Perdido Street School:
Perdido Street School Week
Cuomo, Hochul, De Blasio Are All Class
Watch Governor Cuomo, Representative Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio all ignore Cuomo's Democratic Primary opponent Zephyr Teachout as she tries to say hello at today's Labor Day Parade:Lots of people have hammered Cuomo and Hochul on Twitter over this classless exhibition. Let's add Bill de Blasio to anvil for some hammering.He's as classless as Cuomo and Hochul.What the hell, shake her han
Cuomo's Weakened Stature Gets The Politico Treatment
The Politico article, Andrew Cuomo's Progressive Blues, that went up this morning and got prominent placement on the Politico website, is not going to make Andrew Cuomo or his campaign happy.The takeaway: Andrew Cuomo's political stature is diminished and his future as both governor and presidential candidate are limited.Even more interestingly, de Blasio is depicted as Cuomo's political savior th
YESTERDAY
Eva Moskowitz Public Relations Department In Overdrive These Days
An overall positive piece in the NY Times Magazine, now a shill piece from ed deform fanboy Jonathan Chait.Last week she was on NY1, talking how she might run for mayor in 2017. State of Politics tonight says "The charter school network CEO is getting a lot of media attention these days."But it's never an accident when Success Academies or Eva herself gets attention.With the amount of mo
De Blasio's Victory Lap
Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY:Mayor Bill de Blasio took a five-borough victory lap Thursday for his universal pre-kindergarten program, the signature initiative of his administration.De Blasio, accompanied by his wife Chirlane McCray, schools chancellor Carmen Fariña, and a group of council members, borough presidents and other elected officials, visited five schools, one in each borough—a first day
Cuomo In Hiding, Teachout Everywhere
Zephyr Teachout's schedule today:At 10 a.m., Democratic gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout participates in a Women’s Equality “Empty Chair Debate Stop”, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, 23 Washington Pl., Manhattan.At 11:30 a.m., Teachout appears on “The Capital Pressroom” with Susan Arbetter, listen at 91.3 FM or http://www.wcny.org/radio/capitolpressroom/.At 2 p.m., Teachout makes an “Empt
Let Kathy Hochul Know What You Think Of Her
State of Politics:At 3:30 p.m., Hochul does a Penn South walk through with NYC Council Member Corey Johnson, 26th Street and 8th Avenue, Manhattan.Stop by and let Hochul know you think she should be running as a Republican, along with her running mate, Andrew Cuomo:Hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pick for lieutenant governor published a video touting her liberal credentials, her challenger said he
UFT, De Blasio Back To Bargaining Table On Contract
Sally Goldenberg at Capital NY:The de Blasio administration and the United Federation of Teachers will return to the bargaining table in the coming weeks to hammer out an unresolved portion of the recently ratified contract, Capital has learned.The two sides need to agree on how to pay union members who retired before June 30, 2014, because more teachers left than the contract had accounted for, b
SEP 04
First Day Of Classes Opening Thread
After two days of meetings, professional development and other things that made me want to stick a pencil through my eye, today is finally the first day of classes.About the only thing that keeps me in this job is the enjoyment I get working with students and teaching my classes.The rest of the stuff - the Common Core meetings, the PD, the forced professional learning communities jive, the focus g
APPR Teacher Evaluation System Mess Thread
James Eterno at ICEUFT blog describes how you can get the same score in the APPR teacher evaluation system and either be "developing" or "ineffective," depending upon, well, nobody's sure what it depends upon:We knew teachers at a phasing out school would be at a huge disadvantage in terms of the ratings in Advance and informed you of our concerns when you visited Jamaica last
Cuomo Took $1.25 Million In Donations From Companies That Won State Economic Development Grants
From Glenn Blain and Ken Lovett at the Daily News: ALBANY — Several companies run by big-time donors to Gov. Cuomo have won millions of dollars in state economic development grants since he took office, state records show. At least seven companies that received a total of $15.25 million in grants from state Regional Economic Development Councils are linked to $1.25 million in donations to Cuomo’s
SEP 03
Cuomo: Debates Are Bad For Democracy
You just can't make this stuff up:Mr. Cuomo’s primary challengers include Zephyr Teachout, a law professor, whose candidacy has attracted attention of late partly because of the governor’s simultaneous concern about it (he tried to get her removed from the ballot) and refusal to acknowledge it exists (he avoids uttering Ms. Teachout’s name). ...Mr. Cuomo was asked about his refusal to debate and
Rob Astorino Says Its Time To Make The Board Of Regents Accountable To Voters
The Times-Union reports that GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino released a 15 point education plan yesterday, with Astorino's call for replacing the Common Core in New York coming at the top of the plan list.But I found this part most interesting:Astorino's plan also includes changing the process for selecting the leaders of the the state's educational system. He'd like to see the 13-member
Thoughts On The Teacher Evaluation Results
As I posted yesterday, NYC public school teachers were supposed to receive their APPR evaluation ratings sometime between 4:00 PM and 12:00 AM yesterday.The NYCDOE sent my email notice out at 7:07 PM last night.I didn't check for it until this morning.To be honest, I have contempt for this system, both the observation components and the test-based accountability components.My sense is, the observa
Cuomo Plays 9/11 Card In Primary Contest
Governor Cuomo must be more concerned about the Democratic Primary vote next Tuesday than his campaign's letting on if he felt the need to play the "Vote For Zephyr Teachout and terrorists will kill you!" card.That's what he did yesterday, sounding very much like George W. Bush:Gov. Cuomo stopped short of bashing his primary rival Zephyr Teachout for refusing to take a position on Israel
SEP 02
APPR Teacher Evaluation Open Thread
The NYCDOE is supposed to send out final evaluation ratings for educators sometimes between 4 PM and 12 AM.Anybody gets theirs yet?If so, thoughts?If not yet, thoughts anyway?
Why You Should Support Tim Wu Over Kathy Hochul For Lieutenant Governor
Zephyr Teachout's running mate, Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, has a decent shot to beat Governor Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, for the lieutenant governor slot.The Cuomo people want you to think Wu isn't a very serious person, that you should vote Hochul because she is very serious.Here's Wu's rebuttal to that:Wu also responded to an attack from former governor (and lieutenant go
Governor Cuomo Not A Very Popular Guy On Social Media
.@mahoneyw examined about 1,200 Twitter messages expressing position on gov's race; only 12 - 1% - said something in support of @NYGovCuomo.— Liz Benjamin (@CTLizB) September 2, 2014Think about that for a minute - 1% of the 1,200 Twitter messages examined expressing a position on the governor's race were supportive of Governor Cuomo.What does that say about our governor?
Why Isn't The Press Covering The Moreland Investigation Any Longer?
Thomas Kaplan reports many people around the state are taking the primary season to publicize their unhappiness with Governor Cuomo:He has been snubbed by unions representing teachers and state workers. Editorial boards are skewering him. Political rivals are lobbing attacks from his left and his right.A year ago, it looked as though Labor Day would mark the start of Andrew M. Cuomo’s smooth glide
Let's Be Careful Out There
When Mayor Bloomberg was running the NYC school system, his attitude toward teachers was easy to read - he despised them, thought little of teachers as people and even less of teaching as a profession and wanted as many fired as possible.Every year around March we'd start the budget layoff season in which Bloomberg would threaten thousands of teacher layoffs.Every year those layoffs would be avert
SEP 01
Cuomo Campaign Tries To Pre-Spin Teachout Primary Numbers
From Buffalo News:ALBANY – Poll after poll has shown Andrew Cuomo nearly invincible over the past four years.So imagine an unknown liberal law professor at a Jesuit college who has never run for office before capturing a quarter or perhaps close to a third of the votes in the Democratic primary next week.That is not a scenario Cuomo’s opponents are pitching. That’s what insiders on the governor’s
Politico: Obama's Teacher Evaluation Reform Agenda In "Disarray"
It's a mess out there:The idea seems simple enough: Identify the best teachers and reward them. Pinpoint the worst and fire them. That’s been a linchpin of the Obama administration’s education agenda from the start. But now the administration’s initiative is in disarray, with states scaling back, slowing down and, in some cases, putting off tough decisions until Obama is out of office. Teachers un
AUG 31
Carmen Farina Vows To Drain ATR Pool By Having Principals Target ATR's
Buried at the bottom of this Daily News story on Chancellor Farina's goals for the new school year is this:Fariña pledged to announce in the next two weeks a big reduction in the number of teachers getting paid despite not having steady classroom jobs. Earlier this month 114 of the roughly 1,100 teachers — known as the Absent Teacher Reserve — accepted $16,000 buyouts. Fariña said the numbers woul
AUG 30
Anti-Tenure Lawsuit Groups Battle Each Other
The NY Post reports of dysfunction among the anti-tenure groups fighting to end teacher protections in New York State:The powerhouse law firm that was supposed to represent parent advocates suing to overturn the state’s teacher tenure laws has withdrawn from the case, The Post has learned. One of the parent advocates, Mona Davids, charged that the firm Gibson Dunn pulled out after “bullying” by ri