NY EDUCATION POLICY IS FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER: A Tale of How Money Talks.
Although the NYT article leads with this headline, “Bloomberg Is NO Longer Mayor, but His School Agenda Thrives in Albany”, Kate Taylor of the NYT has really highlighted how 2 major reformer lobby groups have bought Governor Cuomo and enough of the State Legislature to ensure their brand of privatization of schools wins the political battles in Albany.
These two groups, StudentsFirstNY and Families for Excellent Schools, have basically written Governor Cuomo’s policies, specifically tying teacher evaluations to standardized test scores, creating new hurdles to achieving tenure, and increasing the number of charter schools in the state. Although they would make it seem that these are “for the children” in fact they are right up Cuomo’s vengeance alley to get back at the unions who have not supported him and his election.
It is not surprising also that the same people who back StudentsFirstNY are major donors to the Cuomo campaign. Also not surprising is the huge amount of contact between StudentsFirstNY staff and leadership and the governor’s office since his reelection.
A little background.
StudentsFirstNY was founded in 2012 by Joel I. Klein, who had been the schools chancellor for more than eight years under Mayor Mike Bloomberg; Michelle Rhee, a former Washington schools chancellor; and the billionaire hedge fund managers Daniel S. Loeb and Paul Tudor Jones. It receives some support from StudentsFirstNY, the national organization Ms. Rhee founded in 2010, but has its own board of directors and functions independently.
To quote Emily Litella of Saturday Night Live fame, “ That’s so funny I forgot NY EDUCATION POLICY IS FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER: A Tale of How Money Talks. | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing: