Saturday, January 26, 2013

Braggedy Andy Shoots Himself in the Foot, Again.

Braggedy Andy Cuomo wants to take education here in New York State out to the woodshed. Well he wants to take teachers out there but if he succeeds in any of the Pineapple Hare brained schemes his corporate "reformer" pals are feeding him he's going to put a serious beatdown on learning here in the Empire State. Still reeking from his disastrously histrionic "get tough on guns" soiree,  pushed through in the middle of the night like a broke down Russian Lada through an intersection in Gdansk, Governor Campaign Mode is now braying that teachers in the land of Excelsior will have to take a bar exam. 

Cuomo inspired politicians push through Lada-esque gun bill

Somehow Cuomo and like minded friends of high stakes testing seem to believe that more testing is the solution to any and everything that ails education.  Once again the test manufacturers will get their chance to fleece taxpayers and the lucrative edubiz trade scores yet another coup. If you're keeping score at home you'll note that another consistency can be found in the Gov's message and that is the common eduformer's assertion that teachers are to blame for everything. They must be shoddy workers and lackluster people in general to get all that education and settle for low paying inglorious work teaching someone else's kids. So now teachers will be edified with a NY State bar exam that will instill excellence and make teachers more businessy and lawyery. Where do I get my leather folio and tan cashmere overcoat and the Kiss My Ass sticker for my beamer? Once again the business cowboys want to cure everything by recreating the world in their image. If we wanted to take bar exams we would have had Nelson Rockerfeller get us into law school like Dick Parsons did, you know the CEO of the School Reform Committee? I wonder though if we would all have been able to come out Valedictorians or better yet how we could have got into a law school when we never finished a bachelor's degree as Mr Upward Failure Parsons didn't? 
Ahhh,  but that's the problem with Cuomovision. He is so accustomed to associating with these clowns whose connections started them on third base while they brag about hitting triples that he, like so many of the elect, doesn't have a shit's clue what we do, why we do it or what makes us tick. But he is convinced and I am sure his dear union concessionaire pal Randi Slimegarten, another lawyer, has assured him that testing us will almost make us look legit and acceptable to businessy succcessy types like them. 
As if the bar exam isn't asinine enough, hot air escaping from Albany's Reformer in Chief is also calling for merit pay to "reward the best teachers." Who gets to decide who the best teachers are and by what standard will these pedagogues be measured? Oh I am sure that's none a my beezwax and brighter minds than mine will figure it all out. The fact that pretty much all available research on attempts to drag this car salesman's incentivized dynamic into the world of ABC's and 123's shows merit pay for teachers to be a dismal flop does not slow the Governor for one second. And along with his failed merit pay and his pretentious bar exam the guy also believes Value Added Measures will be an integral part of the assessments even though they have somewhere between a 50% - 90% error rate. I wonder if Braggedy Andy's broker suggested he get in on some stock with that kind of track record how much of his own cash he'd lay down? But hey it's just for firing teachers so who cares if it's riddled with failure right?

Cuomo for President in 2016? Outlook is a little grim Andy...

Now that he's alienated and radicalized about every sane gun owner in New York and the majority of my neighbors here in Eden and he's all ready pissed off teachers and organized labor in general, I have to wonder as his base disappears like Michelle Rhee's credibility, who will be left to vote this jackass into Pennsylvania Avenue in 2016? Ed Reformers? A handful of Manhattan billionaires? John King and Katie Campos? Sorry Andrew but you've really drawn a bullseye on your chances if you'll pardon the pun. 




9 comments:

  1. Peg ...still laughingJanuary 26, 2013 at 10:54 PM

    This is a riot! You are so clever, Dude!

    I hope "Braggedy" keeps shooting himself, but about a yard closer to his belt from his foot.. I think he is losing touch with reality, and his messianic thoughts are no longer beneath the surface of consciousness...he thinks he really is going to be El Presidente in '16



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  2. Can't wait to get the NEA, NYSUT, AFT, political rags in the mail. They will soon be telling us why they are heavily funding Cuomo's campaign for POTUS and why the "other guy" does not support education.
    Any day now, our unions will be spinning a tale of why Cuomo is actually PRO teacher, just like Obama and Duncan are PRO teacher in the minds of Weingarten, et. al.
    Election after election, we let our supposedly PRO-teacher union leaders get away with this. We need to begin NOW to say no to giving Cuomo any $$$$$$.

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    1. They had better not. I have tried to be gentle with my displeasure at the most recent "hey-it's better than the alternative" endorsement.

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  3. I am curious what response we'd get from Porter Avenue if we addressed this close to home and said let's be the first to say no same as they did in Chicago and same as they are doing in Seattle. You notice the Washington movement is growing....

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  4. The movement is certainly growing and in my suburban district, parents are pissed. They see testing eating up time and money while we lose schools and teachers. They are organizing and hopefully will speak out about this crap that takes away scarce resources.

    About our NYSUT cash and support for Drew, We can request a refund of our dues that are slated for political reasons. I have been unable to find the link but certainly don't want my hard earned scratch to go to any type of Reformer!

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  5. Testing is eating up time and money and making monkeys of our beautiful kids who need so much more than to come to school and be treated like inmates or future shit job holders who won't even have the know how badly they are being screwed by their employers. The teaching profession now needs courage and creativity more than ever. We may need to face these creeps on Main St. and show them we are done backing down and taking their shit.

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  6. The hours of wasted time testing, the millions of wasted dollars, the thousands of lies and half-truths, the greed and incompetance, etc., etc., etc., are bad enough to swallow.
    But the bigger thing concern is the fact that they will have mounds of data on each child and every teacher, school, school district and employee in a data bank in the clouds . The extent of the personal data on each and every child stored in that data bank is astronomical. Who will have access to the data?...Hundreds of corporations, test designers, researchers, businesses, consultants, publishers, ...OMG the list is endless.

    Parents won't have to give their permission for this abominable theft of information about their children. It is already happening without it.

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  7. From The News tonite! Headline:

    !!!TEACHERS CHALLENGE NEW STATE LAW AT BUFFALO FORUM!!!
    http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130129/CITYANDREGION/130129054/1109

    Oh sorry,oops, my mistake. Seems that headline actually reads:
    Gun owners challenge new state law at Clarence forum


    Just for fun, read the article and substitute "teachers" for gun owners and "unfair education laws" for gun laws.

    Gun owners are out in the streets and filling the library with their discontent and getting tons of press for their efforts. Actually making their issues public. Why? Is it because they are mostly men and teachers are mostly women? How do they organize these meetups and photo ops? Do they pay big annual dues to the gun owners union to organize these things? I don't think so!

    Just wondering, That is all.

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  8. It is curious that gun owners would still have jobs if they sat home watching TV instead of protesting. Yet they stand up and fight for their rights, and challenge, the content and the process used to stomp on their faces by passing the "overkill" gun restrictions.

    The teachers, for the most part,do not seem to know or care about the fact that their livlihoods are in jeopardy, and the daily stress at work is seriously increasing.
    Gender probably does determine the difference in responding to unjust treatment in all instances. BUt...
    It is a lot harder to take a stand if you are worried about losing your income,than it is about losing your hobby.
    Unfortunately, many jobs will be lost anyway, whether you take the risk, or try to play it safe.
    The folks with the big money make the rules... and their behavior is incestuous.
    If enough people show up in D.C. in April, that might force Congress to take a look at the failure of NCLB and RttT.
    Just hoping...

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