NYC Educator: The Moskowitz Budget, its Predecessors, and What We Do About It

NYC Educator: The Moskowitz Budget, its Predecessors, and What We Do About It:

The Moskowitz Budget, its Predecessors, and What We Do About It

The grab-bag of goodies we've given Eva Moskowitz is very disturbing. Most disappointing to me is Cuomo has more or less neutered the great progressive hope of these United States, Bill de Blasio. De Blaiso was elected on a platform of stopping colocations, and it appears much of his authority has been usurped by the state. The will of the voters is paramount in a democracy, but the will of Eva Moskowitz and her rich BFFs to contribute to Andrew Cuomo and multi-million dollar ad campaigns has trumped that.

I've seen zero evidence of any fightback from the UFT, and maybe Cuomo's sudden willingness to look at not judging teachers by results he's deemed unfit for kids is a payback. If so, it's far from sufficient. They're still discussing implementation, but there will always be issues when you implement something that is garbage. Putting it off for two years is no panacea for kids or teachers.

There's a long and consistent record of miserable education legislation in NY State. The APPR is flawed in that any percentage of junk science VAM is too much. While UFT leadership may have initiated one of the worst programs by allowing Reformy John King to decree ours, there are other flawed programs around the state. Nonetheless, I've spoken to union presidents who've negotiated much better systems than ours, and I think NYC teachers would be much happier with simpler, less insane programs. Clearly, whatever is negotiated, the optimal percentage of junk science in any system is precisely zero.

The folks at Revive NYSUT are fond of calling the junk science law the Iannuzzi APPR. Oddly, they neglect to mention one of their most significant supporters, Michael Mulgrew, was right there with Iannuzzi when it was negotiated. UFT members will recall that it was presented as the best thing since sliced bread. The most wonderful thing about it, of course, was that there was so much to negotiate. A UFT rep told my