Hey, Cuomo, Leave Those Kids Alone - The Indypendent

Often derided as the “school deform movement” by its detractors, the corporate push for education reform has led to the closure of hundreds of public schools, the proliferation of privately-operated, publicly-funded charter schools and attacks on teachers’ unions, one of the last bastions of organized labor. Norm Scott, a longtime public school teacher who now runs the Ed Notes Online blog, describes the surfeit of corporate think tanks, political action committees, charter school chains and data analysis firms that have sprung up under the “reform” umbrella in recent years as the “Education Industrial Complex.” “It’s not going away any time soon,” says Scott. “There’s too much money in it.” .... The Indypendent 

The Indypendent's Peter Rugh takes a deep-dive on Cuomo's education policy. I'm quoted in it briefly. Peter and I had a great conversation about Cuomo, the UFT and the ed deform movement. I wish I could remember it.

One of the best articles I've read in a long time. And voices from some of our smartest folks.... Janine Sopp

“I’ll never forgive Gov. Cuomo,” says Carol Burris, a former principal of the year at South Side High School in Rockville Centre on Long Island, now executive director of the Network for Public Education Foundation. She describes the climate in which the “reform” movement first began to pick up steam. The Obama administration’s 2009 “Race to the Top” initiative gave states an incentive to focus on test scores as a way of securing federal grants at a time when the housing crisis had left schools strapped for revenue.

“Cuomo, he just took advantage of it politically,” Burris explains. “All of a sudden, teachers and principals were seen as villains. We were not doing our job. We had to perform. And if only we were better, poverty would disappear because all of the kids at school, no matter how difficult their circumstances, they would go off to college and poverty would disappear.”

Read it all:

 

https://indypendent.org/2018/06/hey-cuomo-leave-those-kids-alone

Also -- John Tarleton who runs the Indypendent sent this:

 

Check out this petition on a campaign against the Goldman Sachs alum-turned-mayor of Jersey City who decided last week to get rid of all outdoor news boxes in his fair city

https://www.change.org/p/jersey-city-mayor-steven-fulop-mayor-steven-fulop-leave-our-newsboxes-alone