Remember the teacher evaluations debacle from a few months ago? You know, the one where the tensions between the UFT and Bloomberg administration cost New York City's public schools nearly $300 million in state funds? Yeahhhhh, that one.

Well, after a solution fizzled and the jobs of hundreds of New York City teachers evaporated into thin air with next year's budget, Governor Cuomo set the next deadline dance to June 1st. If the two sides really, really couldn't sit down and sort out their differences by that day, Albany would intervene on their behalf and put in place a state-led evaluations system - one that would probably peeve the UFT and the Department of Education but whatever. Tough luck for the sore losers.

But yesterday, the State received different plans from both of the frenemies to see just how ideologically "distant" they claim to be. As of now, the plans submitted yesterday have not been made available to the public. However, a glimpse at what happened back in January kinda gives us an idea of where the UFT and DOE stand.

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cybrarian77 via Compfight cc

"I know that you're just a messenger, so I want to make sure you deliver this message properly to your supervisors," parent and City Council candidate Jelani Mashariki told the Department of Education's deputy chief academic officer, Adina Lopatin, at a Borough Hall town hall packed with families Monday night.

Read more: Who Is Stockpiling and Sharing Private Information About New York Students?

"You're not going to give out my child's information to a third-party corporation to do whatever it is they want to do," Makarishi continued over whistles and applause from the audience. "The people are not going to have it and we are going to fight back."

Several other audience members had similar things to say regarding inBloom Inc., the controversial data-sharing initiative that parents at Monday night's volatile forum believe violates the privacy and security of their children. The $100 million initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and federal grants, and built by News Corp's Wireless Generation, is responsible for designing something called an Education Data Portal in order to provide data tools to teachers and families.

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In what one observer called a "ham-handed attempt to control the media," officials at the Thurgood Marshall Academy, a public school founded by Rev. Calvin Butts' Abyssinian Development Corp., sent out a memo last week telling parents to refuse to talk to reporters.

The memo was sent out to parents and staff of the school in the wake of the Village Voice's April 17 article about ADC's troubles and controversies. One observer point out that the document appears to ignore a little thing we like to call the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

"Just a reminder re: communication with the media," the unsigned memo begins. "We advise to offer no comment and refer the media to the school main office. Don't be afraid to say no to a media request, especially if the intention is not clear."

The memo then gets kind of bizarrely sinister, actually suggesting that talking to the media would endanger the safety of the students. "We intend to protect our children and school community from any media attention that does not benefit the education and safety of our children," the memo says.

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For the first time in its history, the Cooper Union will no longer offer a free education to all its students.

The board of trustees of Cooper Union voted on Sunday to end the school's policy of offering a free education to all its undergraduate students, Chairman of the Board Mark Epstein announced this afternoon.

Speaking to students in the school's historic Great Hall, Epstein said that beginning with the incoming class of 2014, the default size of students' scholarships will be reduced from 100 percent of tuition to 50 percent.

"These are the least damaging changes among all the other options," Epstein said. He stressed that Cooper Union's core mission of providing an affordable top-notch education would continue. "The fact that it's been tuition free, that's gravy on the plate."

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Network for Public Education

Parents, activists and educators who are against the so-called education-reform movement are forming a national coalition to combat what they perceive to be a corporate assault on education.

They thought it'd be wise to organize their fight on a more national level -- especially since their opponents have a ton of money and resources at their disposal to orchestrate the dismantling of the traditional public school structure.

To get an idea of how much cash ed-reform supporters are willing to shell out to shape education policy, wealthy reformists poured nearly $4 million into elections involving three school board seats up for grabs in Los Angeles.

Our generous Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw $1 million into the mix to help get ed-reform-friendly candidates elected. Our former public schools chancellor, Joel Klein, who now heads media magnate Rupert Murdoch's education technology company, Wireless Generation, donated an estimated $25,00-$50,000 to the campaign.

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Jason Lewis/Village Voice

The hearts of the folks running Cooper Union seem to have turned rather cold lately.

President Jamshed Bharucha informed faculty members from the School of Art last Wednesday that all of the school's early-decision applicants would either be lumped in with the college's general admission pool or denied admittance altogether. The move came shortly after Art School faculty members sent a letter to Bharucha, informing the administration of their opposition to the implementation of any tuition-based programs at the Cooper Union.

Current students and deferred applicants took to the front of the college's Foundation Building yesterday afternoon to voice their outrage over the decision.

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It's not every day that employees ask their higher-ups to evaluate them more rigorously, but that's what a few city public school teachers asked for in an ad campaign launched by Educators 4 Excellence yesterday.

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John Surico

Looks like State Education Commissioner John King wasn't kidding.

Yesterday, the Associated Press was informed by an anonymous Cuomo administration official that, in his 30-day budget amendments coming up this week, the governor will position Albany to be the central arbiter of a still-not-disclosed statewide teacher evaluations deal; one that will garner millions of Race to the Top funds for New York. After a threat from Mr. Cuomo a few weeks ago, this is the official announcement that, yes, things have gotten that bad.

But this will only happen if the City and its teachers can reach a deal by the newly set deadline, September 17th.

This transfer of power away from the local municipalities is a direct result of the inability of New York City, along with a few other school districts, to get their act together on the controversial subject. The core of the 2010 law passed by state lawmakers -- to outsource responsibility to local municipalities on coming to an accountability agreement -- broke down late last month when Mayor Bloomberg's Department of Education walked out of negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers. 

And, as we know, the teachers union has had a rough past dealing with City Hall wrested with mayoral control over educational policy. So we can't blame them for losing $250 million in state aid, leading to a free fall in the Mayor's budget that will result in the dismissal of 700 teachers, right?

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But can you really blame him?

After the collapse in talks between the mayor's Department of Education and the UFT last month, Albany went ahead and extended the deadline for yet another month for the City (and other areas -- it's just not us!) to come to some sort of agreement on teacher evaluations. The new deadline -- the upcoming date of March 1st -- is meant to give the two feuding parties a fresh start on negotiations that could secure over $300 million for the City in state and federal aid.

And, for state education commissioner John King, that's seriously all we're getting.

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via Cooper Union Student Action to Save Our School

Faculty from the School of Art at Cooper Union sent a letter to the school's dean Friday opposing proposals to implement tuition-based programs at the college.

The statement marks the latest development in the on-going fight to preserve the college's long-standing tradition of providing free tuition for all students. The faculty members signed the letter opposing plans to create tuition-based programs during the week-long student lock-in in December when 11 students barricaded themselves inside the college's Foundation Building.

"Cooper Union is not only the last citadel of the social reforms movement of the 19th century, but is in fact the vanguard of the 21st century -- a beacon of access to free education," the letter reads. "In this soul searching process our commitment to this fragile and precious mission was reinvigorated."

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