Cuomo's GOP Foe Hopes to Unite Left and Right Vs. Common Core

[Smarmie Doofus]

Astorino's 3 kids go to public school and have joined the "opt-out" of state testing movement. His wife's a Special Ed teacher. ( What would SHE know?)

Cuomo's state ed commissioner, John King, doesn't seem to know much, ( see below) but knows enough to enroll his kid in private school. Which... you guessed it... doesn't follow CC.

Cuomo's was married and has kids w. Kerry Kennedy. Can't say for sure if they're attending public school in Bedford. But I would *seriously* doubt it.



>>>>G.O.P. gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino said earlier this week that he would seek the requisite 15,000 signatures to add a “Stop Common Core” line to the ballot, giving him a third line in addition to the Republican and Conservative designations. Governor Andrew Cuomo will be running on the Democratic, Independence and Working Families party lines.

Astorino said the other Republican candidates for statewide office would also join the “Stop Common Core” ticket, including lieutenant governor candidate Chris Moss, attorney general candidate John Cahill and comptroller candidate Bob Antonacci.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Jessica Proud, Astorino's campaign spokeswoman, criticized King for sending his children to private schools, a point critics have made in questioning the commissioner's push for the Common Core. Astorino's three children attend public school and his wife, Sheila, is a special education teacher.
"Commissioner King won't even put his own children in a school with Common Core," Proud said in the statement. "Thousands of moms, dads and educators have joined together to repeal this disastrous program and replace it with the lost standards that will actually approve public education. His unwillingness to acknowledge what a failure this has been shows a shocking disregard for the children of this state."

On Tuesday, after he announced the petition campaign, Astorino rejected the premise that his opposition to the Common Core was related to a national movement of Conservatives and Tea Party leaders against the standards. He insists that the “Stop Common Core” effort is a grassroots one.

“I'm not going to let people put that into a nice little box,” he said Tuesday, referring to Common Core opposition. “There are teachers, there are parents of all stripes, who are very concerned about this issue. This is not a Tea Party issue. This is not a conservative issue. There are liberals. It's pretty interesting actually. Politically … I've never seen anything like it, how various groups and individuals of political stripes have come together on this one issue, and that's what a reform movement is about.”

The Common Core standards were developed by a group of state education leaders but promoted by the federal government, particularly through Race To The Top, a nationwide competitive grant program that required the adoption of standards that boost college- and career-readiness.

New York won $700 million through the program in 2010.>>>>>>

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/07/8548804/king-mythology-anti-common-core-movement

[Jefferson23]

1. I've never seen anything like it either. Obama, dump Duncan. n/t

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. It's a pretty bizarre situation. Made all the more so ....

by the fact that Cuomo's being primaried by an ( I'm assuming) anti-CCSS opponent ( law professor Zephyr Teachout).

Additionally.... the Greens have nominated ferociously anti-fake ed "reform" NYC teacher union activist Brian Jones for Lt Gov who WILL be on the ballot in Nov.


Seems like we're seeing the beginnings of a a real realignment here. It may be less about "education" than it is about the smug elitist attitude of much of the DEM party leadership:

upper-middle class prep school brats who think they know what's good for the little people.

And what's "good for the little people"... they themselves will avoid like the *plague*.

[Squinch]

2. Ahhhhhh! Can't stand Astorino, can't stand Cuomo. I will vote D, but I will be holding my nose.

Actually, I hope Astorino is successful in disrupting the Common Core through his campaign, but he's just too Republican in everything else for me to get behind him on the education issue, even though it is so important to me.

I hate Cuomo for putting me in that position.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. I know what you mean.

At one level, I wish the anti-"reform" camp could coalesce around a single progressive candidate.

On the other hand... Astorino's kids ARE in ps; he *did* OPT-Out his kids and his spouse IS a public school SP ED teacher.

It seems like some fault lines are developing in the old alignments. Hard to know at this point whether that will be "good" or "bad", long term.

All I know for sure is that the DEM Party establishment is on another planet.

[Squinch]

6. Yeah, but on taxation and economics in general, and abortion and fracking

a host of other issues, he's awful.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. That's the truth.

What can I tell ya. It's a classic paradox.

Thank the gods there is Teachout and Jones available for people who WILL NOT vote for Cuomo primarily on this... and related issues.

[Squinch]

3. PS: Since when are Pearson/Gates/Teacher's College's hand picked stooges "a group of

state education leaders?"