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Students at a charter high school who have been learning about state politics evidently think Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked the right questions during his State of the State address earlier this month.

During the speech, Cuomo argued that students are the only people in schools who don’t have advocates in Albany. Who should represent them? he asked. His answer: “This year, I will take a second job — consider me the lobbyist for the students.”

That answer satisfied students the Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation, who created a short video recapping Cuomo’s comments.

“Who’s OUR lobbyist?” one student asks. Later, she says, “My governor, my lobbyist.”

The video is part of the school’s preparation for Charter Advocacy Day on Feb. 7, according to Principal Nicholas Tishuk. It follows another video, about cyberbullying, produced earlier this month after legislators visited the school. (more…)

The fight over teacher evaluations occupied much of Gov. Cuomo’s education talk during his budget address today. But his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in April actually contains a host of other education policy proposals.

Here are some details about each of them. Cuomo’s budget proposes to:

• Make more funding dependent on performance. Cuomo announced a first round of competitive grants for districts that boost test scores and cut costs a year ago and started taking applications in November. Today, he steered another $250 million in competitive grants into that program.
• Target school aid to high-needs districts. A little more than $300 million of the $800 million in school aid increases will be targeted to the state’s highest-need districts. The Alliance for Quality Education — whose head, Billy Easton, has drawn criticism from Cuomo’s camp for being “a paid lobbyist for the teachers union” — praised the decision but raised concerns about the competitive component of the state aid proposal.
• Reverse budget cuts to the state’s testing program. Last year, the Board of Regents closed a budget gap by slashing $8 million from the state’s testing program. The cut caused the state to eliminate January Regents exams, which some high school students must pass to graduate. In August, Mayor Bloomberg announced that private donors had pitched in to pay for the tests for one year. Next year, public funds will pay for the tests once again. (more…)

Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo slashed school aid across the state. This year, he plans to add back much of what was lost — but there’s a catch.

Districts will get the money only if they roll out controversial new teacher evaluations according to an accelerated timeline, Cuomo announced in a hotly anticipated speech in Albany today.

He also outlined a procedure by which new evaluations could be put into effect even without local unions’ agreement, which a state law passed in 2010 requires.

Cuomo kicked off the procedure today with an ultimatum: He demanded that the state teachers union, NYSUT, drop its lawsuit over the evaluations and settle on a “protocol” for new evaluations with the State Education Department within 30 days.

“If they can’t do that then we’ll do it for them,” Cuomo said in his address today. Using the state’s unusual Article 7 process, Cuomo could use a budget amendment to change the state’s teacher evaluation law — possibly by striking the requirement for districts and unions to negotiate some details locally.

For now, local districts and their unions would still have to sign off on evaluation plans even if NYSUT resolves its issues with the state. Districts that do so by Sept. 1 will be able to compete for $250 million in state funds, Cuomo said today. If they miss that deadline, they will have until Jan. 17, 2013 — a year from today — to settle on new evaluations or give up the 4 percent increase in state aid.

“The equation is simple at the end of the day: No evaluations, no money, period,” Cuomo said. (more…)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo turned up his rhetoric against teachers unions today, charging that their influence made the state’s teacher evaluation law “destined to fail.”

Cuomo was responding to the Obama administration’s warning that New York could lose hundreds of millions of federal dollars if it does not speed up reforms that include overhauling how teachers are rated.

In 2010, with the deadline to apply for federal Race to the Top funds looming, legislators passed a law requiring districts to negotiate more sophisticated evaluations. That law was key to helping the state secure $700 million in the funding competition, and it is that law that the Obama administration now wants to see in effect.

But a requirement that districts negotiate some details with their local unions has hampered implementation, including in New York City.

Speaking several days after negotiations in several districts fell apart, Cuomo said in his State of the State address last week that the state’s teacher evaluation law “didn’t work.” Today, he took that characterization even further, suggesting that legislators had been excessively influenced by teachers unions and arguing that a different law is needed. (more…)

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo convenes the education reform commission he promised today, there are likely to be some new faces in the room.

Cuomo signaled that he was tired of business as usual during his State of the State address today, saying that special interest education groups, such as lobbyists for teachers, principals, and superintendents, have come to overshadow the true mission of public education.

“The purpose of public education is not to help grow the public education bureaucracy,” Cuomo said in his speech. The status quo, he said, is “driven by the business of education more than achievement in education.”

Cuomo said that the education commission would be the driving force behind his pledge to toughen teacher evaluations and make the state’s education spending more efficient. He said the commission would be bi-partisan and include joint appointments from the legislature, but was not specific about what the makeup would look like.

Two people who work closely on state and city education policies said that they expected the commission to be made up at least in part of people from outside the state.

“It will be something that’s quite national, people from outside New York,” a source said. ”It won’t be people from the usual crowd.” (more…)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivering the State of the State address in Albany today

Students have a new representative in Albany: Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Right now, Cuomo is delivering his second State of the State address, titled “Building a New New York … with you.”

Education issues account for one and a half of the speech’s 33 pages of prepared remarks. As expected, the governor is calling for an education commission to propose reforms to the state’s education system. That commission will look for ways to boost “teacher accountability and student achievement” and “management efficiency” — both topics Cuomo targeted during his first address a year ago — and will work with the legislature.

He’s also appointing himself chief lobbyist for students, calling them the only group in schools that don’t employ lobbyists of their own.

“This year, I will take a second job — consider me the lobbyist for the students,” he says in the prepared remarks, which he has been known to depart from. “I will wage a campaign to put students first, and to remind us that the purpose of public education is to help children grow, not to grow the public education bureaucracy.”

Some educators are already taking umbrage at the idea that students’ interests aren’t being represented. (more…)

It’s not the millionaire’s tax that some parents have pushed for, but it’s something.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today that he would overhaul the state’s tax code to reduce the tax rate on middle-income earners and increase taxes on the highest earners. Cuomo estimates that the changes will add $2 billion a year to the state’s coffers — funds that can go to schools and other public services.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew was among the chorus of people who quickly signaled their support for the proposal. He called the plan “a wide-ranging solution to the state’s budget problems” and said it would “help ensure that children in our public schools will begin to see restorations from the devastating education cuts of recent years.”

But a separate tax on high earners known as the millionaire’s tax, which Cuomo has vowed not to renew when it expires at the end of the month, has generated significantly more, about $4 billion a year. That means the state is still facing a funding shortfall of as much as $1.5 billion, and schools are likely to feel continued budget pressure. (more…)

Annual state spending on school aid will be down 6.1 percent this year, according to new spending projections from Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget office.

The new projections show the state’s budget gap growing from $2 billion to up to $3.5 billion. The reductions come after three straight years of budget cuts that have left schools struggling.

Last week parent activists took their message to Cuomo’s office, urging him not to repeal the so-called “millionaire’s-tax” on high-earning residents and the decry the effects of the current state budget on class size in local schools.

Last year, New York City lost $812 million in state education funding. According to the revised plan, the state will spend about $19.6 billion on school aid this year—a reduction of nearly $1.3 billion from the 2011 budget.

Earlier this fall educators and families in New York City and elsewhere rallied against the $1.3 billion already slashed from the state’s education funds, many of them lamenting that beloved after school programs were the first expenses to go at their local schools.

The person who could reshape how the state handles cheating allegations in public schools has been named.

In September, the Board of Regents authorized an independent review of the way the state handles test security and cheating allegations. Today in Albany, Valerie Grey, a State Education Department deputy commissioner, told the Regents that the state had picked a special investigator — and he will conduct the review at no cost to the state.

Hank Greenberg, a lawyer who represented the state’s attorney general’s office when Gov. Andrew Cuomo occupied it, will have immediate and full access to all state education records, according to the state’s press release about his appointment.

From the release:

Commissioner [John] King said Greenberg would have complete, unfettered access to SED assessment records, including records of alleged test integrity violations and how those allegations were tracked and resolved. Greenberg will examine reports of alleged irregularities in the administration and scoring of State assessments, and examine the intake, review, referral investigation and response to those allegations. Based on the findings of his review, Greenberg will make recommendations to the Commissioner and Board of Regents to improve SED policies and procedures.

“We are very grateful and fortunate to have his service pro bono,” Grey told the Regents.

Grey also said that she had met with Cuomo’s office to outline SED’s $2.1 million request for a slate of test security measures that the Regents approved last month. ”[We] made our case,” she said. “And we will continue to do that.”

The Occupy Wall Street movement spawned another education protest spin-off today, this time led by parents and held at the steps of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office in midtown Manhattan.

The new coalition of parents, many of them from Brownstone Brooklyn and accompanied by young children, assembled to voice opposition to the governor’s plan not to extend a tax on the state’s wealthiest residents.

“Occupy the DOE,” another education protest staged last night at Tweed, featured mostly teachers and veteran education activists.

Today’s event, dubbed “Occupy for Education,” was not affiliated with any previous Occupy protest, organizers said, but they borrowed heavily from them, including a human mic and many of the same chants: “We are the 99 percent” and “This is what democracy looks like.”

The protest also featured symbolic ballot boxes for people to vote in support of the so-called “millionaires’ tax,” an income surcharge for individuals who make over $200,000 or families who make over $300,000. Cuomo has repeatedly said he wants the tax to expire at the end of the year, despite voter polls showing widespread support for a newer version that would only tax millionaires. His argument is that the tax threatens to chase away the state’s wealthiest residents, which would, in effect, result in less job creation and less tax revenue, not more.

But parents today said that revenue from the tax, estimated to be $2.8 billion next year, could help restore funding to schools after years of budget cuts that have caused class sizes to rise.

“The short term job creation or protection that he claims will be the result of repealing the tax on millionaires does not justify jeopardizing or not supporting education,” said Liz Rosenberg, a Park Slope parent who helped organize the event. (more…)