er, run them.

So if I had to guess, I'd say he isn't upset at all that charter operators are closing their schools and heading up to Albany for some made-for-TV PR.

Especially since Cuomo himself was "pivotal" in last years "Let's Close Schools And Cheer For Charter Schools Rally" in Albany:

It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had gone to the capital to court lawmakers, but despite a boisterous showing by parents, there seemed to be little clarity about the future of their schools.
 

Then, as they were preparing to head home, an intermediary called with a message: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet.
 

To their surprise, Mr. Cuomo offered them 45 minutes of his time, in a private conference room. He told them he shared their concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambivalence toward charter schools and offered to help, according to a person who attended but did not want to be identified as having compromised the privacy of the meeting.
 

In the days that followed, the governor’s interest seemed to intensify. He instructed charter advocates to organize a large rally in Albany, the person said. The advocates delivered, bringing thousands of parents and students, many of them black, Hispanic, and from low-income communities, to the capital in early March, and eclipsing a pivotal rally for Mr. de Blasio taking place at virtually the same time.
 

...
 

At his prekindergarten rally, before a smaller crowd at the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany, Mr. de Blasio spoke about the value of early education. Not far away, a much larger crowd of charter school supporters was gathered on the steps of the State Capitol. In an act that his aides later said was spontaneous, Mr. Cuomo joined the mass of parents and students. 

“You are not alone,” he told the roaring crowd. “We will save charter schools.”

I'm glad to see NYSUT trying to put pressure on Tisch and Cuomo over the pro-charter rally, but these people are beyond shame, so I doubt it will get much of a reaction from them.

However it is good to get the news out there that charters are closing their doors on a school day and busing the kids up to Albany for a political rally.

Would the politicians who will speak at the pro-charter rally be so matter-if-fact if public schools closed on a school day and bused everybody up to Albany for a pro-public school rally?

I hope that question makes it into the press coverage of the pro-charter rally this week.

Who's the special interest here?

ALBANY—Supporters and opponents of education reform, primarily charter school expansion, spent more than $30 million combined attempting to influence New York State politics in 2014, a Capital analysis of lobbyist reports and campaign finance data found.

Charter school groups and their supporters spent $16 million on lobbying, campaign contributions to state-level candidates and parties and independent expenditure campaigns last year. Charter schools spent nearly $700,000 on lobbying. Education unions and labor-funded advocates spent $11.77 million, according to the analysis.

...

In defending their spending and high-profile backers, education reform leaders have often portrayed teachers’ unions as deep-pocketed behemoths representing special interests. But the spending reality is that in 2014, the pro-charter and reform groups outspent unions by a considerable margin.

...   

Each side was led by a group that accounted for more than half of its cause’s spending. While final lobbying totals for 2014 are not yet available, it is likely Families for Excellent Schools, which spent $9.7 million, and the New York State United Teachers, which spent $8.9 million, will finish as the year’s two highest-spending interest groups.

F.E.S., which has helped organize several massive pro-charter rallies over the past year, spent all its money on lobbying efforts, the Capital analysis found.

The second highest spending pro-charter group was StudentsFirstNY, which spent $272,279 lobbying and organized New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, an independent expenditure committee that spent $4.2 million supporting a Republican takeover of the New York State Senate. StudentsFirstNY has led the push to support Cuomo’s education agenda which, if implemented, would be disastrous for unions and beneficial to charters.

NYSUT spent $3.2 million on lobbying, $4.55 million helping Democratic state legislative candidates through an independent expenditure committee and $200,000 in support of a referendum for a $2 billion bond to boost technology in schools. The union also gave $936,042 in direct contributions, including $202,300 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and its housekeeping account, $101,883 to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, $95,000 to the Working Families Party and $50,000 to Senator Liz Krueger’s leadership committee.

$16 million to $11.77 million - yet the charter groups like to portray themselves as the underdogs, the "grassroots" operations going up against the "powerful" teachers unions:

"What's striking in these numbers is that a few dozen Wall Street financiers and billionaire hedge fund managers are able to far outspend more than 600,000 educators who believe in the promise of public education and voluntarily give a few bucks out of each paycheck to ensure they have a voice,” said Carl Korn, NYSUT’s spokesman.

Again I ask, who's the special interest here?

And who's the criminal?

Sheldon Silver was indicted yesterday on three criminals counts for making $4 million dollars over 15 years in bribery and kickback schemes.

Yet just last year alone, both sides of the education reform debate threw around millions in campaign donations, with some of the individuals behind education reform groups giving even more money on their own.

And just why are they giving all this money?

Supporters of education-focused groups also donated money to individual political candidates and parties. While it’s difficult to know whether those contributions were motivated by the donors’ positions on education policy, it’s possible the donors used fundraisers as opportunities to share with candidates their views on education. But their spending is worth noting, given their financial commitment to influencing education policy.

Silver's facing 60 years in prison and forfeiture of his Grand Street apartment, his Catskills summer home, his pension and his bank accounts in his criminal case.

The politicians on the other end of all the education reform largesse - most of it coming from just a few individuals with a lot of money to burn - are facing more campaign donations, free food and free booze and all they have to do in return is, you know, just listen to what education reformers want done at the state level.

Take Ruben Diaz, for example, who has carried water for the pro-charter, anti-public school agenda of Families for Excellent Schools.

This week he blasted teachers, said the NYCDOE dumps the "worst teachers" into his district, and called on the Legislature to pass Governor Cuomo's education reform agenda that looks to fire thousands of teachers, close hundreds of schools and turn whole districts over to privatization.

Back in December, Diaz hosted a Christmas party that was paid for on the education reform dime:

CHARTER GROUP TO SPONSOR DIAZ XMAS PARTY—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: Families for Excellent Schools is co-sponsoring State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr.'s Christmas party, according to an invite sent Friday by Diaz's office. The party, which will take place Dec. 19 at a steakhouse in the Bronx, is also sponsored by the food delivery company Fresh Direct. A spokesman for F.E.S. declined to say how much the group is paying to co-sponsor the event. Diaz, a Bronx Democrat, has been a longtime supporter of charter schools. In a brief interview on Friday, Diaz initially said of F.E.S., "I don't even know who they are," but then said he had worked with "every single group" in support of charter schools, including F.E.S. No children are allowed at the party. F.E.S. spent nearly $9 million in the first ten months of 2014. http://bit.ly/1BEuNqt

Apparently this isn't bribery, but the kickback scheme Shelly Silver engaged in is.

Funny how that goes.

These "grassroots" education groups, funded with millions of dollars of hedge fund and banker money from a few individuals, are buying politicians to push their agenda, yet it's the "powerful" teachers unions and individual teachers who are the "special interests" and Sheldon Silver who's the criminal.

From the NY Post:

Gov. Cuomo, at another Bronx event, said 44 of the 178 schools in the state labeled as failing are in the borough. And 20 of those have been in the dismal category for a decade.

“You want to talk about a failure of government?” Cuomo said. “You want to talk about a scandal in government? To me that’s the scandal. It’s a total abrogation of the responsibility of government.”

He said schools that fail three straight years should be taken over by “a not-for-profit, another school district or a turnaround expert.”

Cuomo's call came after Ruben Diaz Sr., the only crook of the Four Amigos not in prison, said the NYCDOE dumps the "worst teachers" into his borough and called for Cuomo's education reform agenda, including a raising of the charter cap, to be passed in order to remedy that situation.

The Bronx has the highest rate of poverty in the nation, and there is plenty of research to show that the higher the rate of poverty, the more schools struggle.

Let's say Cuomo and Diaz get their way and huge swaths of the public school system are privatized, charters sprout up all over the place and "turnaround experts" pop up in every neighborhood to work their magic on failing schools.

Do Cuomo and Diaz really think the problems facing the public schools in the Bronx will be alleviated?

If so they should look at New Orleans to see how large-scale turnaround efforts go:

Post-Hurricane Katrina the Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) took over more than 107 public schools in New Orleans claiming that they were failing. Post–Katrina Education Reform has drastically rebuilt the public education system into practically an all charter system creating the largest percentage of charter schools than any city in the country. In developing reforms to rebuild New Orleans public schools, the state attracted more than three billion dollars from the philanthropic community, charter school proponents, foreign countries and the federal government. Over the last six years, numerous reports have been written citing the RSD with unprecedented success while proclaiming it as the national model for turning around urban school districts. Despite these reports of the miracle s in New Orleans, the reality is that the reform school district in New Orleans (Recovery School District) is one of the worst performing school districts in the state of Louisiana. In its recent assessment, the Louisiana State Department of Education ranked the Recovery School District academically 69th out of 70 school districts in Louisiana. Despite the billions of dollars, despite all of the media spin, and despite claims from state education officials, the education reforms in New Orleans have failed (Deshotels) 

But I don't think Cuomo and Diaz really believe in turnaround miracles - this just about the payoffs they're getting from the charter industry and their hedge fund and Wall Street backers to privatize as many schools as they can

Because both Cuomo and Diaz are on the charter payroll, that's for sure.

And there's lot of money to be made working that angle.

Remember Dr Ted Morris Jr., BA, MA, PhD, and MSW, and his Greater Works Charter School?

Remember how the charter application was pulled back after Morris was revealed as a con man who lied about his degrees and his work experience?

Well, the school's back - and it's going to be bigger than ever:

The former trustees of Greater Works Charter School are applying again to open a charter school in Rochester, this time under a different name and without their disgraced 22-year-old leader.

Greater Works was approved by the state to open in 2015-16 before it was revealed that its lead applicant, 22-year-old Ted Morris Jr., had fabricated most of his academic and professional experience.

Morris resigned, and the remaining trustees withdrew their application. The New York State Education Department, which failed to catch the lies in the first place, later instituted new safeguards to verify applicants' credentials.

The remaining trustees, led by Keuka College education professor Peter Kozik, said at the time that they planned to re-submit their application without Morris, and they started that process in January with a formal letter of intent. The name of the venture has been changed to ROC Charter School.

The vision of the prospective school is somewhat different — for instance, the school would eventually serve grades 7-12 rather than just 9-12.

The letter of intent acknowledges the problems with Greater Works, but Kozik said the Morris affair, while unexpected, did not throw the remaining trustees far off their path.

"We didn't lose much momentum at all," he said. "There was really no sense of our progress being slowed."

Oh, goodie - the trustees didn't lose much momentum despite having worked with a con artist front man they met on the Internet to open a charter school with little-to-no financial backing from anybody but the state tax coffers.

And if approved by NYSED and the Board of Regents, they'll be ready for the charter school boom Governor Cuomo plans for his second term.

Good times in the charter world!

Nothing can keep a crooked charter school down.

From the Star-Tribune:

Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth, according to a Star Tribune analysis of school performance data.

The analysis of 128 of the state’s 157 charter schools show that the gulf between the academic success of its white and minority students widened at nearly two-thirds of those schools last year. Slightly more than half of charter schools students were proficient in reading, dramatically worse than traditional public schools, where 72 percent were proficient.

Between 2011 and 2014, 20 charter schools failed every year to meet the state’s expectations for academic growth each year, signaling that some of Minnesota’s most vulnerable students had stagnated academically.

A top official with the Minnesota Department of Education says she is troubled by the data, which runs counter to “the public narrative” that charter schools are generally superior to public schools. ... 

“Schools promised they were going to help turn around things for these very challenging student populations,” said Kyle Serrette, director of education for the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy. “Now, here we are 20 years later and they’re realizing that they have the same troubles of public schools systems.”

More than half of schools analyzed from 2011 to 2014 were also failing to meet the department’s expectations for academic growth, the gains made from year to year in reading and math.

... 

Just like traditional public schools, the highest-performing charter schools tend to serve students from more affluent families, the analysis shows.

I wish the media would do more investigation into charter schools. A friend teaches in one that doesn't have a school nurse, so they have the IT guy administer meds to students. Seems like that would violate some sort of regulation somewhere.

...

I'm sorry but I just have to comment here.  I am a former LoveWorks Academy teacher.  First of all, several years back, this school actually got into trouble because they had unlicensed teachers; problem number 1.  Also, the people running that school, are not qualified to do so. Executive Director? No qualifications to be in that position; no principal/administrative license, no teaching license, nothing.  Teachers had administrators who did not even have a current teaching license, or had never even taught elementary school evaluating them and telling them how to "teach" properly.  For example, I actually had an "administrator" tell me after an evaluation that I should be giving students candy after each right answer they give, and that classroom management is like "training a dog" (direct quote).

My main goal every single day was to motivate those kids and to get them to progress; but every day the teachers were shot down.  Admin and behavior specialists constantly took the sides of the kids and never followed through with expectations.  Teachers had strict consequences in their classrooms, but anytime students were sent out of the room because of severe behavior issues, it was handled poorly by our behavior specialist and the students would just come back to the room to continue to disrupt.  In a way, this article is accurate.  No, teachers aren't teaching what they should be, but it's because they can't.  I was constantly breaking up fights; I was shoved by students trying to leave my classroom, called names like "wench" and "bitch", and was regularly yelled at by students and told to shut up.  Did I ever get any back up from administration? NO.  I was told to keep the kids in the classroom and to only send them down for severe behavior.  And when I did send kids out, I was questioned by the behavior specialist because the kids would of course make up a story to favor them, and admin would of course take their side, no question.

I am not, by any means saying this is all charter schools.  However, is it any wonder LoveWorks had over half of their staff leave on their own accord?

...

As a number of other posters have pointed out, the basic problems are not in the schools; the basic problems are social issues.  I've never been able to figure out why the schools are expected to leap the tall buildings of our many social problems with a single bound, and somehow get many students struggling with the consequences of those social issues to the same level of achievement as those who have all the advantages of stable homes, safe neighborhoods, and first and foremost, parents (and maybe a whole culture) committed to education.  Granted, the schools need to do their best for every child, but to blame them for outcomes so many of whose determinants are beyond their control doesn't help the situation.  Perhaps now that we can clearly see that charter schools which are supposed to be designed to help these kids aren't doing better than the public schools, we can widen the discussion to include the real problems.

...

 

But wait, I thought charter schools were the answer to everyone's problems? No??

Looks like charters are not doing as well as you would be led to believe they would be doing in the state that is the birthplace of the charter movement.

It will be interesting to see what happens in New York as Governor Cuomo and the charter operators continue to increase the number of charters, because at some point New York's charters are going to find it hard to select the best students for their schools, push out/counsel out the low-performers dragging down their stats and staff their schools with enough 20-somethings willing to work 12 hour days and be available for homework help for 3 hours after the workday is over.

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

A day after a top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo signaled plans to broadly overhaul the state’s education structure, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz registered the organization as a lobby entity, a filing with state ethics regulators shows.

Moskowitz is a prominent figure in the charter school advocacy world and registering the group to lobby was likely done out of an abundance of caution as the coming legislative session was expected to be dominated by education issues.

The lobbying period will cover Jan. 1 of this year through the end of the current Legislature now seated, 2016.

Advocates are required to register as lobbying when they expect their activities to cost more than $5,000.

In the past, Success Academy Charter Schools have relied on several prominent lobbying shops in Albany and New York City, including Albany Strategic Advisors, Dan Klores Communications, Patricia Lynch Associates and Bender Cantone Consulting.

The NY Times reported that Governor Cuomo himself helped organize a Success Academy lobbying effort last year - and raked in donations from charter backers:

It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had gone to the capital to court lawmakers, but despite a boisterous showing by parents, there seemed to be little clarity about the future of their schools.

Then, as they were preparing to head home, an intermediary called with a message: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet.

To their surprise, Mr. Cuomo offered them 45 minutes of his time, in a private conference room. He told them he shared their concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambivalence toward charter schools and offered to help, according to a person who attended but did not want to be identified as having compromised the privacy of the meeting.

In the days that followed, the governor’s interest seemed to intensify. He instructed charter advocates to organize a large rally in Albany, the person said. The advocates delivered, bringing thousands of parents and students, many of them black, Hispanic, and from low-income communities, to the capital in early March, and eclipsing a pivotal rally for Mr. de Blasio taking place at virtually the same time.

The moment proved to be a turning point, laying the groundwork for a deal reached last weekend that gave New York City charter schools some of the most sweeping protections in the nation, including a right to space inside public buildings. And interviews with state and city officials as well as education leaders make it clear that far from being a mere cheerleader, the governor was a potent force at every turn, seizing on missteps by the mayor, a fellow Democrat, and driving legislation from start to finish.

Mr. Cuomo’s office declined on Wednesday to comment on his role.

As the governor worked to solidify support in Albany, his efforts were amplified by an aggressive public relations and lobbying effort financed by a group of charter school backers from the worlds of hedge funds and Wall Street, some of whom have also poured substantial sums into Mr. Cuomo’s campaign (he is up for re-election this fall). The push included a campaign-style advertising blitz that cost more than $5 million and attacked Mr. de Blasio for denying space to three charter schools.

A lot was riding on the debate for Mr. Cuomo. A number of his largest financial backers, some of the biggest names on Wall Street, also happened to be staunch supporters of charter schools. According to campaign finance records, Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from charter school supporters, including William A. Ackman, Carl C. Icahn, Bruce Kovner and Daniel Nir.

Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot who sits on a prominent charter school board, gave $50,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign last year. He said that when the governor asked him to lead a group of Republicans supporting his re-election, he agreed because of Mr. Cuomo’s support for charter schools.

“Every time I am with the governor, I talk to him about charter schools,” Mr. Langone said in an interview. “He gets it.”

Daniel S. Loeb, the founder of the hedge fund Third Point and the chairman of Success Academy’s board, began leaning on Wall Street executives for donations. Later this month, he will host a fund-raiser for Success Academy at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan; tickets run as high as $100,000 a table.

It is not an accident that Success Academy registered as a lobbying entity one day after a Cuomo aide sent a broadside against the public education system.

Here's the Cuomo administration response to educator protests over the Cuomo reform agenda

"It is mind-boggling that people who claim to be on the side of students can defend the status quo while 250,000 of them have been condemned to failing schools in the last 10 years. The louder special interests scream, the more we know we're right." -- Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever

Hard to tell if that's a Cuomo administration official statement or a StudentsFirstNY statement:

There are 250,000 students in New York who have attended failing schools. Only one in three can read and do math on grade level. StudentsFirstNY is a grassroots member organization made up of parent activists who believe we need fundamental reform of our public schools — a position that is supported by an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers.

We advocate for improving public schools and believe charter schools provide additional and much-needed choice for parents of children in communities that have been underserved by district schools. These schools do not generate profits, but operate independent of the bureaucracy and protections of ineffective teachers who have prevented real reforms from taking place in traditional public schools.

Unlike the state teachers' unions, which have spent close to $60 million on political ads and lobbying over the past four years trying to protect their public education monopoly, our supporters have no personal financial stake in the education reform debate.

The broken status quo that has been created by NYSUT and their political allies has led to New York spending more on education than any other state, while getting only mediocre results.

We believe that our children deserve better than that, and we are proud to stand with Gov. Andrew Cuomo as he works to improve public schools across the state.

Jenny Sedlis
New York City
The writer is executive director of StudentsFirstNY.

Let's call this the Eva Moskowitz rule:

As the debate continues over education policy in the state, Assembly Democrats this week introduced a measure that would cap executive pay at charter schools that receive state funds.

One of the bill’s main sponsors, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick of Manhattan, said the measure was being developed last year, before Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled his $142 billion state budget that includes plans to strengthen charter schools by raising the statewide cap and providing more per pupil tuition assistance.

The legislation would cap executive pay at the schools at $199,000.

Glick in an interview said the measure was meant to provide more accountability and transparency for both charter schools that receive state funds and their leadership.

“There are charter schools that are more corporate than others that receive significant outside support,” Glick said. “Their argument is they are being paid by these outside dollars. If they continue to be cast as public schools and get additional outside support, they can’t continue to have it both ways.”

Glick added that executives at charter schools shouldn’t be paid more than, say, the chancellor of the city’s public schools system.

“I think if you are projecting your charter school as a public school, you certainly should not be receiving more compensation than the chancellor of the city school system,” she said.

Two things to note here:

The bill has no sponsor in the Senate.

The charter industry is against it.

Well, three things to note:

Governor Cuomo pushed through an executive order in the past capping executive pay at non-profits.

No word on whether Governor Accountability will support Glick's bill capping charter school executive pay.

I was off grading Regents exams this morning, so I missed this story:

In a rare public break with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins blasted the “demonizing of our teachers” in a statement released on Thursday morning.

Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, called for increasing resources — aka more money — in the state budget for school districts and not “scapegoating teachers.”

“There has been too much demonizing of our teachers lately. As a former teacher, I understand firsthand the obstacles that many New York educators are facing and the resources they so desperately need in order to help our children,” Stewart-Cousins said. “Schools’ resources must be based on the school district needs. While we all agree that there are more improvements to be made to our education system, scapegoating teachers will not provide those improvements.”

...


Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, is knocking Cuomo’s education reform push as Speaker Sheldon Silver is being pushed out of the Assembly’s leadership post on Monday.

Uncertainty over the future of the Assembly’s leadership push is leading to concerns among education advocates that the governor’s proposals won’t have a strong opponent in the budget negotiations.

Just a few hours later, Cuomo's education reform campaign donors fired back at Stewart-Cousins:

Students First NY, a group supportive of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education reform efforts, pushed back against Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins’s statement this morning that called for an end to the “demonizing” of teachers.

In a statement, the group pointed out that in Yonkers, where Stewart-Cousins represents and lives, city school children are falling behind in math and reading.

“There’s a reason why the teachers’ union has spent $60 million in Albany over the past five years: to get politicians like Andrea Stewart-Cousins to put their interests over the hundreds of thousands of kids victimized by a failing system,” said the group’s Director of Organizing, Tenicka Boyd, in a statement. “In Yonkers, 4 out of 5 students cannot read or do math on grade level — they need a Senator, too. Governor Cuomo’s plan will give our best teachers $20,000 bonuses, will cover tuition to get the best and brightest into our classrooms, and will increase funding for all children. Governor Cuomo is fighting for kids; Senator Stewart-Cousins should too.”

Stewart-Cousins responded:

“Personal attacks and political sniping will not solve the deep-rooted problems in New York’s public education system. As a person who went to New York City Public Schools, sent my children to New York Public Schools and taught in New York Public schools, I will continue to stand up for New York’s children and urge common sense reforms that will help all New York students receive the quality education they deserve.”

Boy, it doesn't take long for Cuomo's education reform donors - the very wealthy individuals and groups who have given him millions in campaign donations - to respond for Cuomo, almost as if they're coordinating that response with Cuomo's office.

Not that Cuomo would ever coordinate with education reformers or anything - except for that time he helped organize a pro-charter rally in Albany to beat down NYC Mayor de Blasio over the charter co-___location issue.

The joke of all this is, Shelly Silver's been arrested for taking millions in cash and allegedly pushing the interests of those he received that cash from.

How exactly is that different from what Cuomo's doing with education reform and his education reform donors?

Silver didn't disclose the money, but Cuomo hasn't disclosed all the money either - we still don't know who donated to the shadowy PAC that pushed Cuomo's interests, the Committee To Save NY.

What Silver's done is considered illegal, but Cuomo's perfectly fine taking millions from his ed deform donors and pushing their destructive plans for public education.

I dunno, I'm a little murky on what's the difference between illegal bribery and campaign donations, but apparently Cuomo isn't.

Andrew Cuomo has previewed most of his "Opportunity Agenda" (i.e., State of the State/budget) speech already, detailing proposals from juvenile justice reform to a push for a higher minimum wage in New York State.

One area in which he hasn't publicly divulged much in the way of details yet is his education reform agenda.

We know he wants to "break" the public school "monopoly."

We know he wants to "toughen" the teacher evaluation system and streamline the 3020a process so that more teachers who are deemed "ineffective" can be quickly and efficiently fired.

We know he wants to pay back his charter school donors by either increasing or entirely eliminating the charter cap.

We know he wants more power over education policy and has dropped a hint or two about wanting control over NYSED (either via Regents appointments or via an abolished Regents Board that would give him direct control over SED.)

We know he wants the state to have more power in taking over "failing" schools and "failing" school districts in order to hand these over to his charter school buddies.

What we don't know is how he plans to go about proposing these things.

Yesterday Arthur Goldstein asked me on Twitter why I thought Cuomo was staying mum on his ed reform agenda details while he was divulging pretty much every other part of his agenda.

I told him that I thought Cuomo was staying quiet on the ed reform agenda details because they were the most controversial of his plans and he didn't want any pushback before tomorrow's speech.

I think Cuomo - who has been framing many of his budget proposals as his way of fighting "income inequality" in New York (a phrase he actually used this weekend publicly) - will frame his education reforms as crucial to providing "Opportunity for All" and will box them with his student loan relief proposal, his minimum wage hike proposal, and his economic development proposal for seven upstate regions as not an attack on teachers and teachers unions but an attack on income inequality and poverty.

It will be a direct pushback against the unions and education advocate groups decrying his stingy funding of schools and tax cap that keeps local districts from raising funds themselves - money is not the answer for the problems in the public schools, Cuomo will say, my reforms are.


This is why the union and education advocate fight against Cuomo's reform agenda isn't going to work so well - they say his education policies exacerbate economic inequality around the state, he's going to say "Nope, bad schools and bad teachers do!"

I have wanted the unions to join with parents and fight the governor on Common Core and testing, two parent concerns that have most noticeably NOT made it to his reform agenda.

Alas, the unions support both of those items, so we'll not see them create a broad coalition of stakeholders (parents, teachers, education advocates) to fight him on a couple of issues that are weak spots for him.

Cuomo has claimed his education reform agenda is what parents want, it's what he heard from people as he traveled the state campaigning for re-election.

I don't believe that, of course - first off, he doesn't like talking to people, so it's difficult to see him hearing anything from anybody who wasn't already a minion working for him.

But most importantly, we know from the King/Tisch townhalls last year that Common Core and testing are two issues of the highest concern to many parents.

If he heard anything about education on the campaign trail last year, it would be how much many people don't like Common Core or the Common Core testing the state rolled out.

Believe me, were the unions to put together a push against Common Core and testing here in NY, couple that pushback with an attack on Cuomo's funding policies and pro-privatization policies, they'd have a chance to beat him back in the fight.

But they're not taking that route because they can't take that route - they support both CCSS and testing - and so we're going to see a fight against Cuomo and his reforma agenda that is ineffective and already over before it really starts.

You can be pretty certain that whatever Cuomo pushes tomorrow, much of it will end up as law after the budget is done in March.

Quite frankly, I'm already thinking about the pivot from "How do we stop Cuomo's insane education reform agenda?" to "How do we destroy Cuomo over his insane education reform agenda?" because my sense is, this is a done deal.

As always, hope I'm wrong about this.

But I'm not feeling optimistic this is going to play out any other way than the way Cuomo wants it to.

Never let it be said that the NY governor who won re-election with the fewest votes since FDR in 1930 isn't thinking big for his second term:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged on Thursday to have a “full agenda” proposing changes to the state’s education policy in his State of the State, due to be given next Wednesday.

“When we talk about education, the state government in Albany tends to focus on the bureaucracy of education — the lobbyists that protect the bureaucracy of education,” Cuomo said in Rochester earlier today. “My point is, I want to focus on the students.”

Cuomo would not offer specifics on what he plans to propose next week.
However, he has broadly hinted at plans to push for greater control of education decision making as well as strengthening charter schools. Cuomo has also suggested potentially tying funding to teacher accountability and school performance as well as a broad overhaul of how evaluations are conducted following a veto of a measure meant to slow down the impact of Common Core testing.

“Let’s focus on the goal, the goal is to educate students, not to grow a bureaucracy — not to raise a budget so the bureaucracy gets more money,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo doesn't want to grow the education bureaucracy?

What does he think happens every time the state adds more mandates and regulations?

Does he think his new "stringent" APPR evaluation system will work on its own?

The more honest statement out of Cuomo would have been "I want to take money from the public schools and give it to my charter school friends and donors."

He ought to be honest about that.

As for smearing critics of reform plans as "lobbyists" that "protect the bureaucracy of education," does he think we've forgotten how much charter school lobbying money he's gobbled up over the last four years?

I haven't.

In any case, Cuomo's planning a full assault on public schools and teachers, the indication from the unions is that they don't plan to fight him on this so long as some more money is given to districts and, basically, if you're a teacher just trying to do your job, it's going to get much, much harder because of the added layers of compliance and so-called accountability Cuomo plans.

That is, if you still have a job after it's all said and done.

And so the destruction of the public school system continues apace:

New York’s charter school advocates have poured millions of dollars into electing a State Senate hospitable to their agenda items for the upcoming legislative session. Now, those leaders are beginning to craft their legislative priorities, which will include eliminating the state’s cap on charter schools, increasing funding for established charters, and establishing more accountability measures for district schools and teachers.

After a hugely successful session in 2014—at the political expense of teachers’ unions and their highest-profile champion, Bill de Blasio—pro-charter groups say they expect the Senate and Governor Andrew Cuomo once again to come through for them.

“While there’s a conventional wisdom that once an issue has been dealt with in one year, folks will move on to another issue, education reform and improvement are and should be perennial issues,” said James Merriman, C.E.O. of the New York City Charter School Center.

Here's what they want:

Completely eliminating the charter cap is, as of now, the top legislative priority of charter school advocates. The cap—a limit on the number of charters that can open—has been a major issue of contention since it was first created in the state’s 1998 law creating New York’s first 100 charter schools. The cap was created in New York as a concession to teachers’ union leaders and charter skeptics in general, who have advocated a slower pace of charter growth.

...


It is possible that the groups’ legislative allies will try to broker a compromise whereby some upstate charter capacity will be shifted to New York City, where demand is growing most rapidly.

This might appeal to charter school advocates, beyond the raw number of slots, because it could alter the balance of power between the two entities that are empowered to authorize new charters: the State University of New York and the state Board of Regents.

The charters prefer dealing with SUNY, which at the moment has no more slots to award in the city. A reallocation of slots from upstate to downstate, and from Regents to SUNY, could change that.

And:

Getting more money for both per-pupil tuition support and facilities funding will be another major priority for the groups.

While this year’s state budget greatly benefited some charters in New York City, providing a tuition increase and guaranteeing co-locations in traditional public schools or assistance with rental costs, the budget did not help about 40 percent of the city’s charters or the comparatively few charters upstate. The groups might seek a more comprehensive version of the changes in this year’s budget.

And just in case you think Shelly Silver and the Assembly will hold the line on the Cuomo/charter entrepreneur plan to destroy the public education system, well, they may not:

The unions’ allies in the Assembly could deliver on what the charter groups are seeking in exchange for action on some of their own education priorities. Those could include boosting Foundation Aid, a funding formula based largely on need, rather than reducing the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a formula that has distributed cuts across school districts as the state has struggled with deficits; and passing the Dream Act, a proposal that would allow undocumented immigrants access to state-sponsored college tuition assistance.

Interesting how charter supporters are pushing for more accountability measures for district schools and teachers but not themselves (APPR does not apply to charters.)

In any case, without a major mobilization of parents and teachers calling Legislators, both Assembly members and State Senators, the charter operators and Cuomo will likely get everything they want - the millions in charter supporter backer dollars they're showering on pols will ensure that.

That's why charter lobbyists spent a record amount in the last quarter lobbying - they sense End Game is here.

This news is not a surprise:

Ms. Tisch said in a phone interview Tuesday that she and Mr. King planned to propose several changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system, including creating a more efficient process for firing teachers who receive two consecutive ineffective ratings.

They will also propose doubling the weight of state or district tests in the ratings, to 40 percent of the overall score, which Ms. Tisch said would actually reduce the amount of testing in schools. Currently, 20 percent of the ratings are based on those tests. Another 20 percent are based on additional tests created as a result of negotiation between local districts and their unions, tests that could be eliminated with the change.

“Because of those 20 points, what happened was you got an increase in testing and an increase in focus on testing in these districts,” Ms. Tisch said.

Sixty percent of each rating is based on subjective measures, like principals’ evaluations, which in many districts were overwhelmingly favorable to teachers. Ms. Tisch said she and Mr. King would also propose changes to the scoring of principal evaluations.

I thought Tisch would look to do that - increase the test component to 40% and argue that doing so will actually "decrease" the amount of testing in the state's schools.

Here, of course, is the rub of all of that:

Any significant changes would have to be approved by the Legislature. The teachers’ unions, which have fought to limit the influence of testing, have support in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, and even some Republicans have been wary of the use of Common Core tests.

This is partly why there is now an attack on Assembly Speaker Silver, leaks to the NY Times about a federal probe into Silver by US Attorney Preet Bharara's office and such.

The monied interests have an enormous investment in destroying the public education system and breaking the teachers unions in New York State - they think that moment is now.

The only thing standing in the way of Andrew Cuomo getting to "break" the public education system as he promised to do before the election is Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democrats.

John Flanagan has already signaled that Senate Republicans will go along with Cuomo's reform plans - including imposing a statewide APPR system.

The monied interests are looking to destroy Silver this legislative session and force through their school privatization and union busting plans.

Tisch's statements to the Times demonstrate just how far-reaching those plans will be.

In one piece of good news today, the Times-Union reports that Silver's expected demise may not come as planned.

I'll have more on that story later.

Suffice to say for now that Tisch, King and Cuomo are going to push a coordinated attack on public schools and teachers before King slinks off to his next gig and Silver and the Assembly Dems are all that stand between them and their goal.

Charter schools literally started with a payoff here in New York State:

ALBANY — A specter is haunting talks about the first legislative pay raise since 1999 — the specter of Preet Bharara.

Manhattan’s powerful federal prosecutor has multiple probes stemming from the unfinished work of Gov. Cuomo’s now-defunct Moreland anti-corruption commission — and sources said his investigations could hurt the chances of an agreement between the governor and legislative leaders.

“As soon as a deal is reached, Preet could let loose 10 new legislative indictments making everybody look bad,” said one skeptical state government insider.

Many in Albany are openly talking about concessions the Legislature might give Cuomo to entice him to support raising the current $79,500 base legislative salary, but other insiders warn that legislators should be careful given Bharara’s increased focus on Albany.

The last time a legislative pay raise was authorized, in 1998, the Legislature gave then-Gov. George Pataki several items he wanted, including the law that created charter schools in New York.

But times have changed. Bharara rocked Albany earlier this year when his office began investigating the deal that called for Cuomo to pull the plug on the Moreland Commission in exchange for some ethics reforms.

But if Bharara is investigating that deal, insiders worry that he could open probes into the usual political horse-trading involving the legislative pay raise. Any lawmaker still in office come January would benefit directly from the deal.

There you have it - the law that created charter schools in New York State came in return for a legislative pay raise.

Charter schools in New York started with a quid pro quo.

You want public money for private schools?

Pay us and we'll give it to you.

Now of course the charter operators themselves do the quid pro quos, throwing huge amounts of cash at the politicians in both parties in order to get their agenda passed.

But it's interesting to note that from the start, charter schools were rotten through with corruption.