OPINION: Cuomo's 'Power Grab' Over Schools Will Spark Suburban Backlash

Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled a far-reaching set of education proposals in his combined State of the State and budget speech.  But instead of presenting an education vision or costing out program initiatives, as might be expected, he set forth a detailed blueprint for test-based control of localized education decision-making: teacher preparation, evaluation, tenure, and dismissal.

If those go awry, he even suggested wide-spread, automatic takeovers of school and district operations.  The governor’s power grab is misguided — and a real missed opportunity.

In a recent letter, Cuomo questioned whether the governor should have more say in public education, a power vested by the state constitution in the legislatively-appointed Board of Regents.  He then tried to answer his own question: he wants to use his budget authority to strong-arm the legislature into delegating constitutionally questionable authority that not only bypasses the regents but local school boards as well.

Take his idea about schools and districts.  Using test score data alone, schools and districts falling among the state's lowest performing for three straight years would be subject to state takeover in the form of outside "receivers," borrowing the dollars and cents language of bankruptcy.  As if such calculations were so clear, as if such calculations were not pre-determined to catch the least wealthy districts, not the worst operated. 

As for the issue of better training teachers, Cuomo proposed closing programs with less than a 50 percent pass rate on any of three tests, three years in a row.  There was no suggestion of  raising teacher salaries except for select test-based merit incentives to attract what he calls "the best and the brightest," missing the irony of the phrase that initially described pointy-heads bumbling us into Vietnam.  What will happen if Cuomo's teacher prep plan is enacted?  There will be fewer candidates, especially those of color or for whom English is a second language, and they will spend more time prepping for tests than actually training for the job. 

Will that result in better teaching? Probably not, but Cuomo's thirst for testing may be sated.

Finally, take his idea that tenure after five or more years should be based almost exclusively on test scores and outside evaluations. According to the governor, only 15 percent of a teacher's numerical rating (a crazy notion in itself) should be based on a supervisor's evaluation, with 35 percent based on an "independent" evaluation of just two lessons. The other half would rely on test scores which have been widely discredited based on their wide margin of error and failure to account for non-instructional factors. 

Ignored in Cuomo's convenient failure formula are class size, student background, teachers' professional and monetary support, and the lag time often needed for improved learning to be revealed.

Not everything in Cuomo's kitchen sink is bad for education.  A longer probationary period to determine tenure makes sense, as does giving administrative decisions greater weight in tenured teacher termination proceedings. 

The governor's plan relies on a misuse of unreliable quantitative data and an unfounded reliance on outsiders to evaluate teachers, schools, and districts. And this is why most of the governor's plan will fail. 

This is not a repeat of last year's fight between charter opponents and advocates, who gain elsewhere in the plan.  The big opposition this year will come not only because Cuomo is usurping the Regents and the education department's constitutional authority but from suburban legislators protecting their local school boards. This is about local boards' prerogatives, local parents' prerogatives.  Suburban voters, Republicans and Democrats, are the key to this fight and it is not a fight the governor is likely to win.