https://dcgmentor.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/ny-education-policy-is-for-sale-to-the-highest-bidder-a-tale-of-how-money-talks/
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 to laugh.”
StudentsFirstNY
‘s goal as stated by executive director, Jenny Sedlis, is pretty clear.
“The group’s goal was to create a permanent
organization to advance important education changes and neutralize the
influence of the teachers’ union.”
With no fear she goes onto say,
“With StudentsFirstNY, there’s a
board with a war chest that’s always there.” “We’re there before the election
and after. And that has to be reassuring for ed reformers who want to stick
their necks out, and disconcerting for the other side.”
In fact things are so cozy for
Sedlis that she has been a mini version of ALEC. She has been a go between
among different government offices and having a great deal of influence on how
education bills are written.
Lets follow “mo money”. Hedge
fund manager and one of StudentsFirstNY’s founders and funders Daniel S. Loeb,
hosted a fundraiser for Governor Cuomo, and has contributed approximately
$140,000 to his campaigns over the past 5 years. Two other major players in
StudentsFirstNY, hedge funders Paul Jones and Carl Icahn together have
contributed another $125,000.
But here is the most damning
evidence of collusion.
“Making teacher evaluations more
dependent on test scores, reforming tenure and adding charter schools in the city were all priorities
of StudentsFirstNY and became significant pieces of the governor’s agenda for
the 2015 legislative session, which he announced in his State of the State
speech on Jan. 21. Emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Law, as
well as interviews, show that Mr. Cuomo and his senior education advisers were
in close touch, by email and telephone, with Ms. Sedlis and her board members
in the weeks after the governor’s re-election last November.”
On December 9th the governor met with Ms. Sedlis and several
StudentsFirstNY board members. Following the meeting, the arrogance of director
of state operations, Jim Malatras showed when he said,
“Improving the state’s education
system has been one of the governor’s top priorities since taking office and
throughout that process, he has always partnered with groups, stakeholders,
experts and other allies willing to fight for better futures for New York’s
students.”
Notice who is missing? Actual
educators!
Now I am not a fan of UFT head
Michael Mulgrew, but even he noticed something was wrong.
“If you look at the governor’s
State of the State speech, it was almost taken word for word from their [StudentsFirstNY] website.” “We’re going to
just tell everyone the governor is basically for sale at this point, because
that’s what it is,” Mr. Mulgrew added. “It’s not a belief system.”
StudentsFirstNY has also been
very successful in buying both sides of the aisle. In the NY State Senate their
donors raised and spent $4.2 million to help Republicans win a majority of
seats.
Come on now, Really?
Sedlis even takes credit for
getting the NYS Assembly to morph Ed laws to their liking.
“I think we were a major part in
creating a climate where that could happen,” she said, “because I don’t think
the governor could go out on a limb on his own if there weren’t policy and
advocacy groups that could help make that case.”
Seriously? How fearless can one
be?
And as for Families for Excellent
Schools? This 501 ( c ) 3 spent more on lobbying ($9.6 million) than ANYONE in
the state. Most of it was spent on Ads supporting the Governor and Charter
Schools and demeaning anyone who stood against them.
Who are they? By state law a 501 ( c ) 3 doesn’t have to
disclose its donors, but scratch the surface and you find Eva Moskowitz, head
of Success Academy, one of the largest charter systems in NYC. Oh and by the
way… Ms. Sedlis used to be their Public Relations director.
“This month, a few days after
the legislative session ended, Families for Excellent Schools began running an
ad that featured shots of cheering families, and of Mr. Cuomo, over a hopeful,
Morning-in-America-esque melody. The final screen read: “Thank you, Governor
Cuomo, for championing education.”
These ads were everywhere. And
as Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a group devoted to
curbing the influence of money in politics, said of Families for Excellent
Schools,
“The danger is the public really
doesn’t know from the advertising who is trying to push public policy and what
their motivations might be.”
But we know, don’t we?
Privatize. Corporatize. Destroy Teachers Unions. Control what they call the
Education Industry!
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