News Blog

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren does not want Ken Warner to lead the Monroe County Democratic Committee. She even outlined her opposition in a letter to some party members this week. (Current party chair Joe Morelle is stepping down in September.) 

Warner, who is retiring as executive director of the local construction and building trades group Unicon, is one of three candidates openly seeking the post. In early August, he sent a letter to MCDC members asking for support, and he's attended a few town and city legislative district committee meetings.

Greece Democratic Leader Dave Garretson has also been seeking support from the rank and file, and has visited over a dozen town and city LD committees. Ken Preston, who founded and has led Rochester for Obama, has also said that he's running.

But Warren singled out Warner for reasons that should be obvious. After Warren defeated then-Mayor Tom Richards in a Democratic primary last year, Warner helped lead a campaign for Richards on the Independence Party line. (Clearly, Richards did not win.) Warren says that after other hard-fought mayoral primaries, including those won by former mayors Bill Johnson and Bob Duffy, the party united behind the winner. That didn't happen in her case, she says.

The New York State Department of Education has released the final versions of its professional evaluations for teachers and principals throughout the state for the 2012-2013 school year. And for the first time, parents can contact their school district and find out how their child’s teacher was evaluated. 

Some parents and school officials are going to be happy with the reports. If your child attends school in Brighton, Pittsford, Fairport, Webster, or Penfield, there’s a good chance that his or her teacher received an evaluation of “effective” or “highly effective.”

But if you’re a parent of a city student, you might be wondering if your child’s teacher is even suited for the profession. About 58 percent of the district’s 2,368 educators received an evaluation of “effective,” but about 40 percent received evaluations of “developing” or “ineffective.”

The city evaluations are almost the reverse of their colleagues in suburban schools. A similar pattern shows up in the Syracuse area.

According to state law, every teacher and principal in the state’s public school system must receive an evaluation. And those who receive ratings of developing and ineffective over a two-year period can be terminated when the evaluation system is fully implemented.

It’s important that we understand why there are such discrepancies between teacher performances in pricier communities and poor ones. Do teachers in Rochester’s schools need to brush up on their skills? Are they pursuing the right professional development courses?

Are suburban districts snapping up the best and brightest teachers? Or do suburban students have higher attendance rates and lower suspension rates?

We don’t seem to know; and worse, we don’t seem to care.

Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham University Law professor who's challenging Governor Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary later this month, made a campaign stop this morning at Village Gate plaza in Rochester.

Teachout stuck to the main themes of her campaign: Cuomo supports too many tax breaks for banks, corporations, and the wealthy, she said. And those tax breaks, which benefit Cuomo's biggest campaign donors, are happening at the expense of funding for education, infrastructure, and investment in small business and agriculture, Teachout said.

The crowd responded with frequent applause and cheers (and some boos when she first said the words "Common Core").

"Andrew Cuomo's stealing from our kids is stealing from our present," she said. "And it's stealing from our future."

Below is a clip from Teachout's speech:

Over the past few months, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a series of reports containing stern warnings about global warming. The panel's scientists have clearly stated that climate change is here, it's creating a long list of harms and risks, and governments need to act on greenhouse gas emissions to avert the worst impacts.

But the latest document, sent yesterday to governments across the world, says it may already be too late to avoid serious impacts. According to reports in major media outlets, the panel's draft synthesis report — which combines the previous assessments into one comprehensive volume — warns that the global trend of rising average temperatures may be irreversible. An Associated Press article includes this excerpt:

"Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems," the report says. 

Over the past few months, state regulators have been flooded with public comments for and against — mostly against — the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. Staff from state agencies have submitted comments, too — which are basically recommendations regarding the deal.

Yesterday, Comcast and Time Warner Cable submitted their joint response to the comments, and what the company says isn't going to sit well with a lot of people. The companies dismiss many of the comments, including some from State Public Service Department staff; those staff members advise the Public Service Commission, which has to decide whether to allow Comcast to assume Time Warner's New York operations. (The sections starting on page 57 will probably be of most interest to members of the public following the merger review.)

Merger critics say that the deal would hurt competition, particularly for broadband Internet. But the companies double down on the position they've taken since the deal was announced: that the merger would not reduce competition because the companies don't compete in the same markets.

The companies say that "the transaction will change nothing about competition for such services and the number of broadband choices available to consumers. In fact, consumers have ample and increasing choice of broadband providers," including DSL, mobile data, satellite, and fiber optic networks.

Well, well. Maybe turning around failing urban schools is harder than some education reformers would have us believe. Johns Hopkins University, in a much publicized move, took over the management of two failing Buffalo schools – East and Lafayette — last year. But now, according to the Buffalo News, it looks like the university wants out of the deal. 

The news comes just as students are about to head back to school, leaving the Buffalo School District in a quandary.

The only explanation that Johns Hopkins has given is that the additional administrative work that the university was supposed to do made school improvement goals unattainable. It seems, too, that trouble was brewing between the university and the new school board. The university recommended hiring a half-dozen more English and math coaches, which would have cost the district about $770,000. The additional staff was intended support Lafayette’s high immigrant student population.

We should thank Johns Hopkins for its honesty. In something of a teachable moment, it would be extremely helpful if the folks at Johns Hopkins, the Buffalo school district, and the State Education Department explained exactly what went wrong. Considering that millions in state funding are at stake in Buffalo and in other large school districts, it would waste even more of taxpayers' money to repeat the same mistakes.

One example: the University of Rochester is currently working on a similar arrangement with the Rochester school board to become the educational partner for East High School. (It's worth noting that several Rochester school officials strongly advocated for a partnership with Johns Hopkins instead.)

On Thursday, gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout and lieutenant governor candidate Tim Wu will make a campaign stop in Monroe County. They'll appear at 9 a.m. at Village Gate Square, 274 North Goodman Street.

The visit is part of the Teachout-Wu campaign’s Whistleblower Bus Tour. The candidates are making stops across the state and promise to “reveal how Governor [Andrew] Cuomo and his campaign donors have been rigging the system, getting special treatment, and making money at the expense of our schools, hospitals, subways, bridges, lakes, food systems, and small businesses,” says a press release.

Teachout is challenging Cuomo in a Democratic primary, while Wu is challenging Cuomo’s running mate, Kathy Hochul. Teachout has made Cuomo-backed tax cuts for corporations, banks, and wealthy New Yorkers a central theme in her campaign. The tax cuts mean less money for investing in schools, for municipal aid, and for infrastructure, she says.

This post has been updated.

Back in June, the US and Canadian governments received for their consideration Plan 2014, a proposal to regulate water levels in Lake Ontario, from the International Joint Commission. Supporters and opponents of Plan 2014 have been making their voices heard throughout the process. 

This week, a group of 40-plus environmental and sportsmen's groups sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry urging the State Department to sign off on the plan. They cited several positives, such as increased hydropower production at St. Lawrence River dams and benefits to international shipping.

But supporters emphasize the plan's environmental benefits. They say that the current regulating plan has created overly stable water levels in Lake Ontario — degrading coastal environments as a result. Plan 2014 is designed to somewhat mimic the variability in lake levels that'd be present without human intervention. Supporters say that change would help restore important coastal habitats — particularly certain types of wetlands — and increase coastal habitat variety.

New York City schools and agencies will receive the bulk of the $340 million universal prekindergarten funding recently announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The funding is the first installment on Cuomo's promise to invest $1.5 billion over five years in a statewide program. 

Eighty-one school districts applied for the funding. New York City’s Department of Education will receive nearly $300 million, leaving roughly $40 million to be divvied up between 80 districts across the state. Though the New York City school system is by far the largest in the country, some critics say that other school districts have greater need.

The Rochester City School District has already reached the maximum funding allowed by the state and has been providing universal prekindergarten for a few years. About 70 percent of the children who qualify in Rochester are enrolled in the program. (Rochester is widely known for having the highest concentration of poverty in the state and one of the highest child poverty rates in the country.)

The Fairport Central School District and the Victor Central School District will each receive $360,000. And the Gates Chili Central School District will receive $900,000. Generations Child Care in Gates will receive $174,000.

Proponents of universal prekindergarten say that research shows that children who participate in quality early childhood education have better long-term outcomes — they are more likely to read at grade level by third grade and they are more likely to stay in school and graduate on time.

But critics says that universal prekindergarten amounts to little more than government subsidized day care.

Governor Andrew Cuomo got a bit of bad news out of yesterday's AFL-CIO COPE convention: the union umbrella group's political action committee didn't give the sitting governor its endorsement. (The list of the endorsements it did make is available here.)

But the AFL-CIO didn't endorse any of Cuomo's challengers, either. While it's unlikely that the AFL-CIO would have backed Republican Rob Astorino, the members could have thrown the organization's endorsement to Zephyr Teachout, Cuomo's Democratic primary opponent.

Media reports say that the non-endorsement was driven by two strong factions of the AFL-CIO: the New York State United Teachers and the Public Employees Federation. PEF is backing Teachout; the organization's leaders endorsed her because of her law background and advocacy for breaking up big banks, says a press release from the union. NYSUT opted not to endorse a gubernatorial candidate. The union has been at odds with Cuomo over some of his education policies, including teacher evaluations and Cuomo's embrace of Common Core.

But the non-endorsement probably won't hurt Cuomo much. He's still got better name recognition than his opponents, the support of Democratic politicians and party leaders across the state, and bipartisan appeal. He's also got way more money than any of his challengers, and he's already started airing campaign ads.