The Rochester Teachers Association will hold a community forum on education at 4:30 p.m. today. The forum is one of several that the RTA has organized in the Upstate region in opposition to Governor Cuomo’s education reform agenda, which stresses tougher teacher evaluations based on the results of student tests. Cuomo also wants to increase […]
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Posted inNews & Opinion
Testing’s not the key to educational success
Governor Andrew Cuomo and other critics of education view teaching and learning as a business – and as such, they believe teachers and schools should be held accountable for students’ successes and failures. But they measure success and failure only by outcomes on standardized tests and supposedly objective evaluations of teacher and school effectiveness. They […]
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Shelly Silver’s sweet gig
The charges in the federal criminal complaint against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are just shocking. There is “probable cause,” the complaint says, to believe that through bribes, kickbacks, fraud, extortion, and conspiracy, Silver “used the power and influence of his official position to obtain for himself millions of dollars masked as legitimate income earned by […]
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No surprises out of Cuomo’s State of the State
The big questions heading into Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State Address weren’t about what he was going to propose; he’d laid out most of his plans over the past week and a half. Rather, legislators questioned how Cuomo would pay for it all, and media types speculated on the speech’s tone. Much of […]
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The future and the race for the Cuomo Billions
Nationally and here at
home, poverty and wealth disparity are crippling us, and I’m seeing a lot of
small-bore, more-of-the-same plans to deal with them.
Posted inNews & Opinion
Funke to respond to Cuomo address
The state Republican Party has tapped Senator Rich Funke to give the GOP response to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address, which is scheduled for Wednesday. The Senate majority leader typically delivers the GOP’s response, but Majority Leader Dean Skelos asked Funke, a former radio and TV broadcaster, to do it this time. […]
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[UPDATED] Cuomo announces $1.5 billion competition for Upstate
Seven Upstate regions will compete for three $500 million awards.
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The legacy of New York’s fracking decision
New York’s long struggle with fracking is over, except that it isn’t. Next month, the State Department of Environmental Conservation will officially wrap up its review of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, the natural gas extraction technique under review since late 2008. The big news: it intends to prohibit high-volume fracking in New York, DEC Commissioner Joseph […]
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Cuomo says fracking report due by year’s end
There was a moment in last’s night’s gubernatorial debate when Governor Andrew Cuomo broke some fracking news. In response to a question about fracking, Cuomo said that he expects a long-awaited report from the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health by the end of the year. Previously, he’d only said that the […]
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Cuomo talks Moreland Commission on Charlie Rose
Governor Andrew Cuomo disbanded his much ballyhooed Moreland Commission because the State Legislature passed an ethics reform package. At least that’s what he told Charlie Rose during an interview last night. Cuomo said he’d told legislators that if they didn’t pass ethics legislation that he wanted, he’d form the commission to examine public corruption in […]
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VIDEO: Zephyr Teachout campaigns in Rochester
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 […]
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Parker expects Duffy to apply for RBA leadership
This is a corrected version of this blog; Monday, June 9,2014 Sandy Parker, president and CEO of the Rochester Business Alliance, says she expects Bob Duffy to reapply for her job. Parker retires at the end of the year and Duffy, currently New York’s lieutenant governor, isn’t running on Governor Cuomo’s re-election ticket this fall. […]
