Governor Andrew Cuomo's assertion this month in his state of the state speech that he was taking on a "second job" as the "lobbyist for the students" got some appreciation from none other than students.

Students at the Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation in Harlem put together a video ad endorsing and appreciating the governor's support, which got the attention of the New York Times "City Room" column and Gov. Cuomo himself.

Call this a nifty lesson in project-based learning. In the space of one-half minute, a team of students demonstrated communication, English, government, technology and probably a few other subjects, along with teamwork and community service. They did their fellow charter school students proud, and students throughout New York public education.

As a reminder, this same charter school last spring sent students on a bus trip to the deep south to retrace the "Freedom Riders" journey of 50 years prior.

Public Education Policy More About Adults
Few things probably rubbed wrong the public education industry more than Gov. Cuomo's assuming the mantle of students' lobbyist since he was implying, they believe, that they lobby for themselves (teachers, administrators, bus drivers, school boards, etc.) and not children. Most everyone claims to speak for "the children" when doing their advocacy for some aspect of the vast public education world, and several of those players subsequently claimed that, of course, we lobby for children!

Now, up close in this business of advocacy it's long been clear to me that public education policy and budget-making is much more about the adults on the school payroll than children in the school classroom. That doesn't mean that school boards, unions and others ignore children's needs and they often believe that their own agenda--e.g., higher salaries, mandate relief--will accrue to the benefit of students.

Prime Example of Adults-First: Opposing Pension Tier
Look no further, however, than the vociferous opposition by the state unions to Governor Cuomo's proposed tier VI retirement proposal for new employees as one of the clearest examples of education lobbyists putting adults' interests before children or at the expense of children.

Money spent on the soaring actuarial costs of guaranteed pensions is money not benefiting the present-day needs of students, and it is the primary reason for recent years' cutbacks in education funding. The Chalkboard has discussed this issue repeatedly, and I continue to be amazed at the public employee unions' opposition given that their current membership would not be affected by adding a pension tier for future workers.

Gov. Cuomo has been in the politics business a long time. The reality of education lobbying I'm sure he's known for a while, well before he became governor. His rhetorical flair on lobbying illustrates a truth and puts education advocates on notice: children first. If any dismiss the governor's claim, the students at Renaissance Charter High reminded us in the space of 30 seconds.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

Governor Andrew Cuomo's Executive Budget proposal for state fiscal year 2012-13 advertises $20.3 billion for aid to school districts, which amounts to an $805 million increase - 4 percent above the current year total.

Included in this increase is $250 million in competitive grant awards to school districts from a Cuomo initiative adopted last year by the legislature. Outside of the education reform community, none of the traditional education groups like this. The Regents and Education Commissioner John King also have come out against the amount of the program.

Commissioner King, in his budget testimony last week, called for 80 percent of this funding, or $200 million, to be rolled into the existing school aid formulas. That would leave a token level of $50 million for competitive grants. The teacher unions, School Boards Association and Council on School Superintendents all oppose the competitive grant. If you remove the $250 million figure, you end up with only a 2.8 percent funding increase for school districts, something NYSUT highlighted in its budget presentation.

This funding is designed to spur competition and accountability among school districts, so charter schools were not included in the program since they operate and are funded differently. Being left out of program areas that apply to school districts makes sense given that charter schools already operate with sufficient incentives to operate efficiently and raise student achievement since they face renewal every three to five years, depending on when their charter expires. Conversely, it is all the more reason for charter schools be excluded from state attempts to pile on more mandates and regulations upon them by lumping them with school districts.

Meanwhile, the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and the New York Coalition for Achievement Now (NYCAN) and other reform groups issued a combined statement earlier this week in support of the program for school districts, which represents an obvious divide between the reform and traditional education advocates. School districts and unions have never been fans of competition or innovation if the alternative is a traditional school aid grab.

Real Cash Makes for a Real Debate
While the state legislature approved Gov. Cuomo's competitive grant program last year, there was no funding attached to it for the current fiscal year. Instead, money was not planned to be spent until 2012-13 to give time to implement the program. This made it easy to eschew a debate last year with everything else going on. Now the governor wants to award half the planned program expenditures for next year, which makes it a more of a haggle since real cash is involved.

The old saying that money is the mother's milk of politics refers to campaign contributions, but something close to that could describe state school aid. Based on the traditional interest group push-back on this competitive grant program, the legislature will feel serious pressure to lower the $250 million designated for next year - pressure that already reinforces its own interest in providing direct school aid to districts, rather than have them chase it in a competitive grant form.

I would not expect the $250 million to drop to a virtually meaningless number, like $50 million. Gov. Cuomo is serious about spurring ways for districts to improve educational outcomes and operate more efficiently, and he'll need more than a token program to accomplish that. But, both houses of the legislature are not likely to leave it intact since lowering it by some amount would contribute a like sum toward boosting the governor's $805 million school aid increase.

It all comes down to state budget horse-trading that will begin in earnest by March.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

Governor Andrew Cuomo in his Executive Budget proposal ties state aid increases for school districts to the adoption of a sound teacher evaluation system by this time next year. This linkage is the result of frustration at the unwillingness of teacher unions and school districts to adopt evaluation systems, the NYSUT lawsuit to block certain state regulations, and the risk of forfeiting $1 billion in federal education funding.

The governor has given the state Education Department and the state teachers union (NYSUT) a month to agree on an evaluation system and drop its lawsuit, or he will propose (and basically impose) his own system design. The governor's proposal gives school districts the leverage to force the unions to agree to the teacher evaluation design sought by him and the department, which has been resisted all this time. Yet, it turns out the superintendents are opposing this linkage as well, along with the teacher unions.

The Council of School Superintendents claimed that "threatening the loss of state aid will not produce better evaluations." The head of the council, Robert Lowry, went on to say "the prospect of losing aid will increase the pressure on school boards and superintendents to make concessions that would weaken the new evaluation systems."

In other words, the superintendents will blink first at the negotiating table and cave-in to the teacher unions.

I hate to pick on Mr. Lowry, who has the challenge of representing his member superintendents. But he overlooks the concept that "concessions" would not be necessary or possible if they were inconsistent with the boundaries of an effective state evaluation law the he can now help to influence.

Gov. Cuomo is giving superintendents negotiating leverage over teacher evaluations; yet, they either don't know it, or don't want it. Such an absence of spine for this fight from our school district CEOs makes one pessimistic for obtaining and implementing an effective evaluation system.

Example #1: Rochester
Case in point is the Rochester interim superintendent of schools, Bolgen Vargas, who made it clear this week in his budget presentation to the state legislature that he opposes the governor's linkage of teacher evaluation and aid increases. Superintendent Vargas' opposition is a prominent example since he assumed his role last year after his reform-minded predecessor, Jean Claude Brizard, departed for Chicago. Mr. Vargas is intent on repairing contentious relations with the city's teacher union, led by President-for-Life, Adam Urbanski. Mr. Urbanski knows how to wage a fight, including harnessing teachers and parents to protest at school board meetings and superintendent presentations.

Mr. Vargas clearly has no stomach for any fight, let alone disagreement, especially on an evaluation system. This explains his posture this week before the legislature, and his shallow proposal for school turnarounds that was submitted last month to the state Education Department. The commissioner of education, John King, promptly informed Supt. Vargas that his proposal was "deficient in several respects."

Rochester certainly appears to be returning to normalcy. As the new interim superintendent makes nice with the teachers union and pines for a permanent appointment, Adam Urbanski is pleased with the new peace, love and understanding; meaning, he is back in the saddle as de facto head of the school district, or at least as its co-superintendent.

Then There is Scarsdale
Resistance to accountability and reform is not limited to large urban centers like Rochester, but in tony suburbs as well, if Scarsdale in Westchester County is any indication. The district's superintendent of schools, Michael McGill, also opposes the state evaluation system out of fear that "some less effective teachers will get better ratings than they should" and that it "encourages people to game the system." Since Supt. McGill would be in charge of implementing such a system for his school district, his lack of self-confidence is troubling. He went on with his objections by saying that many teachers "face classroom challenges they don't know how to solve... sometimes they haven't learned the requisite skills or knowledge." There was no mention of children in this published discussion.

To be clear, these are expressed reasons from Supt. McGill not to have an evaluation system for teachers: there may be cheating, teachers may not even belong in the classroom, etc., so let's not bother! Incredible stuff, which doesn't bode well for the state's reform agenda, such as it is.

Now, there can be legitimate concerns and objections about the state's teacher evaluation system. Yet, for all the criticism by teacher unions, superintendents and principals, it's getting way late to step up and propose better ideas that are at least as rigorous. The absence of any to this point goes to a much deeper problem in public education that was recently on full display from two superintendents from opposite school districts on opposite ends of the state.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

Every year following the release of the Executive Budget, the fiscal committees of the legislature conduct joint budget hearings for several days, with each day devoted to a major issue area. Education was the topic of the first hearing, today. The order of presenters is the same annually, starting with the commissioner of education, the New York City schools chancellor, the New York State United Teachers, the NYC United Federation of Teachers, the Conference of Big 5 School Districts ...and on it goes, reflecting the political pecking order of interest groups.

Comparatively Subdued Hearing
Predictably, the teacher unions, particularly NYSUT, do not at all like the governor's budget, but were quite restrained in their rhetoric, I believe, based on the governor's popularity and current sway with the state legislature. Still, the state union voiced its objections. The $800 million funding increase was deemed inadequate - especially for being tied to district adoption of teacher evaluation systems, which "create an uncertainty." Actually, the linkage is very clear: do the evaluation system, get the increase; fail to adopt one, lose the money. Nothing uncertain about that idea.

NYSUT naturally wants a full restoration of the $1.3 billion in school aid that was cut last year (don't we all!). It also stressed some of the positive education factoids around the state, which was a nice touch to the presentation. What was noticeably absent from both unions' verbal presentation was any mention of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, and keeping faith with fulfilling the now five-year old Court of Appeals decision. Perhaps they've moved on from that mantra, which is wise under the circumstances since five years ago was a very different era than today from a state financial standpoint.

Opposition to Proposed New Pension Tier
What stood out most about both unions today was their opposition to the proposed new retirement tier. The UFT head, Michael Mulgrew attributed the higher pension costs to the financial meltdown of 2008, which eventually will subside and lower the cost to guarantee pensions. Not exactly; pension costs were increasing well before 2008 and, absent a return to the go-go eighties and nineties when the stock market was booming, guaranteed pensions will remain an expensive proposition. Mr. Mulgrew then followed with the assertion that a 401(k)-style plan would mean "giving our money to people who caused" the financial meltdown. Actually, those same "people" right now do business with state and city pension funds as investors and companies which market stocks and bonds.

Mr. Mulgrew otherwise gave an impressive presentation by stressing the ways he's worked to establish a teacher evaluation system for New York City, and outlined the disagreement he has with having the city be the authority for an appeal of a employee determination, rather than an independent arbitrator.

NYSUT's position on the Tier VI pension plan, presented by its Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta, expressed concern about the need to "maintain security of defined benefit" and that "workers can't save enough to enjoy a decent retirement." Note to both unions: the 401(k) feature of the governor's plan is optional for new employees. NYSUT also opposed the governor's plan for higher-salaried workers to contribute a higher percentage of salary to their pension; that is, a new progressivity akin to the income tax structure. Senator John DeFrancisco questioned the union's position, which Mr. Pallotta confirmed by supporting progressivity on the income tax, but not for upper-income NYSUT members' pension contributions.

Lobbying for Students?
The union position on pensions ulimately is a lobbying effort for future teachers, not current ones who would be unaffected by pension changes, and certainly not the students. As I've often said, every added dollar having to pay for skyrocketing pension costs is a dollar not paying for teacher salaries, curriculum, professional development, non-core subjects and electives, and getting more students "college ready."

Like Governor Cuomo said repeatedly this month, someone has to be the lobbyist for students.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

In a more electronic media age, Governor Andrew Cuomo and his team have to be giddy with the media coverage of yesterday's roll-out of his second executive budget for the state, especially the favorable newspaper editorials. Examples abound:

New York Daily News: "You Go Gov!" (front page wood).
New York Post: "Godspeed Governor" & "Andrew's other game changers" (both of today's editorials; the governor lost out on the wood which instead deservedly trashed that pusillanimous captain of the ship-wreaked ocean liner as "Chicken of the Sea").
Buffalo News: "A Sound Budget."
New York Times: "Gov. Cuomo's Sound Budget."
Newsday: "Gov. Cuomo applies muscle in new budget."

I could go on. Other headlines in these and scores of newspapers and websites refer to the governor's proposed school aid increase, his getting tough on teacher evaluations and reigning in sky-high pension costs, and other important issues. From the administration's perspective, what's not to like?

This kind of positive coverage from media outlets matters a great deal for elected officials when pursuing the kind of policies that provoke push-back from interest groups; and it also matters for other elected officials (i.e., legislators) whose support is necessary to adopt such policies that were considered dead-on-arrival in the past.

Opposition Remains
Specifically, Gov. Cuomo is pushing back hard against the traditional positions of the public employee unions by proposing a stronger teacher evaluation system as a condition for higher state aid, and a more affordable employee pension system. Neither of these reform ideas are new, but more serious proposals to bring real accountability in district schools and save serious money in pension costs are now on the table. This is in stark contrast to the watered down, ultimately ineffective evaluation law and pension reform that were adopted during former Governor Paterson's administration.

That doesn't mean the state and New York City teacher unions are laying down. For starters, NYSUT is claiming that the proposed school aid increase is not enough. Nothing unsual there. More interesting is NYSUT's ratcheting up its attacks on the state Education Department over the evaluation system: "SED is about themselves and their bureaucracy, and care little about the governor, the students or their teachers." (Two weeks ago the head of NYSUT called the commissioner a "bully.") This strategic attempt at an attack ignores the current reality that the education commissioner and Gov. Cuomo are on the exact same page regarding teacher evaluation (NYS government reminder: the education commissioner and department are not under the governor's authority, but answer to the separately-appointed Board of Regents).

NYSUT also is attacking the governor's pension reform plan by claiming it "would endanger the current workforce, as well as the pensions of retired public employees" by supposedly diverting funds. This is pure fiction from Andrew Pollotta, NYSUT's executive vice president. Under the state's constitution, no existing public employee, including teachers, can have their pensions diminished. A new pension tier only would apply to new hires and "endangers" no one.

Children & Teachers Can Win
Public education for students and teachers alike can be much more beneficial with greater accountability, a more professionalized and quality workforce, and more dollars going directly to the classroom rather than subsidizing guaranteed pensions into the 22nd century. The teacher unions should be a partner in these changes rather than a scaremonger.

Similar to last year, the Cuomo administration is not resting on a day's worth of favorable media and editorial coverage, nor should it, since it's ultimately fleeting. The governor and his appointees will be blanketing the state with their agenda as one of several means to sustain the message that can lead to a positive legislative outcome on difficult issues.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

Governor Andrew Cuomo today issued his proposed Executive Budget for state fiscal year 2012-13 that includes an overall four percent increase in aid to school districts (some more, some less), holds charter funding flat, and makes several significant policy changes.

State aid to school districts would increase by $805 million next year under the governor's budget proposal, to $20.3 billion. In addition, school districts receive School Tax Relief (STAR) payments for another $3.3 billion; and the state will spend and additional $1.9 billion in education related programs, including pre-k, cultural, and special education services. We never hear much about this additional $5.2 billion on top of the school aid number of $20.3 billion, but most of it also accrues to school districts.

Not so long ago, an $800 million increase in school aid would have prompted celebratory elation from education advocates. But, $800 million today doesn't buy what it once did and education groups will seek more. In an election year for the state legislature, education aid is likely to increase by a modestly higher figure than the governor's proposal, which is how it usually plays out.

The Larger Budget Brawl
The bigger fight for the budget season in the next ten weeks will be the governor's price for the school aid increase by requiring every school district to adopt the state's teacher evaluation design by January 2013, or forgo the increase. A general school aid hike has never been linked so directly to a policy change like this, especially since the state has collapsed many of the specific categorical funding streams in recent years.

The problem for the opponents of the evaluation system (unions, principals, etc.) is that no one wants to be seen as opposing accountability and evaluating employees, and the public is likely to see this accountability requirement as reasonable. If the state's employee evaluation design for school districts is unreasonable or should not apply (and it may be in certain cases), it's past time to make the case and respond with something at least as effective in improving accountability.

One of the last things Gov. Cuomo needs is for the federal government to pull back the $700 million in Race to the Top funding due to the state's failure to implement its promised reforms, even if the governor himself is not at fault. Up until now, there was little anyone could do to get districts and the unions to bargain seriously about implementing an evaluation system. Since state school aid money talks, it is exactly the incentive that will get results, assuming the proposal survives in some form after the budget negotiations with the legislature.

Gov. Cuomo's passionate speech on Monday commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday should leave no doubt he is committed to reforming education as he made the connection between Rev. King's legacy and the need for greater educational opportunity.

Other Budget Nuggets Large & Small
Interestingly, the governor's budget contains a few other nuggets that will get attention soon enough. One is the Tier VI pension plan for all new state and local employees which the administration estimates will save $79 billion in pension costs over the next 30 years. This less generous pension tier is long overdue, will not affect any current public employee, and is essential to lower future costs which have risen rapidly in recently years to the point of squeezing funding for day-to-day government services.

Less visible proposals include the governor's plan to require school districts and unions to split the cost of an arbitrator for employee disciplinary hearings, which the state current pays; and for districts to now share in the cost of pre-k special education expenses which are now shared between the state and county governments.

No doubt these proposals on hearing costs and pre-k expenses will be viewed as a cost-shift or new mandate on school districts that will mitigate the benefit of the four percent aid increase. True enough. But it's a mystery in the first place why a disciplinary hearing should be a state expense, except perhaps that the state mandates the steps to undertake one; or why the county governments should be hit with pre-kindergarten expenses. As long as the state is increasing school aid, such is the time to shift the cost to the local level as long as it is a locally-driven expense. In the case of disciplinary hearings, school districts and unions would have a real financial incentive to conduct the hearing or otherwise resolve matters more expeditiously.

The state legislature will soon commence hearings in the next couple of weeks on the Executive Budget, and serious negotiations among the Senate, Assembly and governor's office will commence by March for a budget approval by April 1st. There will be plenty of sound and fury until then.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The State Editor of the New York Post reports today in his Monday weekly "Inside Albany" column that Governor Andrew Cuomo will propose to link state aid increases to school districts to their adoption of a teacher evaluation system. The Chalkboard last September and again last month pointed to the governor's leverage in the state budget to get school districts and unions to adopt a genuine evaluation system.

The governor has made clear his disappointment over the failure of the 2010 teacher evaluation law to be taken seriously by school districts, as both teacher unions and school principals have spurned it for the last 18 months. Now it could cost them.

Gov. Cuomo was never a big fan of the evaluation system enacted the year before his administration. Last year, he got the state Board of Regents to promulgate tougher regulations to implement the system, which provoked a successful (so far) lawsuit by the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) to block those regulations that it viewed as exceeding the law. Since the whole law itself is subject local collective bargaining negotiations, the resistance of teacher unions and school district principals, the recent failure of ten low-performing school districts to amend their contracts accordingly, was the last straw.

State Budget Process
The governor has considerable leverage in the state budget process to enact policy changes to accompany the budget itself, beginning tomorrow with the unveiling of his Executive Budget for state fiscal year 2012-13. The governor promised a four percent increase in state aid to school districts, after two years of cuts, but the increase will require each district to adopt an evaluation system in order to obtain the funding increase.

The state legislature, of course, must approve a budget, but the state's highest court has interpreted the budget process, set forth in the state constitution, as assigning the executive branch the primary authority such that the legislature cannot itself change the budget legislation (i.e., "Article VII bills") without the governor's approval. This stands in contrast to the legislature's power over the normal legislative process outside the budget where it can propose or amend bills as it sees fit, without the "pre-approval" of the executive.

Resistance to Accountability Ups the Ante
NYSUT and others will no doubt object to Gov. Cuomo's forcing the issue in the state budget on various grounds, including an end-around the local collective bargaining process. This criticism will easily be dismissed since the union itself constantly seeks advantages by getting the legislature to mandate them apart from the bargaining process, including the Triborough amendment, tenure and other issues.

The unions and districts resistance to teacher evaluation points to a larger problem with accountability. Certainly, evaluation schemes can come in a variety of ways rather than a one-size-fits-all, but such concerns should have led to good faith negotiations to put real accountability in place for the ultimate benefit of children. Failure to do so now may result in the kind of stronger system sought by the governor and one its opponents dislike even more.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa