Cuomo Dodges the Hard Questions Yet Again, Creates Yet Another Panel of Experts to Hide Behind

Andrew Cuomo's Latest Education Panel Arrives in Albany Ready to Get It On

After he stuck  out his chest and proclaimed himself the student's lobbyist last year Gubner Andy Cuomo went oddly mute and invisible while Meryl Tisch and John King were treated to a shower of dead cats, rotten tomatoes and old workboots as they pigheadedly attempted to pimp Common Core from Jamestown to Lawnguyland. Kids can breathe easy again now that  lobbyist Andy has resurfaced with yet another of his famous committees to keep the kids safe and warm in their beds at night.  The members' list is another predictable litany of the usual suspects with a few token teachers tossed in to camouflage the decidedly rah rah element Cuomo expects to carry the panel's decisions. To the surprise of nobody with a pulse, Cuomo has selected IBM executive, Stanley Litow as his chairman,  rather than someone actually immersed in the icky business of teaching shit to kids for a living. Not surprisingly the same shill has weighed in with a droolingly pro CCSS op ed piece in Crain's repeating the oft bloviated lie that this pile of Gates and Coleman excrement actually "raises educational standards." Thanks for that Stan but it's not true and we all know it. Sounds cool though.

Rumor has it Andy is interviewing extra chiropractors after flipping over the Herculean pile of rocks it took to find a Superintendent  in New York State who actually supports Common Core. If you haven't caught this wanna be Shakesperean's act I wish I was you. Charles Russo of East Moriches put on quite a performance at the Common Core dog and pony he attended at Eastport-South Manor's Common core hearing. After declaring the stuff to be the best he's seen in 32 years, Russo goes on to face catcalls and raspberries from the assemblage by repeating the phrase "that being said" about half a dozen times. You can tell he rehearsed in the mirror too by the way he plucks his reading glasses from his face and extends them prop-like at the audience as he utters his slobberingly fellatious line about the best he's seen in 32 years. In Russo's own mind I think he imagined himself as hamlet skewering Polonius through the arras but in reality he looked more Dr. Phil telling someone to own their neurosis. Russo's failed thespianism bears a painfully contrived odor that grows worse as he wrestles for control of the floor against naysayers, hecklers and people with the sense God gave them. Russo apologizes to King and Tisch and Regent Tillis as he snatches the mic from its cradle and turns away to face down his detractors. The apology is priceless. It's as if he wishes he could spare these delicate and refined souls this harsh moment, but hey, this is how you have to handle people of such an obvious low quality when you're a man of this caliber. He stammers a few more times and then in one of the most absurdly high stakes testosterone maneuvers I have ever seen from a school administrator, he intones in what he probably thinks was a James Mitchum in Cape Fear voice saying, "I just want to see the people who are yelling at me, I just want to look at them, that's all..." And what? Kick their asses afterwards? Take it out on their kids next marking period? What's the threat here Chuckie? Good lord what an insufferable, misguided, pompous ass.



As for the rest of the panel I guess the tokenism of appointing two teachers is rather amusing if not insulting. Darling Hammond is I guess the biggest fish of the catch and she is another one mouthing the famous theory that the Common Core is swell and it was only hurt by a terrible implementation. If you examine that propositon for a moment, the one shared by any number of politicians as well as AFT President Weingarten, NYSUT President Ianuzzi and Lurking UFT Unity Shithead Michael Mulgrew it reads like something straight out of a lobbyist's talking point. To say CCSS are fine will keep the funds flowing from everyone who's tied up a serious investment in this atrocity, Bill Gates and Pearson for example. But to add that there seem to be a few snags in getting this ugly baby to hold its gigantic misshapen head up  and smile for a picture will appease the rabble who are seriously up in arms these days and in no mood to hear from any geek that Common Core is keen and we are enjoying record profits, high test scores and brilliant children. So give the corporate donors what they want to keep them forking over the funds and give the proles a few crumbs to remind them of how hard you are working for them in between power lunches and fund raising for your next campaign. I have to wonder about LDH or any educator who is comfortable playing the same script politicians are all using. It strikes me that Cuomo knew he had to toss a couple teachers into the mix but not enough of them to actually form a majority and influence the "findings" this so called panel is going to release. The "findings" were probably all ready written up before any of these people were selected. In a nutshell I'd say this little gathering of souls will reach the same conclusions Cuomo's panels always reach : Full speed ahead, there are no significant problems with anything the way it is being implemented. The overreaction we are seeing is mainly being driven by the teacher's unions who of course have their own interests in mind and are always working to compromise the rigor of instruction and the excellence of our students. MichaelMulgrew would then jump in to concur with Cuomo that unions are the problem mainly because they are filled with  a lot of those goddamned teachers. He would then go on to promise Cuomo his endorsement if he succeeds in his shadow campaign to run a puppet against Ianuzzi this spring and get his hands on NYSUT.  

Andrew Cuomo is yet another politician who has no business being ass deep in matters educational and now that he is, he's created a disingenuous panel of so called experts to provide him with fake advice to solve problems he's created through political meddling in matters he isn't qualified to meddle in. And we are all expected to be dumb and gullible enough to believe he is really acting judiciously rather than running and hiding from a flock of pissed off chickens that have come home to roost. This is what we get from our co called public servants. We stand by and watch them do as they damned well please, in this case running a presidential campaign for 2016 on the backs of students, teachers and residents. Cuomo needs this and his Get Tough SAFE Act to pad his resume. And even though nobody likes his gun law and nobody likes his race to cram Common Core down New York's throat, he doesn't care because he doesn't have to care. 

Cuomo is feeling the heat now though in ways he's never felt it before. He is feeling a lot of it and it's growing. Little John King if you believe him isn't backing down on anything. Not one little bit and he doesn't think anyone can make him either. So Andy's biting his nails while King is toasting marshmallows and fiddling while Albany burns. I am Curious to see who turns out to be right.