Perdido Street School

Had some fun on Twitter yesterday with a couple of union hacks, one the PR guy from NYSUT, that went something like this:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @nysut Why do deliberately misstate our position and communications? Hard to debate nonsense.

— Carl Korn (@CarlKornNYSUT) January 23, 2016

My response:

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut Who's misstating? You say no state tests in evals. Regents exams are in evals.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut When you say there's a moratorium on state tests in APPR, you are wrong.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

There was no response from Carl Korn, but another union hack jumped in with this bit of genius:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT 3-8 NYS tests in my eval this year? Zilch, nada, bubkis. Union still supports my kids #optout.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

My response to that:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT You do know CCSS Regents exams are in APPR, yes? Those don't count?

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Lace To The Top jumped in with this very relevant fact:

@perdidostschool @TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT and 3-8 Eval scores will still be generated and be used as "advisory"

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) January 23, 2016

Which got this response from said union hack:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT Got it. Get it. Still work to do. Still making progress.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

To which I responded:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT No, you get zilch, bupkis, nada - to use your own words back at you.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT The victory rhetoric from both the UFT and NYSUT show how little leaders get.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Here's the truth of things - Cuomo is sucking up to the union these days, what with his poll numbers in the toilet overall (39% job approval in the last Siena poll) and especially negative on education issues (68% of New Yorkers disapprove of the job he is doing handling education.)

The hacks running the union could care less about whether their members are harmed by APPR or not, they care only for their own power, prestige and perks.

They're happy to have the governor back on board, sounding almost like Mike Mulgrew when he talks about community schooling, well, that is progress indeed!

Unless you're a teacher affected by Cuomo's odious 2015 education law that requires 50% of a teacher's evaluation come from test scores - a law which Cuomo says does not need to be amended or repealed, a law which neither the UFT nor NYSUT plan to work to repeal.

So now, with Cuomo friendly with the union leadership again, the union heads have allied with the governor against their own members, spending millions of member dues on ads that are full of lies and propaganda (here's the UFT ad, here's the NYSUT ad.)

Even the governor himself has contradicted what the union ads are telling the public, saying back in December that test scores are indeed STILL part of APPR evaluations:

“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.

In case you're not willing to believe me or the governor, here's NYSED, via James Eterno at ICEUFTblog:

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

Yet the union ads - and the union hacks on Twitter - tell us differently, that the number of test scores in APPR evals this year is "zilch, nada, bupkis..."

I dunno about you, but I have had enough of the lies and propaganda out of NYSUT and the UFT, the harm they are doing to teaching, teachers and schools with the games they play with their ed deformer allies (see here for more of the games Mulgrew has played with Cuomo over the years.)

And if you think this is all hyperbole, that there's no way the union heads are playing a pro-wrestling "Good Guy/Bad Guy/Good Guy Game" with Cuomo - check out who's Number 4 on the all-time Cuomo meeting list and who enjoys late lunches with the governor to, you know, talk things over.

That would be one Michael Mulgrew of the UFT, the largest local in the state that can literally whack NYSUT leaders when they don't like what they're doing.

As I said above, I've had it with the games the union leaders play, the lies and deception they send out with every ad, every social media piece.

NYSAPE sent out this very informative tweet about where things stand today regarding state tests, the opt out movement and APPR teacher evaluations - you should send this tweet wide and far to cut through the self-serving jive and propaganda emanating out of NYSUT and the UFT, all of it using YOUR money to pay for it.

Do not be fooled, NOTHING has changed. Here is what you need to know: pic.twitter.com/cAKteQLtZI

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 24, 2016

Anybody else enjoy the Mulgrew/Cuomo Show the way I do?

It's the best professional wrestling exhibition you'll ever see.

Back in 2011, Governor Cuomo and UFT President Mulgrew used to be pals (even teaming up against Mayor Mike Bloomberg over teacher layoffs Bloomberg was pushing.)

They were still pals in 2012 when Cuomo was pushing teacher evaluations tied to test scores and getting his way - Mulgrew was there when Cuomo declared APPR a "victory for all New Yorkers!"

Then after a few years of Cuomo's bashing teachers and bragging that he planned to"break" the public education monopoly, they became enemies, with the UFT running ads about the governor's agenda and Mulgrew saying all sorts of nasty things about Cuomo publicly.

But behind the scenes, Cuomo and Mulgrew continued to meet even as they feuded publicly.

For example, Bill Mahoney's analysis of Cuomo's meeting schedule showed Mulgrew was number 4 on the all-time Cuomo meeting list.

In fact, also behind the scenes, Mulgrew was making sure the Working Families Party wouldn't endorse a candidate for the general election that would cause Cuomo problems in 2014, threatening the party with fianancial ruin if they did so.

So even while they were publicly at odds, behind the scenes the Mulgrew/Cuomo relationship was much more, uh, nuanced. 

But now that Cuomo's spent a year getting beaten up on public education and other issues and seen his poll numbers fall into the 30's (39% in last Siena poll, even lower on the public education issue), he's started to sound like Mulgrew on community schooling and he and Mikey are great friends again publicly, so much so that the UFT is running a pro-Cuomo ad that cost $1.4 million.

Whew - in the UFT universe, just like in pro-wrestling, Governor Cuomo used to be a good guy, but then became a bad guy, but now he's a good guy again!

What a show, huh?

If you see the ads the unions are putting out, you'd think the test scores are gone from teacher evaluations.

They're not, as James Eterno at ICEUFT blog points out in his latest post.

Are the unions heads stupid, do they not know that Regents scores are still being used on teachers, that local tests are going to take the place of state tests for other teachers?

Nahh - the union heads are not stupid.

They think you are.

And they're kinda right.

How it is that teachers don't rise up en masse in the UFT and call Mulgrew on his shit is beyond me.

Same goes with the debt-riddled NYSUT.

How it is that the union heads get to call war peace and peace war in their ads (member dues-paid ads, btw) without the vast majority of the rank and file reacting in outrage is why this the sell-outs keep happening over and over.

I know some people think Friedrichs is going to change all of this, that once the unions lose 35%+ of their membership, they'll become more responsive with the rank and file and stop the lying, the condescension, the deception, the sell-outs.

But watching them pre-Friedrichs, I doubt that's the case.

The leaders running the unions wouldn't know how to run the union honestly, how to deal with the rank and file without condescension or deception, wouldn't be able to think of strategies to deal with management that aren't sell-outs.

These ads from the UFT and NYSUT proclaiming a four year test score moratorium in APPR are an outrage and an insult and just one more example why, when Friedrichs takes away the leadership's ability to take dues from people's paychecks, that many are going to take that opportunity to say goodbye to the unions.

It's a shame, it doesn't have to be this way.

The union heads could actually try and shift the way they run things, become more responsive to member concerns, less deceptive with and condescending to the rank and file, develop strategies that protect members instead of selling them out.

Alas, watching how they're doing things in the months before the Friedrichs decision comes down it's clear that the people in charge do not intend to do that.

Tom Precious in the Buffalo News:

In his speech Sunday, Cuomo also appeared to soften his rhetoric substantially from last year on the causes of public schools that are deemed to be “failing” as learning centers for their students. A year ago, Cuomo released a report showing 109,000 children across the state go to school in 178 persistently failing schools – marked by high dropout rates, low test scores and other factors. At the time, he was pushing a plan to allow for outside takeover of failing schools and making it harder for teachers to get tenure.

On Sunday, he criticized “the bureaucracy” that resists change in the education system, but he talked of “community” school-type settings as the solution. “We want to take those failing schools and say, ‘Look, the problem isn’t just education,’ ” he said.

Cuomo said that if people think that the problems in such failing schools are teachers and the education system, “then you’re missing the point, because the kids in those schools need a lot more than a teacher and normal education.”

The Cuomo budget plan to be released Wednesday will call for $100 million to expand an array of services offered at failing schools. A precise breakdown by school was not available Sunday, but he suggested it will offer more money for nutrition, mentoring, afterschool, counseling and other programs in the failing schools. “Don’t call it a school. Call it a community school,” he said.

A Cuomo spokesman noted that community schools were added “as an eventual product of the process” involving failing schools. “This is consistent with that,” the spokesman said.

What to make of all this?

Why is Cuomo "softening" his tone on so-called "failing" schools and calling for the community school model to solve the problems.

Well, I have a theory:

Remember all those meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo (he's # 4 on the all-time meeting list) and the July lunch date he had with the governor and his secretary, Bill Mulrow, in New York?

Remember when Mulgrew told the DA that there's not much they expect to get done this legislative session?

Looks like some kind of deal was worked out between Mulgrew and Cuomo.

Here's what I bet happened:

Cuomo wants the law to remain on the books so he doesn't look like a complete schmuck, having the thing dismantled one year after spending so much time, energy and political capital getting it through.

The unions want community schools to be the model for fixing "failing" schools.

I bet Mulgrew and the unions agreed they wouldn't push against Cuomo's odious 2015 education reform law that imposed receivership and 50% test scores in teacher evaluations in return for Cuomo supporting Mugrew (and Randi"s) beloved community school model.

I've seen a lot of teachers on social media wondering why the unions aren't pushing to have the 2015 education law changed.

It makes no sense, what with the governor under 40% in job approval and running scared that he's going to be charged by the US attorney for corruption, that the unions wouldn't seek to dismantle last year's law.

In addition, it's an election year - when would you ever have more leverage on pols in Albany than in an election year?

But they're not working to dismantle Cuomo's education reform law at all - instead they're tamping down expectations, saying nothing can get done this year because the politicians are busy and don't want to talk to them.

Seems odd but look no further than the way Cuomo's talking about community schools to get an indication for why.

A deal appears to have been worked out, with the unions selling teachers down the river on test scores/APPR and schools on receivership in return for Cuomo pushing community schools.

Just theorizing, of course, but given the history of UFT/NYSUT sellouts and given all the meetings Mulgrew has had with Cuomo,idle theorizing it isn't.

It makes no sense that the unions wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to have that 2015 law dismantled unless they got something back from Cuomo in order to sit on their hands and do nothing.

And you know how Mulgrew (and Randi) love community schools.

There we have it - another vaunted UFT sellout.

Your union leadership at work, selling you out, one meeting at a time.

Yesterday somebody told me that NYSUT leadership is upset about this post from Sullio that succinctly and devastatingly explains how the NYSUT leadership runs things at the union.

The gist of the post is that leadership doesn't care what rights and protections teachers have lost, doesn't care how the rank and file feel about these lost rights and protections, and doesn't care to do anything to rectify these lost rights and protections because membership dues are required by law so why should they care?

Apparently NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, who was never once mentioned in Sullio's post, is upset because he says the post compares him to a gangster - this despite the fact that the mob is never mentioned in the post either.

The only reference to the mob is a brief clip from the film Goodfellas that explains how, when you're paying protection money to the mob, it doesn't matter what happens during the week that might make those payments inconvenient - you've got to come up with the protection money no matter what.

You know, kinda like how teachers have to pony up their union dues every month no matter how many rights and protections disappear because the NYSUT leadership is either complicit with the education reform movement that seeks to destroy the teaching profession or is totally incompetent to stop them (take your pick on which but I lean toward Choice #1.)

Pallotta wants the state attorney general to look into the blog post and filed a discrimination complaint  because, you know, what better things can NYSUT spend time, money and energy on then attacking a blogger who accurately depicts how NYSUT runs its operations.

NYC Educator took on NYSUT leaders over this here.

Sean Crowley did the same here.

Here's my take:

With the Friedrichs case to be heard this year by the Supreme Court and the likelihood coming that the U.S. will be made into a "right-to-work" nation where union dues cannot be compelled from government workers after that case is decided, you'd think NYSUT leadership would be busy re-thinking their "Top-down/Fuck the rank and file cuz' I got mine" way of running things, but given Andy Pallotta's concern over a blog post, that's apparently not the case.

I dunno, perhaps Pallotta has the sads because NYSUT leadership is about to lose a few cars off their union gravy train post-Friedrichs, perhaps he's not a fan of Goodfellas and prefers Casino instead (though I dunno why, since Casino seems so derivative of Goodfellas.)

Either way, Pallotta ought to grow up and worry less about blog posts and more about what's going to happen to NYSUT once the Supreme Court says members no longer are compelled to pay dues.

If I were him, I might be thinking, "Hey, maybe we have to start serving our members and actually protecting their interests," but given the nonsense we've seen from NYSUT so far this year, it doesn't appear that's where the leadership's heading.

Instead they appear to be going down the road of "We'll try and exert even tighter control and destroy any opposition and/or criticism" even as their political House of Cards comes tumbling down around them.

I'm no professional political strategist like Andy Pallotta, but something tells me that strategy will be about as effective as NYSUT's strategy against Andy Cuomo's toxic education reform agenda.

It has been reported in various places that the Buffalo Teachers Federation, with the help of NYSUT, are looking at taking the state to court over the powers that were granted to the Buffalo schools superintendent to break the union contract in five "struggling" schools.

Here's Keshia Clukey at Politico NY with a statement from NYSUT on that:

“At this point in time, NYSUT’s attorneys are looking at every available option and we’ll take any action that’s needed to ensure we defend our teachers’ and our parents’ voice,” NYSUT President Karen Magee said Tuesday. The Buffalo Teachers Federation falls under the umbrella of NYSUT.

...

“The thing that concerns me the most about the commissioner’s decision is it basically mirrors the rushed implementation of the Common Core,” Magee said. “You would think that the engagement process and the right to collectively bargain would be one of the most respected pieces to turn around a school.”

A Perdido Street School reader worries about the outcome of such legal action:

It's clear that taking this to courts has risks that are simply beyond reasonable. The decision to take it to the courts is a reflection of the lack of creativity of ALL NYSUT LEADERSHIP, as well as their lack of knowledge and understanding about some of the most basic and essential history and thinking regarding union organizing and action.

We are, in fact, already losing. That is correct. However, at this point, we must not fully lose our ability to think clearly. If we do lose the case, and it seems fairly clear that its stacked in favor of that, we will not only have lost in Buffalo, but the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW. That's not just losing....that's escalating, magnifying, and putting your loss on steroids. That's how things happen that take generations to undo.

This thinking that the courts are where we need to be are a particular symptom of a total lack of understanding of the labor movement and labor history. Unions, organizing, and labor action exist because of the ASSUMPTION that the courts can be and in fact ARE a reflection of the power structures they exist in and offer no "unbiased" look at such cases. Unions exist to organize and take action precisely to avoid courts for the most part....BECAUSE IT IS THERE, IN COURTROOMS, THAT AWFUL ANTI-WORKER POLICIES CAN BE EMBEDDED INTO LAW WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE USUAL AND MORE PUBLIC PROCESS OF CREATING LAW IN LEGISLATURES!!

Elia and Cuomo and all the reformers would love all this to go to the courts.....its their home territory. They can get law written without all the fuss! Why do you think basically all the reformers love taking things to the courts??

Harris Lirtzman thinks a political solution might be the better course of action here but doesn't think we have the union leadership required to carry such action out:

Our "grievance" is, indeed, a political one.

Whatever one thinks of Elia she is simply doing what the amendments to State Education Law in 2014 proposed by Andrew Cuomo require her to do when there is a conflict between the receiver and the union over CBAs for receivership schools.

Because we live in a state with the Taylor Law, we cannot legally strike. Yes, of course, we can "strike" but at the cost of potentially ruinous financial penalties against NYSUT and "two days per strike day" charges against individual teachers. Yes, again, many of us might like to ruin NYSUT financially but it's hard for me to believe that NYSUT or the membership would authorize and support a strike over receivership schools--the days of "union solidarity forever" and "we shall not be moved" are long gone.

The Transit Workers Union went on a ten day strike in December 2006 which had no, nada, zip public support and it collapsed with nothing to show for it except huge penalties against the Local, loss of dues check-off for two years and fines against members--most of those eventually reduced by the judge.

Unless the "Heavy Hearters" really screwed up the drafting of the legislation for the receivership provisions it's hard to see how this case turns out well for us.

Seems to me two choices:

1. Work politically to get the legislation changed or to defeat in 2016 members of the legislature who voted for it.

2. Take action--perhaps even non-violent direct action--to bring about a crisis in the local political structure sufficient to cause elected officials to change education policy.

Either one of these approaches will have required our unions, specifically, and our members, more generally, to have done the hard, sloggy, unpleasant organizing work to mobilize the members and to educate parents and the general public about the issues involved.

What do you think will happen? I used to believe that the political system could be changed or that direct-action, creatively done, could create the sort of "crisis" that leads to change. I no longer do and I especially no longer do if any of that involves NYSUT, the UFT or the membership-at-large.

Lastly, a reader points out the abysmal rep the NYSUT legal team have:

WHAAAAAAT????????

There is a reason anybody who knows tells you to NEVER use NYSUT legal if you get jammed up...always hire someone yourself. On the micro level of dealing with teacher legal issues, they are known to suck.

On the macro level of shepherding a case of this magnitude through the courts successfully they have NO (zero, 0, none) track record of success.

NYSUT legal is a huge part of our problem. Talk about cushy jobs....NYSUT legal is made up of elite educated lawyers pretending at having a hardcore lefty union gig. They have offered no help, advice, or anything to our cause.

NYSUT legal is beyond a joke and deeply part of the problem.

So many ways a legal case here could go wrong - it's almost as if the union leadership at both BTF and NYSUT are double agents, trying to make it look like they're fighting for the rights of their members while for all practical purposes extending the power and policies of the deformers.

On second thought, check that.

There's no "as if" - as Sean Crowley noted in this comment:

I fear any direct union action will have to be taken without the support or benediction of the double retirees of NYSUT's so called leadership. They don't want to jeopardize one drop of their own precious fat by involving themselves in anything that could be construed as a job action. As noted above the legal dodge they have made into an artform will satisfy whichever box they have to check off on their rubric that proves they demonstrated interest in the rank and file. I think maybe some more phone calls to the White House, another dozen Nae Nae videos and a strongly worded letter or two will be about the most NYSUT can be expected to contribute. This one is going to have to be rank and file driven.

The best course to me here is to have the receivership law changed through the legislative process but given that NYSUT didn't fight Cuomo's imposition of the law much in the first place, I am under no illusions that they'll work very hard to do this.

Rather, they might just take the worst possible action imagined so as to, as the first reader quoted above said, make "the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW."

Indeed, with the tenure/seniority lawsuit already here in the courts here in NY coupled with the receivership suit BTF/NYSUT may take forward, you can see a point in the near future where tenure, seniority protections, and local school control are all abolished and union contracts not worth the paper they're printed on since the state and/or the district will have the power to supersede and/or circumvent them.

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

The American Federation of Teachers is touting in a digital and print advertising campaign the pension fund investment in the plan overhaul of LaGuardia Airport — a pet project of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

LaGuardia Gateway Partners, the entity formed as one of the main vehicles for the project to renovate the sagging airport, includes the California State Teachers’ Retirement System as an investory.

The overhaul, as announced by Cuomo and Vice President Joe Biden this summer, is expected to cost $3.6 billion at Terminal B at the airport. The partners consortium is expected to finance $2 billion of the project, with $1 billion coming from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“We wanted America to know that nurses, teachers and public workers across the country are investing in America—they are creating tens of thousands of good jobs by leveraging their pension assets and rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure—in addition to treating patients, teaching our kids and protecting our communities,” said AFT President Randi Weigarten. “This is solution-driven unionism. It proves what can happen when creative and innovative thinking is applied to America’s most pressing challenges, such as our crumbling infrastructure.”

The ad campaign will be conducted through terminals A, B, C and D at the airport.

Cuomo's pet project getting jump-started with pension money from teachers after Cuomo promised to "break" public schools.

You just can't make this up.

The next time you see some jive from the AFT, NYSUT or UFT about fighting Cuomo, remember how they're helping him out with the pension fund.

From Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism:

Tsipras Has Just Destroyed Greece


This post’s headline comes from an assessment by the Australian website MacroBusiness of the proposal that Greece submitted to its creditors in the wee hours of the morning in Europe. Greece has capitulated, offering to implement more stringent austerity terms than those rejected by voters last weekend by a resounding margin in the Greek referendum. We are posting the full text of the Greek proposal at the end of this post.
As MacroBusiness sums up:

This is basically the same proposal as that was just rejected by the Greek people in the referendum…This makes absolutely no sense. The Tsipras Government has just:

• renegotiated itself into the same position it was in two months ago;
• set massively false expectations with the Greek public;
• destroyed the Greek banking system, and
• destroyed what was left of Greek political capital in EU.

If this deal gets through the Greek Parliament, and it could given everyone other than the ruling party and Golden Dawn are in favour of austerity, then Greece has just destroyed itself to no purpose.

Accepting the same proposal they had rejected previously after a referendum had the Grek people defeating that proposal 61%-39%?

Sounds like the vaunted UFT negotiating team has flown to Greece to help out with the negotiations.

More Yves Smith:

The Greek government faces a legitimacy crisis. Given the overwhelming Oxi vote, how can Tsipras sign up for a deal that is even worse? There is a real possibility that young people, particularly in Athens, which has the highest population density of any city outside of Asia, will take to the streets.

And even if there is no outburst of protests, how can any government that signs a creditor-acceptable memo be seen as anything other that a Vichy state? Politico points out that Tsipras is likely to fracture Syriza with the proposal and will need to enlist other parties who supported a “Yes” vote to get the parliamentary approval he needs. That should hardly be a surprise to Naked Capitalism readers; we pointed out the disconcerting move the morning after the referendum, in which Tsipras met with leaders of all the parties outside the government save Golden Dawn and asked for their support, and all agreed save the communist party KKE. Did FDR seek the support of the defeated Republicans in 1933? I struggle to think of a similar move (beyond a mere polite gesture) after a landslide win.

...

Syriza has thus managed to deliver to the neoliberals a victory more complete than they could ever have engineered on their own. This has been the basis of our criticism, that Syriza by engaging in an open war against an opponent it could never hope to vanquish, was doing not just itself but also the Greek people and the left, lasting damage.

The Greek negotiations are now being steered in large measure by the French, who are conceivably next in line if there is a Grexit, given Marine Le Pen’s rising star. If Greece and the lenders manage to reach an agreement, it’s hard to think that Greek citizens will see the ruling coalition as anything other that a creditor puppet state. If the two sides can’t agree and Greece falls into a Grexit, the economic devastation will be so large as again to discourage any state save Italy and France, from pursuing a Eurozone exit, and even in those two countries, it is likely to give Euroskeptics considerable pause.

The net effect is to give Germany, its retrograde ordoliberals, and its neoliberal allies freer rein to continue their destructive austerity policies. Despite how counterproductive austerity clearly is, Greece will be used as tangible proof that the cost of Euroexit is vastly higher. And that means that Germany will be able keep pursuing policies destined to destroy the Eurozone going well beyond their sell-by date: running large trade surpluses, refusing to finance its trade partners, and bucking all measures to move to meaningful Federal fiscal spending that might buffer national differences in performance and stealthily recycle some of the German trade surpluses. The end result will be more oppression, more suffering, and a more catastrophic eventual Eurozone breakup.

Syriza and Tsipras have given the neoliberals a victory more complete than they ever could have engineered on their own, the next effect will be more oppression, more suffering, and, in the end, catastrophe.

Sounds quite like Randi Weingarten, Mike Mulgrew, Karen Magee and the rest of the Vichyites in the AFT/UFT/NYSUT.

No wonder the neoliberals keep winning in.

The UFT's kidding with this ad, right?

“For months Andrew Cuomo attacked teachers and public schools. Now, with his support at record lows, so-called education reformers and their billionaire backers are running TV ads trying to rewrite history. But we know the truth.

“Cuomo wants to pile on high stakes testing, privatize classrooms, and divert money away from public schools by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy.”

“Governor, New Yorkers agree: Put politics aside and put our kids first.”

First off, UFT President Mulgrew already declared victory after the budget:

The United Federation of Teachers on Sunday night declared victory in an email to its members, writing that most of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Draconian agenda” had been turned back by state lawmakers.

“Now all of our hard work is paying dividends,” the teachers union that represents mostly New York City teachers wrote in the email to members. “The governor’s Draconian agenda has, in large part, been turned back. We want to thank the Assembly and the Senate for standing up for our schools and school communities.”

It turned out that the governor's draconian agenda had not been turned back, that he had, in fact, gotten almost everything he wanted in the budget (including higher weight of test scores in evaluations, merit pay, school receivership for the state, tenure changes and certification changes), but that didn't stop Mulgrew and the UFT leadership from doing what they always do and declaring everything a victory.

This came after Mulgrew and the UFT gave Assembly Dems the okay to vote for the budget while NYSUT leadership told legislators not support the education provisions:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

Then came the opt out movement, which the NYSUT leadership supported but Mulgrew and the UFT leadership criticized.

And we got UFT functionary Peter Goodman blogging how the new Cuomo APPR evaluation isn't so bad and Randi Weingarten, Mulgrew's mentor, retweeting that post.

This is not to mention that when the time to really fight Cuomo was at hand - during the election - Mulgrew and the UFT did all it could to help him out without looking like they were helping him.

When the Working Families Party was fighting over whether to put Cuomo on its ballot or give the nod to Zephyr Teachout, Mulgrew and the UFT ensured that Cuomo got the nod by threatening WFP with financial dissolution if Teachout were nominated by WFP.

When Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, had a really good shot to knock off Cuomo's running mate, bank lobbyist Kathy Hochul, Randi Weingarten took to the air with robocalls for Hochul, helping her beat back Wu's challenge.

Now, after all the help Weingarten, Mulgrew, and the UFT have given to Cuomo, both before his re-election and since by barely fighting against his agenda, they send out an ad that's hard-hitting and calls Cuomo on his attacks.

It's too little, too late and useless for anything other PR for people not paying close attention - which is emblematic of nearly everything the UFT and AFT do.

Norm at Ed Notes called them a company union yesterday in a post.

Looking at how this re-election season and budget process unfolded, I think you can make a very good argument that is the case.

First the AFT and UFT ensured Cuomo would not have to face a third party challenger in November by threatening WFP with financial ruin if Teachout were given the nod, then helped ensure Cuomo would have his running mate, the bank lobbyist, instead of Teachout's running mate, the law professor, win in the primary.

When it came time to fight Cuomo's education reform agenda, they did just enough to make it look like they were fighting it without effectively fighting it.

Then they gave the okay to Assembly Dems to vote for it even as NYSUT leaders were saying not to.

The time for the tough ads attacking Cuomo, the really tough ones, was before the budget was passed, not after.

Alas, now that the battle is over and Cuomo won big time, the UFT trots out the attack ad.

Maybe that will fool a few rank-and-file that the UFT is fighting Cuomo.

But it doesn't fool those of us who have paid attention to this fight and have seen with our own eyes how they helped Cuomo out at critical junctures to ensure he got everything he wanted.

A lot of teachers are waking up to the news that they have been stripped of their permanent certification and tenure protections and are subject to a odious new evaluation system that will be designed by the same incompetent bureaucrats who rolled out the mess that is Common Core and gave a liar named "Dr" Ted J. Morris Jr., MA, Ph.D, MSW a charter school.

A lot of teachers are wondering just who to blame for the shiv that got stuck into them last night.

Fingers are pointing at Cuomo, of course, because he pushed these reforms and ensured they would be in the budget.

Fingers are also pointing at Assembly Dems who, with "heavy hearts," passed this budget laden with education reforms into law, all the while claiming it was the best they could do:

@DeborahJGlick Your betrayal will not be forgotten.
— rbe (@perdidostschool) April 1, 2015

And while it's useful to let pols like Glick know that her sellout will live long in the memory of individual teachers, the truth is, she doesn't care about individual teachers any more than Cathy Nolan, Assembly Education Committee chair, or Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie care about us.

That's because Mike Mulgrew and the UFT gave Assembly Dems the okay to sell us out:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

Make no mistake, had the UFT joined with NYSUT and opposed passage of this budget because of the odious education reform provisions in it, many of the Dems who voted "yes" on the budget last night with "heavy hearts" would have had to think twice before casting an "aye" vote.

But Mulgrew told these sellout Dems not to worry about their betrayal, that the UFT understood and it was okay.

I suggest you vent your frustration at sellouts like Heastie, Nolan and Glick today by calling them at all their offices, emailing them and countering their self-serving jive on Twitter the way I did with Glick.

But you need to call the UFT and let them know that you hold Mulgrew and the UFT leadership ultimately responsible for this disaster.

It was reported that Mulgrew took the lead over Magee and NYSUT in "negotiating" the reforms that would end up in the budget.

Mulgrew declared "victory" on Sunday claiming the lack of merit pay and the hold on the charter cap were "wins" for teachers.

Alas, merit pay actually is in the budget, along with the loss of tenure, permanent certification and an insane new evaluation system developed by the hostile teacher-haters at SED, and the charter cap will be raised later in the legislative session.

Finally, Mulgrew refused to oppose the budget and the reforms in it in any meaningful way, giving Assembly Dems all the cover they needed to stick the shivs into teachers and public schools.

To be sure, this is Cuomo's "reformy" budget - but it couldn't have been done so easily had Mike Mulgrew and the UFT not helped him.

Ultimately, teachers need to blame the UFT for selling them out.

Ken Lovett in the Daily News:

ALBANY — State lawmakers raced to finish work on New York’s budget Tuesday amid simmering resentment over Gov. Cuomo’s education reforms - which opened up an unusual rift between the city and state teachers’ unions.

...

 City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew angered NYSUT President Karen Magee and her team after he put out a statement Sunday night - before the education bill was even in print- claiming victory in beating back some of Cuomo's more strident proposals, sources said.

While Magee urged lawmakers to reject the education measures, city lawmakers said they were told by Mulgrew's team that voting for the package would not be held against them.

"They just weren't on the same page," said one legislator of the two unions. "The issue between them was whether to strike the best deal they could or whether to oppose it outright."

That'll keep them from voting for the odious budget, Mikey.

As we await news of the latest teacher evaluation reform in New York State, let's revisit February 2012 for another big announcement on teacher evaluations by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, former NYSED Commissioner John King, UFT President Michael Mulgrew and former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi:

ALBANY — Student test scores and classroom observations will be used to assess New York educators under a new evaluation system announced Thursday that Gov. Andrew Cuomo heralded as a national model.

The agreement between state officials and union leaders ended two years of tense negotiations and put a court battle on hold.

With the clock ticking on a tight deadline, Cuomo and educational leaders on Thursday said they had broken through the major logjams standing in the way of the new teacher evaluation system — which would also bring in approximately $1 billion in federal funding over the next few years.

The move also strengthens the role of the state Education Department, which must approve the evaluation agreements developed by each of the state's 700 school districts.

"Today is a great day for the schools in the state of New York. Government works today," Cuomo said, as he was joined by Education Commissioner John King Jr. as well as Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzzi, heads of the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers.

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

To get the federal funding, the new evaluation system must be completed and implemented by year-end. Unions and management of local school districts, including the vast New York City system, had been at loggerheads over the weight to give student performance on standardized tests and the appeals process for teachers who receive the lowest rating.

With that in mind, Cuomo said he would impose his own system in his budget plan if unions and department officials couldn't agree by Thursday — which marks the deadline for the governor's 30-day amendments, or final touches, to his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The announcement followed an all-night bargaining session in which the warring sides appeared to compromise on two key issues. The New York City-based UFT and State Education Department agreed on a plan for appealing evaluations in which teachers scored poorly and might face firing; and NYSUT and the state resolved differences over the so-called local test portion of the evaluation.

Under the plan, teachers are evaluated on a 100-point scale: 60 points are based on classroom observations and student portfolios; 20 points come from scores that students get on a standardized state test; and another 20 points come from tests developed by the district or a third party.

Much of the fighting between the labor leaders and state officials was sparked by Cuomo's last-minute push to allow student test scores to count for up to 40 percent of an evaluation. Districts have the option to use state tests for up to 40 percent of an evaluation, but it must be bargained with the union. NYSUT's Iannuzzi said the union would likely end the lawsuit it filed last spring over the increased weight given to state tests once the new evaluation system is finalized.

Additionally, the State Education Department will now have veto power over evaluations that are deemed insufficient. Unions and school districts will also develop a "curve" for the point system by which teachers and principals are rated. Educators will fall in one of four categories: ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective.

Those rated "ineffective" could be fired if they do not improve.

King down played the concerns of some school administrators that the evaluation system would add significant new work to the strained staffing at many schools. He said the new evaluation system will also "dramatically change" the jobs of many principals for the better, by putting them in the classrooms where they can offer constructive feedback to their staff.

"The role of the principal is to provide their teams with instructional leadership," he said. "Principals should be spending significant time in the classroom."

So far, about 100 school districts statewide have agreed on evaluation plans and another 250 are close.

Still, questions remain about how the State Education Department will regulate this new system and whether it has the capacity to review and approve them all by year's end.

"Whether they are going to be able to approve these new evaluations as efficiently as it was described here today, I'm a little bit suspicious," said Tim Kremer, executive director of the state School Boards Association.

And Iannuzzi stressed that the relationships between school districts and their unions will still be a key factor in whether the evaluation plans go smoothly.

"The ingredient you can't write in law is the ingredient of collaboration and trust" between unions and management, he said.

It's interesting to see how much has changed in three years.

Where three years ago they were touting principals as the drivers of observations and fonts of educational wisdom, in the latest iteration of New York State teacher evaluations as pushed by Governor Cuomo, the principal has been superseded by outside evaluators.

Back in February 2012, they said principals would be in classrooms "where they belong", offering "feedback" to their staffs.

In the latest iteration, outside observers will drive by on some unknown timetable to observe teachers they don't know in schools they've never been to in order to provide meaningful evaluations of teachers.

Yeah, that'll work great.

Want to bet we'll be re-doing APPR teacher evaluations in a year or two again when the plan they're working on now turns out to be a miserable failure.

The one constant you'll notice in all the iterations of evaluations in New York State is that the union leadership is always there on stage next to Cuomo for the sell-out announcement.

Bet whatever comes in the next day or so that some teacher union head will offer some variation on the Iannuzzi prouncement from back in the day:

"Today's agreement is good for students and fair to teachers," Iannuzzi added.

Because rhetoric about how good the sell-outs they negotiate never gets old or stale in the mouths of teachers union heads.

Okay, I missed this extraordinary NT2 blog post from a few days ago.

I wish I hadn't - it's that extraordinary.

Read the whole piece, in its entirety over at NT2.

But the gist is this:

Cuomo's approval numbers have tanked because of his attacks on teachers.

People are conflating Common Core, the CCSS tests and Cuomo's push for teacher evaluations all into one and are blaming Cuomo for all three.

NT2 says the numbers would be even worse if NYSUT hadn't pulled their TV ads:

And think of what the drop might have been had NYSUT not pulled its TV ads a month ago. They were good ads. They featured women teachers speaking directly to Cuomo saying in effect: “How dare you say that I’m the problem.”

Nonetheless, Cuomo's getting hurt bad in this battle, even with the ads down.

But it doesn't matter, because no matter how weak Cuomo is at this moment, the UFT leadership is looking to help him out:

This post is actually about NYSUT, once the state’s most powerful union, but now a shell of itself due to internal conflict within its own ranks and with other teacher unions.  One would have thought that Cuomo’s unprecedented attack would have unified the teacher reps, but no.  They are still fragmented, still paralyzed, still seemingly unable to capitalize on this moment in which Cuomo seems so vulnerable on education policy.

(Even as we are writing this, the UFT’s Mike Mulgrew is negotiating with Cuomo’s office on his own, going around NYSUT.)

NT2 blog ends the post with this:

The entity that may capitalize on Cuomo’s vulnerability, however, is the Assembly.  Now that the Assembly has taken ethics off the table, it’s free to do what it wants to do – a wholesale re-write of Cuomo education policies.

Cuomo, stung by the poll, and wanting mainly and perhaps only an ethics victory, might go along. NYSUT would benefit, although not as a result of its own efforts. It will simply luck out.

I've been pointing out for weeks now how the union leadership has been fighting a half-assed battle against Cuomo instead of going for his throat.

Now we know why.

The sellout is being negotiated by Mike Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

AFT President Randi Weingarten and Arthur Goldstein were having a twitter conversation today over Weingarten's support of Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul during the primary (which you can read about here.)

Weingarten robocalled for Hochul during a pivotal moment of the campaign when it looked like challenger Tim Wu could actually pull off an upset.

She wasn't the only "progressive" dragged out for the robocalls by the Cuomo campaign - NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio taped one as well.

After Wu lost the primary to Hochul, he said that his campaign's internal polls had shown him closing on Hochul, but the tide turned after the robocalls went out.

It seems prominent "progressives" like de Blasio and Weingarten supporting Hochul assured enough New York City voters that she was all right, they could safely vote for her.

Weingarten has continually claimed that supporting Hochul publicly was payback for Hochul's support of public education when she was in Congress - but Hochul was only in Congress a short period of time (less than one-full term), so that rationale for Hochul support is absurd.

Weingarten has also said she doesn't think Hochul is in the "everything against" camp when it comes to public education, but as we know from history, any time anybody works for Andrew Cuomo, you either do EVERYTHING Cuomo wants you to do or you don't take the job.

So Hochul's acceptance of the LG gig under Cuomo was an explicit admission that she would be in the "everything against" camp because that's where her boss, Andrew Cuomo, wants her.

Which is EXACTLY where she was this week as she keynoted for the Cuomo administration at Eva Moskowitz's pro-charter Albany rally.

I try and stay out of the Weingarten jive-fests on Twitter these days because it's unproductive trying to argue with a pathological liar, but every once in a while Randi's lies, half-truths and evasions get to be too much and I have to jump in.

This is one of those times:

@TeacherArthurG -I'm more disappointed abt her silence abt public schooling in general--- quite different from when she was in Congress
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) March 7, 2015

To which I replied:

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Who are you kidding? You knew EXACTLY what Hochul would be like as Cuomo's LG.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Anybody who works for Cuomo does EXACTLY as he wants - as Hochul is doing shilling deform.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Your robocalls for Hochul were essentially robocalls for Cuomo - as many have pointed out.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG And just in case you think this wasn't pointed out at the time http://t.co/AX9KMqVy3M
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Mary Ahern made another good point about the way Weingarten helped out the Cuomo campaign during the primary:

.@perdidostschool @TeacherArthurG Add this 2 @rweingarten 's defense of Cuomo's statemnts vowing 2 destroy pub. schl monopoly, I smell a RAT
— Mary Ahern (@mma718) March 7, 2015

Which reminded me about this:

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @rweingarten Yes - she excused it as just "campaign rhetoric," even though she'd heard him b4.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@mma718 @TeacherArthurG @rweingarten Randi was there when Andy trotted rhetoric out first http://t.co/pqyDwmvvCY
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Weingarten replied just once to my tweets:

@perdidostschool @TeacherArthurG -sorry to disappoint you- no deals...
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) March 7, 2015

To which I replied:

@rweingarten @TeacherArthurG Then who called you to tape the robocall at the EXACT moment Wu's poll #'s were rising?
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

So far, no response from Weingarten on that.

This back and forth with Randi gets tiring after awhile, which is why I don't engage in it much anymore, but every once in a while it's important to jump in a point out how full of crap Randi is.

To that end, I'll finish this post with I think the takeway from all this is:

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten I usually stay out of the Randi jive-fests these days, but her Hochul support is egregious
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten In Cuomo admin, she will do as Cuomo says. That's basis for putting her in "against" camp
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) March 7, 2015

Michael Fiorillo's reaction to UFT President Mulgrew's defense of standardized testing:

Do I really need to pay over a thousand dollars a year to listen to someone who misrepresents me and acts like a ventriloquist's doll for Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and all the other so-called reform privateers? To say that tests should drive instruction, as Mr. Robeson did, is to repeat their phrasing word for word.

The needs of children, not tests, should drive instruction.

The reviving of democracy, not tests, should drive instruction.

Education as a means of providing choices, and the ability to rationally judge them, not tests, should drive instruction.

Yesterday's DA provided yet more proof, as if it was necessary, that the Weingrew regime fully accepts the premises of the so-called reformers, which pivot on high stakes testing. These people are there to manage and pacify us while the deal goes down.

How these folks think they can maintain their dues machine once the union is so weakened and discredited (and make no mistake, any union where 80% of the active membership doesn't vote, where archipelagos of schools have no Chapter Leader, and where the contract is ignored with impunity, is racing there) that it can be drowned in the bathtub.

That is exactly what Gates and company will do when Weingrew have outlived their usefulness: stop taking their phone calls and send them on their way to their double pensions.

Apparently, they've signed a loyalty oath to Bill Gates, not that it will help when he's used them up.

Perhaps they're operating under the assumption of the crooked bankers and mortgage brokers leading up to the financial crisis of 2008: IBGYBG, or "I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone."

If you had any hope that the UFT is going to do anything other than slowly sell you out year by year, it ought to be snuffed out by the words and deeds of our union leaders.

They defend testing and Common Core with a lot more passion than they do the teaching profession or teachers.

As Michael said in his comment, these people are there to manage and pacify us while the deal goes down.

The Weingrew shills cry "unity" when you criticize their tactics, criticize their strategies - all "unity" means to them is, shut up and let the leadership sell you out.

Despite the widespread opposition to Cuomo's ed reform agenda, the UFT is getting the message out that this fight against the Cuomo reform budget is essentially lost because he can stick whatever he wants into budget extenders and force the Legislature to take it wholesale or shut the government down.

A colleague at the UFT dog/pony show against the Cuomo reforms that was held in Brooklyn last night said that was the takeaway from the forum.

Mulgrew has issued the same message at the DA.

That's the voice of surrender.

I'll have more on this later, but for now, let's just say, if a governor with 47% job approval rating and the fewest votes of any reelected governor since FDR in 1930 says take my agenda 100% or I'll force a shutdown, he is vulnerable politically to charges of authoritarianism and overreach.

This is especially so since the heavy-handed tactics aren't sitting well with members of either party in either the Assembly or the Senate.

Alas, it does not seem the UFT wants to take Cuomo on at that level in this fight.

Instead they keep reminding members about the budget extender tactics Cuomo can push, saying that, in the end, it's pretty much a done deal.

One might almost wonder if the real deal was done last Friday when Mulgrew and Magee secretly met Cuomo's people for "discussions" and now they're just playing out the string to make things look right for the rank and file.

But a guy who wants to punch anyone who takes his Common Core away and says the union can't fight against standardized tests because parents wants tests would never sell us out in private while putting on a dog/pony show in public, would he?

I mean, they wouldn't just be putting on a show for us, right?

Of course they are.

If they really meant business, they'd be running ads saying

"Governor Cuomo says he wants the Legislature to accept his unpopular education reform agenda wholesale or he'll force a government shutdown.  When did we elect a king in New York State?  This governor has a 47% job approval rating and was reelected with the fewest votes since FDR in 1930 - he doesn't get to dictate to the people of this state and their elected representatives like he's the Sun King."

But they're not running ads like that.

Instead they're telling the rank and file at these UFT forums and the DA how hard the fight is going to be, how much power the governor has through the budget extender, signaling that defeat is coming.

Of course the fight against Cuomo is hard - the UFT and NYSUT are barely fighting it, running lame ads, doing all they can to avoid REALLY taking Cuomo on.

Try running the ad I just wrote above across the state and see how the governor reacts.

Even better, run it for a few weeks and see what happens to his poll numbers.

I'm going to tell you, folks, the more I hear out of Mulgrew and the UFT, the more I think the "compromise" with Cuomo has either already been done or is close to being done and the forums and the rhetoric are just part of the show to fool the R&F into thinking the war's still on.

The fact is, the war between the unions and Cuomo was NEVER on because these people running the unions don't want a war.

They like testing, they like Common Core and they like reform.

They're simply negotiating the terms of exploitation and surrender while sucking up their double pensions and other union perks and putting on a show for the rest of us.

From the NY Post:

Leaders of New York’s teachers unions huddled with Gov. Cuomo’s aides just days after launching a hard-hitting media and grass-roots campaign opposing his education reforms.

United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew and his state counterpart, Karen Magee of New York State United Teachers, met with the aides in Albany last Friday. Cuomo did not attend.

The union leaders said the talks were not unusual and insisted they were not pulling back on their TV ads and social-media outreach attacking the governor’s proposals to strengthen teacher evaluations, streamline disciplinary hearings and expand charter schools.

“We talk to elected officials all the time,” said UFT spokeswoman Alison Gendar. “We . . . are engaged in the largest grass-roots campaign in recent memory to empower teachers and to protect our students.”

NYSUT rep Carl Korn added its campaign is “accelerating.”

Cuomo’s office declined to comment.

I don't buy it.

Union functionaries say the ads haven't been pulled - fine.

The bigger problem is the "secret meetings" between Mulgrew, Magee and Cuomo's aides.

The kind of thing that comes out of these "meetings" between Cuomo's aides and the union leadership is surrender.

That's what happened in February 2012 when Cuomo, Mulgrew and former NYSUT President Iannuzzi announced the APPR deal.

That's what happened in June when Cuomo, Mulgrew and Magee agreed to the CCSS test safety net deal that Cuomo later reneged on.

If the unions were really "accelerating" the war against Cuomo, they would be running better ads than they are, ones that go to the core of the problems with Cuomo's reform agenda (like this one) and they wouldn't be having secret meetings this early in the budget negotiation with Cuomo's aides.

Cuomo's under assault from all sides over his education agenda (see here and here.)

He has a job approval rating of 47%.

He CAN be beaten totally and utterly in this fight.

But surely the unions are not looking for total victory if Mulgrew and Magee are already sneaking in to have talks with Cuomo aides.

Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

Shortly after unveiling ads last week attacking Gov. Cuomo's education plans, the heads of the city and state teacher unions met with aides to the governor, the Daily News has learned.

City teachers union President Michael Mulgrew and New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee attended the meeting on Friday at the state Capitol.

Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads, leaving some insiders to question whether the sides are trying to hammer out some type of agreement on how to move forward.

...

 “We talk to elected officials all the time," said Mulgrew spokeswoman Alison Gendar. "We use strategically-placed ads to move the education discussion in the right direction. At this moment, the UFT and NYSUT, our parent organization, are engaged in the largest grass-roots campaign in recent memory to empower teachers and to protect our students.”

Norm Scott reads this as a sell-out:

Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads...

This goes into the category of Mulgrew "threatening" to go to court to enforce the CFE lawsuit over state funding that was "won" 10 years ago. Threatening. Why not wait another 10 years to go to court? 

Cuomo puts outrageous demands on the table and the unions put nothing on the table. So they negotiate from where Cuomo started and even if they split the baby -- 4 year tenure instead of 5? 35% based on eval instead of 50%? It is  - as Fearless Forecaster often says -- a LOSS.

I agree - this is the union leadership at NYSUT and the UFT putting up the white flag of surrender just as the battle has gotten started.

Why would NYSUT and the UFT agree to pull down their attack ads on Cuomo when he has threatened to destroy public education?

We know what his agenda is because he told us publicly back before the election:

ALBANY — Vowing to break “one of the only remaining public monopolies,” Gov. Cuomo on Monday said he’ll push for a new round of teacher evaluation standards if re-elected.

Cuomo, during a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board, said better teachers and competition from charter schools are the best ways to revamp an underachieving and entrenched public education system.

“I believe these kinds of changes are probably the single best thing that I can do as governor that’s going to matter long-term,” he said, “to break what is in essence one of the only remaining public monopolies — and that’s what this is, it’s a public monopoly.”

This wasn't the first time Cuomo had publicly vowed to break public education - he had said pretty much the same thing at a Forbes forum attended by AFT President Randi Weingarten in June 2014:

CUOMO ON TEACHER EVALUATIONS AT FORBES SUMMIT -- At a private Forbes magazine-sponsored discussion forum in June, Governor Andrew Cuomo told an audience of wealthy philanthropists that state-mandated performance evaluations should be the basis for hiring, firing and tenure decisions. Forbes published video clips and a transcript from the panel on Monday, with excerpts set to appear in its December 15 issue. Capital reported in October that Cuomo and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten participated in the discussion at the Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit.

“As a general rule, I am against public monopolies,” Cuomo said at the event, a sentiment that he repeated later during a pre-election interview with the Daily Newseditorial board. “I am in favor of competition and incentives in any system. ... The teacher evaluations system, I think, is the bedrock of this issue. ... There will be incentives. You can promote the stronger. You can help the weaker, and that’s the way markets work and systems work that will break down the ‘public monopoly.’” Watch this clip for more: http://onforb.es/1yaTglY

When Cuomo proposed his budget for the year, the promise to "break" the public school system was at the core.

In fact, the Daily News declared that Cuomo had "declared war" on it:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo on Wednesday declared war on the state’s educational establishment.
“Our education system needs dramatic reform and it has for years,” Cuomo said. “I believe this is the year to do it.”

In painting a picture where 250,000 mostly minority and poor kids have been trapped in failing schools the past decade, Cuomo threw down the gauntlet with the teachers unions as he unveiled an ambitious education reform plan that would make it easier to fire bad or lecherous instructors, revamp the much-maligned teacher tenure and evaluation systems, and increase the cap on charter schools by 100.

Cuomo, in his combined State of the State and budget address, also proposed:

• Giving the state more power in trying to fix failing schools.
• Developing new standards that teachers must meet to enter the profession. The governor noted that nearly a third of incoming teachers were not reading at the level of a high school senior.
• Having the state cover the full SUNY or CUNY tuition for “top” graduates who commit to teaching in New York schools for five years.
• Rewarding high-performing teachers with a $20,000 bonus incentive and offering improvement plans to help those who score poorly.

He’s also pushing for a controversial education tax credit for those who donate money to private and public schools. But, as first reported by the Daily News on Wednesday, he linked it in the budget to the adoption of a state DREAM Act that would provide state tuition assistance to the college kids of undocumented immigrants.

Cuomo’s aggressive education agenda comes after months of heated rhetoric from the governor, who has vowed to break what he called the public school monopoly.

Hoping to provide lawmakers enough incentive to buck the unions and act, Cuomo pitched two different potential state education aid increases for the coming year — one for $1.1 billion if his reforms are enacted, and one for $377 million if they are not.

“Education, the great equalizer,” Cuomo said. “This is the area, my friends, where I think we need to do the most reform, and, frankly, where reform is going to be difficult given the situation in the way education is funded in this state.”

So Cuomo has declared on public schools and public school teachers, the unions launch an ad blitz (which I didn't think was very good, btw) and that ad blitz, along with the grassroots campaign the unions started to make sure legislators know Cuomo's reforms cannot be accepted wholesale, begins to do some damage to the governor.

We know the ads and the grassroots campaign must be doing some damage, otherwise Cuomo wouldn't be asking the unions to pull the ads down and pow wow over the education budget.

And what does the union leadership at NYSUT and the UFT do in response to Cuomo's crying "Uncle" over the ads?

They acquiesce!

They agree to pull the ads down while the two sides talk.

Are they kidding me?

Cuomo has declared war on public schools and public school teachers, he has promised to "break" the public education system, his agenda is not very popular around the state and the unions have gotten a little momentum going in the counterattack and now they agree to a ceasefire?

What they ought to be doing is doubling down on ads, run one like I devised that gets at the core of the problem of Cuomo's evaluation reform, and hammer him over and over and over until the war is won.

There is no compromise here - Cuomo has vowed to destroy teachers and public schools.

How does the union leadership rationalize compromising with a guy who has promised to destroy us?

From State of Politics:

The NYC teachers union is out with a new TV ad that accuses the governor of putting his own political career ahead of the education of New York’s children.

...


The new ad, which is airing on cable stations on Long Island and in the NYC metro area, features a Brooklyn public school teacher and a an unnamed public school parent and her daughter.

The 30-second spot calls on the governor to focus on what students “really need to succeed,” (in the union’s point of view): Smaller classes, after-school funding and a “fairer” funding formula.

“Governor, tough talk is not the answer,” says teacher Lynne Yabroudi at the end of the ad. “Come visit my classroom to learn what all kids need to get a great education.”

Very, very lame - doesn't get at the real matter here, which is that Cuomo's "reforms" will do more harm than good.

Here's the ad they should run:

Tell New Yorkers what will happen if Cuomo gets to tie 50% of teacher evaluations to student test scores.

Start that process by running an ad featuring Sheri Lederman, the award-winning teacher who was rated "ineffective" by NYSED on her test component via their value-added algorithm even though Lederman's students all passed their state tests and scored well above the state average.

Tell New Yorkers that Lederman is suing the State Education Department over this rating and that so far, NYSED has been unable to provide an explanation for why Lederman was rated "ineffective" even though her students passed the state tests with scores well above the state average.

 Tell New Yorkers that if Cuomo gets his way, many more teachers will be rated "ineffective" via an inscrutable NYSED value-added measurement algorithm that nobody from SED or the Regents seems able to explain.

And end the ad with Lederman's principal telling New Yorkers that if Cuomo gets his way on the rating reforms, one more "ineffective" rating on the inscrutable, unexplainable NYSED VAM will have Lederman fired and her students losing a highly effective, well-respected teacher.

Asking Cuomo to visit classrooms and learn what a great education New York kids get as the basis for an ad?

That doesn't get at the root of the problem in this evaluation fight, nor does it explain to New Yorkers just how damaging Cuomo's education reforms will be to their children and their children's teachers.

If they're going to run "anti-Cuomo" ads, then they ought to be running ones that really explain the problems with the Cuomo reforms.

Assembly Speaker Silver was quite clear about the charter cap and voucher proposal Cuomo called for in his speech today - no way.

As for the evaluation and tenure changes, well, not so adamant about that:

“It’s obviously a complex issue,” Silver said. “It’s being presented to us and we’ll have to look at it.”

That equivocation on the evaluation and tenure proposals doesn't sound good to me.

That sounds to me like Silver's going to give on those.

Perhaps not the 50% Cuomo wants tied to test scores, but in the end, it sounds like much of what Cuomo wants on tenure and evals, Cuomo will get.

That's how I read Silver saying "We'll look at it" this early in the process.

Hope I'm wrong about that.

But unless the NYSUT and UFT tell Silver he's got to go to the mattresses on the "reforms" Cuomo proposed for APPR and tenure, Silver's going to agree to them.

You can see that in the rhetoric around the various education issues.

I think the charter cap increase will happen too - but the stronger rhetoric around that means Silver wants something in return for it.

The APPR and tenure reforms?

He'll look at it.