StudentsFirst, the obnoxiously named lobby group founded by Michelle Rhee has been operating in New York and handing out loads of cash to set the path of privatization of our public schools.
StudentsFirst was John Flanagan’s biggest donor in 2012 providing his campaign with more than $10,000. Ironically, The Council of School Supervisors & Administrators also contributed $7,000 to his campaign even though support for APPR among NY Administrators is at an all time low.
On the Capitol NY’s morning email on education we see:
“Senate education chair John Flanagan said lawmakers should consider limiting school districts’ control over their evaluation plans.
“Maybe we should be having a discussion about a statewide protocol,” he said on “The Capitol Pressroom,” a public radio program. “Instead of having 700 disparate agreements, let’s have a menu where you have 10 or 12 options for school districts to get involved in, because all of these things have to be negotiated, and one of the things that the unions jealously guard, which I understand and respect, is the concept of local control. They want to be able to negotiate everything. And yet, I don’t really see anyone out there who is … jumping up and down and saying everything is working really well.”
Capital’s Jessica Bakeman: http://bit.ly/13u8zss; listen to the full interview, with host Susan Arbetter: http://bit.ly/1e0QTZP”
From Perdido Street School Blog:
No one should be surprised that Cuomo and his GOP and IDC allies in the State Senate will go at “local control” of the APPR system.
Their complaint is that not enough teachers were declared “ineffective” by the APPR evaluation system.
One way to rectify that is to minimize the differences between districts and standardize the whole thing (which really means rig it to increase the “ineffective” ratings.)
Yeah, they’ll say there’s a “menu of options” for districts to choose from, 10 to 12 options, but they’ll all be rigged by the state to accomplish their main goal – increasing the number of “ineffective” ratings across the state and shedding the payroll of teachers.
Flanagan’s on the take from StudentsFirst and other ed deform groups, just the way Cuomo is.
You can see that he’s planning on doing the bidding of his owners in the coming legislative session.
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