Cuomo Stacks His CCSS Task Farce with Ed Reformers Canada, Flanagan and Weingarten

Ed Reformers Eli Broad,  Joel Klein and Randi Weingarten

Two words: Randi Effing Weingarten.

The President for Life of the American Federation of Teachers -- maybe not life but until Hillary sets her up with a more advantageous position -- has been tapped to participate in Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest Task Farce. 

By eagerly agreeing to take part in yet another of Cuomo's desperate attempts to distance himself from the stupidity and obnoxiousness of his own education policies, Weingarten has given her tacit approval of King Andrew's anti public educator agenda. A real union leader would say something like "I'll be part of your panel Governor but you're not going to like what I have to say." But then again we're not talking about talking about Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill or Cesar Chavez here friends.We are talking about lawyer Randi Weingarten  who can dress up in sensible shoes and sport all the apple, pencil and school bus lapel pins she wants but she remains a lawyer, not a teacher. 

What makes Weingarten so insidious is the way she poses for mainstream media idiots as some sort of Chavez or Hill figure while surreptitiously working the agenda of public education's enemies on behalf of people like Andrew Cuomo, Bill Gates, Joel Klein and Eli Broad. There's an infamous video clip of Chris Christie mugging for the cameras saying something to the effect of "Who ever thought I'd be sitting here agreeing with the likes of Randi Weingarten?" Incidentally this was after she stepped into the Newark teacher's contract stalemate and settled it by agreeing to merit pay schemes along with other unspeakable concessions to the ed reformers. To answer Christie's somewhat rhetorical query I'd have to say "Anyone who knows Randi's track record Chris, that's who." 

Before this Confederacy of Dunces even convenes for the first time we all know Weingarten is fully on board with the Cuomo mythos and the mythos of so many other Common Core Deniers, namely that the CCSS are swell but their implementation was bungled and that's where all the confusion, chaos, failure and stupidity came from. It's the rollout's fault not the fault of David Shithead Coleman and his merry band of smartniks who glued together a developmentally inappropriate, tedious, stupid Frankenstein's monster of misguided educational malpractice. 

It's fine when your Standards ask 3rd graders to buzz through 5th and 6th grade tasks and concepts. It's totally cool when a guy with a PhD in English walks through a third grade writing task and asks what the hell are they even talking about? or when your CCSS Algebra exams leave gifted  and determined students palpitating and in tears with half an exam unanswered. Yeah that's just best practice for all of you stupid  cocky kids who thought you were smart because your lazy ass greedy teachers lacked rigor. This is what they are pushing on us: 

It's the way the turd sandwiches were sliced and handed out not the fact that they are turd sandwiches. And they really think we're dumb enough and passive enough to sit still and agree with it. 

Weingarten has done little to prove herself loyal to the constituents whose dues compensate her with a half million plus for her troubles. Like Cuomo -- and like this bullshit Task Farce -- Randi is a huge fan of the empty political gesture. She kibitzes with people like Broad, Gates and Klein then runs headlong into a picket somewhere in the hope of being arrested with real activists to boost her cred. I can't help but compare her to the phony white rapper J-Roc on Trailer Park Boys who gets himself pinched to build street cred but can't get bailed out and spends every waking minute trembling in terror locked up in a low level provincial clink. If Randi couldn't get bailed in 20 minutes you think she'd be wading into the protest to get herself cuffed with a plastic flex tie? Ninja please... 

When Tim Wu began closing the gap between himself and Kathy Hochul in the Democratic Primary, Weingarten committed what many of us viewed as the ultimate failed litmus test of her loyalties. NYSUT, under the influence of Weingarten and her handmaiden Punchy Mike Mulgrew refused to endorse Wu's running mate Zephyr Teachout in spite of the fact that she was talking our language and supporting teachers in the battle against Cuomo. And when the Lieutenant Governor's seat started to tip towards Wu Randi Weingarten jumped on the phones and robocalled her lawyer's heart out on behalf of Kathy Hochul, Andrew Cuomo's running mate.

How the president of a teacher's union could aid and abet the ticket mate of Andrew Cuomo is simply unthinkable to anyone with half the sense God gave a turnip. We were outraged and stunned. Stupefied and furious. But Randi shrugged it all off like she had no idea what we were talking about claiming Hochul had really shown herself in D.C. and she was a good person, loved her country and had a killer cookie recipe too. It was other worldly. People paying attention were so pissed they didn't know where to begin. Weingarten simply excused herself, wrote herself a note and was onto her next cause that had nothing whatsoever to do with the plight of public education or its practitioners. Al Sharpton's Birthday party, rescuing Nigerian school girls, ad nauseam. 

So when this Task Farce releases its "report" or its "findings" -- which are probably already written as we speak-- just remember who Cuomo put on the panel. It's not by coincidence that Weingarten is sitting alongside Geoffrey Canada, Sam Radford, Nolan, Flanagan and Baby Daddy Dick Parsons. She is part of a stacked deck who will do as Andrew Cuomo says and tell Andrew Cuomo exactly what he wants to hear in a bogus report when the farce is concluded. Randi Weingarten can talk and talk and talk but we've seen her in action a few too many times to think she's on our side. We're not buying it Randi.