Education: A Blank Canvas

Have you seen the latest Andrew Cuomo campaign ad?

You know, the one where he and his daughter are sitting in the kitchen, doing homework together. If not, you can take a look below, and then we'll talk.

 If you were to describe the ad in  one word, what  would it be?

 For me, it was 'white'. White  pumpkins, white  kitchen, white  sweaters, white paint.

 White white white white.

 I think the message tries to be  black and white;  however, I think  it misses the mark, because in  reality 'education' is not that  simple and doesn't  translate well  to a 30-second campaign ad.

It's not all white and shiny like Cuomo's kitchen, and it's not black and white. It's more like someone loaded up a palette with paint, dragged a brush through all of the colors and then splashed that paint onto a canvas.

When I talk about the color of education being something other than white, or black and white, I'm talking about the whole picture that is 'education' in New York and other states. Think of that picture as an actual painting and you'll understand that it is painted with many brushes, all having different hues and perspectives:

• It includes the teachers, unions, administrators, and local Boards of Education, who should be effectively collaborating on education at the local level. 
• It includes money: property taxes, school aid and the school aid formula itself, and the relative wealth of a district, which directly influences the completeness of the educational experience kids get. 
• It includes grassroots community groups, local faith-based initiatives, and large philanthropic organizations which interject themselves (welcomed or not) from many viewpoints and with varying degrees of influence and success.
• It includes law enforcement agencies, which not really by design but out of necessity engage with students, families and districts, particularly urban ones.
• It includes local, state and national elected officials, armed with their own agendas and, frankly, arms full of threats and promises, and a host of unelected bureaucrats at state and federal Education Departments.
• It includes parents, and those acting as parents, such as aunts and uncles, older siblings, and mentors.

It also includes perfectly decorated 'classrooms' in perfectly appointed kitchens, and twin daughters who are attending Harvard and Brown, as Cuomo's are; and teacher and school evaluations, and Common Core, and high tech classrooms, all of which are referenced in Cuomo's ad.

And, it sadly includes 911 calls, horrible test scores, low graduation rates and high dropout rates, and 'watch lists' and abject frustration and anger, things the Cuomo girls probably never experienced, things which no children should have to experience.

The students are the canvas on which everyone else paints. They absorb or reflect the colors that are put on them, some positively and some negatively.  The goal of everyone involved should be ensuring that the students' right to a safe, appropriately funded, fully evolved educational experience is not impeded by anyone's actions, and that their responsibility to participate actively, productively and fully in the educational process is encouraged, supported, and reinforced.

We'll take a look at some of these issues in more detail in upcoming posts.

Primary Post-mortem: #AskCuomo

In the end, the result was expected, even if the numbers were better than expected.

Andrew Cuomo, New York's Sonofa Gov, handily won the primary battle with Zephyr Teachout, with about 327,000 votes to her 185,000. Those who thought that Teachout, the law school professor, would barely make a dent were wrong, it turned out. She outright won 24 counties; who knows what would have happened if more people had voted.

Cuomo was barely visible during the primary season, other than going to the State Fair here in Syracuse and the Labor Day Parade in New York City. A thoroughly entrenched incumbent with dozens of millions of dollars at the ready, I'd be surprised if he spent as much of his own campaign funds during the entire primary season as I spend in one week feeding My Sweet Baboo and our cats.

All of the ads, all of the mail, everything I saw was paid for by the state Democratic Party -- a state party which apparently believes we here in Syracuse should be as enamored of the Buffalo Billion as are folks in Erie County, and should be thrilled with Cuomo for everything he's done for Western New York; I guess we can only wait to see whether the campaign mail is more reflective of us here in CNY between now and November, and to see what comes our direction once his second term gets into full swing, especially since he and Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner have made amends.

Zephyr Teachout had almost no money yet still managed to reinvigorate the left wing of the party, and actually made them feel like they belonged again. I think that was really the point of her campaign: the Democratic Party is big enough to welcome traditional Dems along side the 'new Cuomo' Dems, if you will, even the ones who sometimes come across looking more like Republicans to the libs.

Beyond fracking and wage equality and what not, Teachout and I had the same bone to pick with the governor. We want honest politicians who do not take advantage of every available trick of the trade to get elected or to stay in office. We want people who walk the talk of the reforms they pretend to support. We do not want politicians who publicly lament money in politics and then take it in hand over fist, as fast as they possibly can.  My views on election reform and campaign finance reform are out there for anyone who wants to pay attention. Andrew Cuomo doesn't.

His handling of the Moreland Commission was atrocious. His heavy handed approach to getting people to go along with the limited campaign reforms passed this past April is reminiscent of the actions that got Texas Governor Rick Perry arrested. They are not the actions of an ethical politician, one who sleeps easy at night because he's doing the right thing. But he doesn't pay attention to anyone on those subjects, either.

Cuomo's failure to debate Teachout - in sharp contrast to dad Mario's primary race against Ed Koch -- showed his disdain for the primary process very clearly. In response to a reporter's question on whether not debating was a disservice to democracy, he gave us this gem:

I've been in many debates that I think were a disservice to democracy, so anybody who says debates are always a service to democracy hasn't watched all the debates that I've been in.

I think most of us would have taken the risk on that; we would have liked to see the two square off on the issues, to truly see where they differed and where the heart of the party really lies. Instead, we're left with the #AskCuomo hashtag, which was used with both insight and humor during the last couple weeks of her campaign. And with this thank you message from Zephyr Teachout.

And Cuomo? Well, he can now waltz towards a November victory against Rob Astorino, the Westchester County Republican and sacrificial lamb the state Republicans chose when His Hairness, the blowhard Donald Trump bailed on them. That, too, went the way just about everyone expected, save a few county Republican chairmen who actually fell for his bluster.

Hopefully we'll see #AskCuomo throughout the inevitable second term. It's the least we can do, I think, to keep the pressure on, to help nudge the Governor in the direction he so wants us to believe he wants to go.