By Jake Jacobs and Marla Kilfoyle
The New York Badass Teachers Association, is a diverse pro-public education organization of 2820 members, affiliated with the Badass Teachers Association, currently 54,913 strong nationwide.
New York Badass Teachers Association voices its strong disgust with the passing of Governor Cuomo’s education reforms last week. The Legislature has thrown New York State education into years of chaos, re-empowering the same entities that created the current statewide APPR crisis, costing NY districts millions. This will be the fifth 
consecutive proposal to “fix” education in as many years without acknowledging the most obvious obstacles to learning in our communities such as underfunding of schools in impoverished areas.
At it’s most basic this is about abdicating local control – whether NYSED’s professional accountability measures (bubble test scores) should trump the autonomy of democratically elected school officials, certified professionals, and locally negotiated contracts. Clearly, the purveyors of this budget are forging ahead without consideration of polls, petitions or protests returning us to question of whether Albany is serving the people or the hedge fund managers.
Governor Cuomo, in his quest to punish unions that did not endorse these unsound education policies, has put the children of New York State into the center of another storm. We are sad to see some members of the Assembly and the Senate plowing headlong into unchartered territory, invoking “emergency”procedures to prevent exactly the reading of the bills that is supposed to address contentious legal and scientific questions. Clearly, Albany worked overtime last night to avoid debate.
As significant percentages of NY families abandon mandated annual state tests, there can be no doubt, even for Common Core advocates that New York’s implementation was ill-conceived and shoddily carried out, failing to communicate any policy that earned the trust or confidence of stakeholders (don’t forget how school parents were haughtily called “special interest groups”).
APPR left principals and administrators to design and redesign APPR evaluation plans that forced math and English scores on teachers regardless of subject taught or license area. Then, they put scores through two different manipulations after-the-fact. Not only do they “adjust” the proficiency thresholds, they can at any time discard “test items” to make as many grades as NYSED wishes jump in “proficiency,” statewide, by the stroke of a pen.
These proposals by Cuomo, which were approved by the Senate and the Assembly so that they could have an ON TIME BUDGET, are demoralizing to children, teachers, and public education. Cuomo and members of the Legislature who voted YES to this proposal continue to ignore the voices of parents, teachers, students, and administrators. The Assembly and the Senate members who voted for this, rest assured, you will be voted out of office next election cycle. We look forward to the day when Albany once again serves the people and not hedge fund managers.
New York Badass Teachers Association, is a diverse pro-public education organization of 2,820 members, affiliated with the Badass Teachers Association, currently 54,913 strong nationwide. The authors are teachers and members of the organization.
