Thursday, March 12, 2015

Capitol Confidential » Cuomo: ‘I have nothing to do with the education system’

Capitol Confidential » Cuomo: ‘I have nothing to do with the education system’:

Cuomo: ‘I have nothing to do with the education system’

Talking to reporters on Wednesday in Rochester after speaking about his upstate economic development plans, Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted repeatedly that he has no control over the education system — except his ability to control, y’know, its funding.

Asked to respond to criticism from Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and others that his insertion of non-fiscal matters into his budget proposal exceeds his powers, Cuomo pushed back.

“We have something called the constitution, and in the constitution … the predominance of the power to make a budget is with a governor,” Cuomo said. “The Assembly has powers that the Senate doesn’t have, and that I don’t have. The Assembly appoints the Board of Regents — the Assembly basically runs education in this state. I have nothing to do with the education system; the Senate has nothing to do with the education system. … If the Speaker doesn’t like the constitution of the state of New York, he could try to change the constitution.”

Cuomo reiterated his lack of power over the education system in answer to another question a few minutes later, just before laying out his proposal to overhaul teacher evaluations.

“If you want more funding, then you have to fix these problems,” he said.

The governor repeated his lack of power a third time before noting his action to reduce the impact of Common Core-related testing for teachers and students. (For a guy with no power, he was starting to sound rather influential.)

Another response from the 10-minute gaggle required some backpedaling by the press office.

“In a recent article in the New York Times, a former prison commissioner said that due to the recent events and the Capitol Confidential » Cuomo: ‘I have nothing to do with the education system’: