Cuomo Sad Over Injunction, Will Appeal Ruling On $250 Million

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From Capital NY:

A judge today has temporarily blocked the state from cutting of more than $200 million in education aid to New York City after the Bloomberg adminsitration and the United Federation of Teachers failed to come to an agreement on the local criteria teacher evaluations.

Updated: Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said in a statement this evening that, “This is a preliminary injunction and the state intends to appeal.”

The judge, Manuel Mendez, writes in the temporary injunction that the city’s students had no control over the legislative process or the evluation negotiations that produced the current impasse.

The lawsuit filed earlier this month came after the state halted the boost in state aid to the city when the Jan. 17 deadline to resolve the evaluations issue was blown.

The legal challenge was filed by Michael Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Education Equity and was one of the co-plaintiffs of the successful Campaign for Fiscal Equity case that claimed the state wasn’t successfully funding public schools.

It seems Andrew Cuomo, the self-appointed lobbyist for students, just cannot allow students to receive the $250 million in increased aid and so he will appeal to try and take that money away from them.

You see, Andy cares about the kids.

Oh, and he hates to lose.

Which is of course mostly what this is all about - the governor's power to exert control over everything and everybody.

He can't allow anybody - even a judge - to tell him he's wrong.

Nice guy this Andy.

Cuomo Imposed System Will Result In Good Teachers Getting Fired

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Bob McManus writes in the Post that the Cuomo imposed evaluation system, if it comes into being, will not result in the firing of many NYC teachers because it will have been developed by John King and Meryl Tisch, two officials who are beholden to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for their jobs:

It certainly takes a massive leap of faith to assume that anything meaningful will emerge from the legislation Cuomo has proposed.

This, again, is because Commissioner King doesn’t work for Cuomo. He works for the state Board of Regents and, specifically, for Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch.

And Tisch owes her position solely to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — plus to the state Constitution, which severely restricts the direct control governors have over education policy.

The Constitution requires that regents, and the chancellor, be elected by the entire Legislature — sitting as a single body. And since Silver’s Democratic conference outnumbers all other lawmakers combined, he has the whip hand.

Which he exercised with his elevation of Tisch to what is nominally one of the most powerful public-education jobs in America. But while puppet may be too strong a word to describe Tisch’s actual role, she’s not remotely likely to buck him on matters of this magnitude.

So what is Silver’s interest?

Well, let’s just say that the influence the public employee unions enjoy over the speaker and his Assembly Democrats is profound. And that none of those unions are more influential than the UFT and its parent organization, New York State United Teachers.

So it’s not hard to see where all this is heading.

Without reference to King’s good faith, Tisch’s independence or Cuomo’s sincerity, it remains that that the state Education Department itself has been in near-total thrall to Silver and the teachers for years — indeed, decades.

Thus it’s simply not reasonable to expect that the three could force the department to exercise real independence on teacher evaluations, even if they wanted to.

Not in the immediate case, and certainly not over time.

So much for Cuomo’s “perpetuity.”

So much, in fact, for the notion that there is anything fundamentally different in this approach than from what has come before.

The UFT has had an effective veto over meaningful evaluations all along. While it may allow Silver to engineer a fig-leaf accommodation this time around — the union, after all, stands to regain effective control of city schools once Bloomberg leaves office — there’s no reason to believe that significant numbers of bad teachers will wind up losing their jobs.

Ever.

 I don't buy this.

Tisch and King have promoted deform policies since they took their positions of power in Albany - from promoting the Endless Testing regime to teacher evaluations tied to test scores.

In addition, the UFT and the NYSUT have promoted ed deform policies as well - from signing off on the original Race to the Top legislation which changed the evaluation systems around the state and tied them to test scores to dropping the lawsuit against the Tisch/King/Cuomo policy change around the 40% test score threshold (a lawsuit which they won, btw.)

The Regents Chancellor, the NYSED Commissioner and the NYSUT and UFT Presidents are all on board to push through the same kind of test score-based education deform policies - and those are the kinds of policies and "reforms" we have been getting out of Albany.

Perhaps these reforms do not go far enough for McManus and the Posties - that's a different issue.

But make no mistake, no one should take any solace that the UFT is allegedly going to have influence over the King/Tisch evaluation system that is imposed on us in June.

The UFT leadership have shown themselves to be in bed with the deform movement and the system we will get will be a deform system that turns schools into test prep factories where kids do nothing all day but practice for the high stakes tests and teachers do nothing all day but teach to the test.

And good teachers will lose their jobs over this - the APPR bell curve that mandates at least 10% of teachers get low ratings every year ensures this.

And the UFT leadership is okay with that.

As one of the Unity functionaries told Accountable Talk, they want more teachers fired because the current system, which leads to only about 1% of teachers being fired every year, isn't terminating enough teachers.

I can't imagine a member of MORE saying that kind of thing, can you?

But until we get a change in leadership at the UFT, you should know that your union is in the business of giving the education deform movement what it wants - and that includes on this evaluation issue.

Neo-Liberals At Daily News Hate Rule Of Law

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The lead editorial from the Daily News argues that school budget issues do not belong in a court room and that judges should have no say in how the state awards school aid:

Rarely does a judge show the lack of perspective and judicial discretion that has just been displayed by the jurist who barred Gov. Cuomo from denying the city $250 million in school funding.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez obviously hasn’t a clue as to state and city budgets, the interplay between Albany and City Hall, or education outlays and policy. As for the law, with those blind spots, it doesn’t matter.

Fairness and the standards of wise leadership say that Cuomo should send the money to the Department of Education. But what a governor ought to do and what a judge can compel a governor to do are vastly different things. Mendez doesn’t know the difference.

Ah yes - the courts have no power to force the governor to comply with state law or previous court decisions, like the 1995 decision that said students have a state constitutional right to a “sound, basic education” and ordered Albany to increase aid to NYC schools.

Since Albany never actually complied in full with the 1995 ruling, as Bruce Baker points out here, students are not getting the "sound, basic education" that law requires.

The Daily News neo-liberals argue that DOE spending is up 34% since 2002, going from $15,811 per pupil to $21,137 per pupil, but they never say how much of that spending actually reaches the classroom. 

Since Michael Bloomberg took over sole control of the NYC school system, he has added layer upon layer of bureaucracy to the system, wasted billions on outside consultants (many of who are robbing the city blind) and increasingly thrown money into technology boondoggles that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and yet never seem to give schools the bandwidth they actually need.

Given the chronic underfunding of the system by the state and the money Bloomberg wastes on bureaucracy, consultants and technology boondoggles, it is fair to say that the $250 million in lost aid does hurt students and the governor should not be able to tie state aid to schools to contractual matters like teacher evaluation systems.

The Daily News, of course, just wants an odious teacher evaluation system imposed, and so they don't particularly care how the governor goes about doing that - even if it means breaking the law and hurting children in the process.

That's what the rule of law is all about for neo-liberals.

They only like it when it can be used to bludgeon the peons.

When it can be used to hold the people in power accountable, then not so much.

Education Week Presents Education Lessons From Donald Rumsfeld

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Seriously - they do.

Here's what Rummy has to offer us:

Shit happens - free markets are untidy and people make mistakes and sometimes that means selling off entire public school systems to private equity predators and letting them suck the money dry, leaving the children in classrooms of sixty kids with no heat, no desks, no books and no teachers because they all got fired.  That's just what needs to happen and there's nothing we can do about it.

Oh, wait - that's what he said about Baghdad after the invasion.



Well, it works for education reform too.

Gee, how exciting that Education Week is publishing all these insights from military leaders on how to reform the education system.

Next week Education Week is going to bring us the wit and wisdom of General William Westmoreland and the charterization of the public school system.

The article is entitled "In Order To Save The Public Education System, We Had To Destroy It."

After that, Kissinger on how to achieve "Education Reform With Honor."

What a great paper of record, this Education Week.

We can learn so much from it.

Like what not to do and who not to listen to.

UPDATE - 1:01 PM: More wisdom on leadership from Donald Rumsfeld:



Yeah, Rumsfeld has so much to teach us about leadership.

How many people died as a result of Donald Rumsfeld's arrogance, hubris, and incompetence?

FreshConnect and Farmers' Market Nutrition Programs Update: Program Season Extended Statewide

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The following alerts come from the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets program staff.Due to the severe weatherconditions the downstate region experienced as a result of Hurricane Sandy, incollaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the NYFarmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) has been granted permission to extend theprogram season statewide as follows:·        Recipients may continue to exchange FMNP checksfor fresh, local produce through Saturday, December 1^st  ·        Authorized farmers may continue to deposit FMNPchecks at KeyBank branches through Friday, December 14^thFarmers who experience any difficulty transacting their FMNPchecks at non-KeyBank branches should continue to contact our agency forsupport. Given the deadline extension we will not be in a position toreimburse for “late checks” after December 14^th, 2012. Also,keep in mind that while farmers may deposit any volume of checks, no more than250 checks per day may be cashed “on-the-spot” at KeyBank branches. Allother program rules and regulations apply.

________________________________________________________Due to the severe weatherconditions the downstate farmers marketing region experienced as a result ofHurricane Sandy, the FreshConnect Program has decided to extend the program season statewide asfollows:·        Fresh Connect Checks may be issued to SNAPrecipients through Saturday, December 1^st, 2012·        Fresh Connect Checks may be exchanged for SNAPeligible food items through Saturday, December 1^st, 2012·        Fresh Connect Checks may be submitted forreimbursement through Friday, December 14^th , 2012
In addition, due to the poweroutages in your farmers market region, and the fact that SNAP EBT wirelessterminals require electricity to operate, special permission to issue FreshConnect Checks is being granted as follows: ·        At farmers markets operating in the affectedregion, Fresh Connect Checks may be issued to SNAP recipients without thepurchase of $5.00 of SNAP benefits. Maximum issuance of checks in thisway should be $10.00, or five (5) Fresh Connect Checks, per SNAPrecipient, per market day.Farmers who experience any difficulty reimbursing theirFresh Connect Checks should continue to contact our agency for support. All other program rules and regulations apply.

Farm Foundation to address dairy policy at National Press Club

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The Farm Foundation will hold a forum on dairy policy February 6 at the National Press Club:

As Congress navigated its way through options to avoid the fiscal cliff in the final days of 2012, federal dairy policy shared part of the spotlight. In the end, Congressional actions included a nine-month extension of the Farm Bill, averting a legal mandate that had the potential to cause milk prices to more than double.

The challenges and opportunities of U.S. dairy policy will be the focus of the Farm Foundation® Forum on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013. The Forum will be 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. EST at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington D.C.

Providing insights on potential policy developments will be:

• Mary Keough Ledman, Keough Ledman and Associates
• Mitch Davis, Davis Family Dairies, Le Sueur, Minn.
• Sue M. Taylor, Leprino Foods
• Other producer perspectives

After the speakers' brief presentations, the floor will be opened for discussion.

Mexican farm labor markets tighten up, with possible implications for U.S. farmers and farm workers

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The agricultural labor supply in Mexico may be shrinking, a development that is likely to raise wages for farm laborers in both Mexico and the United States.

If this is truly a long-term trend, rather than a short-term response to economic recession or disruption because of recent violence, then it would have several implications.  It could cause some difficulties for U.S. farm owners, and it could somewhat hinder efforts to encourage increased consumption of fruits and vegetables at low prices.  On the positive side, it could help smooth U.S. immigration policy debates, and it would help alleviate hardship for the immigrant workers who play such a central role in the American food system.

An article in the most recent issue of Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy (may be gated), by J. Edward Taylor, Diane Charlton, and Antonio Yúnez-Naude, is titled "The End of Farm Labor Abundance."  Here is the abstract:

An analysis of nationally representative panel data from rural Mexico, with observations in years 2002, 2007, and 2010, suggests that the same shift out of farm work that characterized U.S. labor history is well underway in Mexico. Meanwhile, the demand for agricultural labor in Mexico is rising. In the future, U.S. agriculture will compete with Mexican farms for a dwindling supply of farm labor. Since U.S. domestic workers are unwilling to do farm work and the United States can feasibly import farm workers from only a few countries in close geographic proximity, the agricultural industry will eventually need to adjust production to use less labor. The decline in foreign labor supply to farms in the United States ultimately will need to be accompanied by farm labor conservation, switching to less labor intensive crops and technologies, and labor management practices that match fewer workers with more farm jobs. 

This article may be thought-provoking for readers who participate in U.S.-based sustainable food movements.

For one thing, these movements have been trying to come to grips with labor issues, recognizing that even locally oriented and organic food production in the United States makes heavy use of low-wage farm workers.  It is good that these movements have been giving greater attention to worker advocates, including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and others, but this attention has to be accompanied by a fearless and honest analysis of the basics of labor supply and labor demand, which are more fundamental determinants of both wages and working conditions.

For another thing -- and here I am generalizing a bit -- many of the thinkers and writers in this movement whose work I generally respect highly are nonetheless trade skeptics to a degree that makes me nervous.  It is sensible to expect high standards from trade policy without straying quite so close to a nativist pessimism in which low-income trading partners are seen as bottomless pits of economic distress.  The reason I am more optimistic than many of my friends about international trade is that I have not yet given up on the prospects for economic advancement that reaches even low-wage labor markets in the countries we trade with -- starting, for example, with Mexico.