Tim Macdowall gets double-teamed by empty suits Flanagan and Bishop and very skillfully schools them on CCSS. IMHO Tim is a total badass!!! Tim Macdowall My Report Holy Smokes, this is Going to be Long and filled with errors, but I just had a pretty incredible thing happen to me at 3 Village Civic Assoc. Meet the Candidate night at their Library in Setauket. The lineup included NYS Sen Flanagan, US Congressman Bishop, NYS Sen Zeldin (challenging Bishop for Congress), and NYS Assemblyman Englebright (NYS Education Committee) and it was 15 min from my house. How could I not go to this? Flanagan spoke first and his challenger never showed up. He did his Vote for Me speech and he left. I had my chance and I seized it. Nervously, I followed him to the stairwell as he was on his way out and asked him where he stands on Common Core. With that, Congressman Bishop comes into the stairwell and Bishop and Flanagan try to double team me in the basement stairwell of a library!! Were being shushed because the Comptroller candidates are introducing themselves in the main meeting room just off the stairwell! We were not yelling but we all dug our heels in. I was retorting Flanagan on my left and Bishop was making a point on my right. I had to juggle CC, RttT and NCLB, depending on which I was talking to. (I HATE when they play the semantics game with you). I definitely got under Flanagans skin and he pulled out the EVERYBODY wants this argument. He started tallying on his fingers: Superintendents Assoc., School Board Assoc., Teacher Unions, Business Leaders, Educational Leaders. I looked him dead in the eye and said, I noticed you didnt mention the children. That agitated the hell out of him. He said the CC Standards were thoroughly vetted by countless teams and work groups and redone into the NY Version of Common Core. I laughed at him and asked him, NY altered copyrighted standards? Doesnt that mean they broke the law? I brought up the Saul Cohen memo about NYs review of the Common Core and Cohens very first point was that they were not given enough time to fully review the standards, but here are our findings anyway given the time constraints. NYs review committee had 6 Bullet points of things they liked and 6 PAGES of bullet points they didnt like. Also, given the time frame from when that feedback was received and when the CCSS were released, there was no way they incorporated any of Saul Cohens findings into the final CC Standards. I then told him that only 1 of the main Writers of the CC standards had an educational background, and he and Bishop both scofffed at me and said No Way, but they could not provide me with information on the lead writers. I told them they will have a memo from David Coleman waiting for them in their inbox in the morning. I then asked Flanagan to repeat that teachers support CC and he rattled off AFT & NYSUT support and I immediately felt the need to smack Randi. I quickly recovered and told him if Teachers support it, why has their CC approval rating gone from 76% to 46% in only ONE Year. I then explained that 76% support by saying the poll question was akin to: Do you support higher standards to prepare students for College and/or career? I told Flanagan that he ought to investigate why only 76% of teachers support Higher standards?!? Does that mean the other 24% support lower standards? He froze and didnt know what to say. At this point some Civic member, Mike Russell, butted in about his daughter being a teacher, blah blah blah. (DEEP BREATH..This is the actual rough draft of my notes ). Remember, while this exchange is going on with Flanagan, Im also debating Bishop to my right. He hit me with a good jab about RttT that I didnt know when he said only 19 states accepted RttT funding. I did not have the answer to that (Now confirmed), but I quickly switched gears and said the funding was meaningless, just a drop in the bucket, states were really after the NCLB waivers when they adopted RttT. Again, he kept going back to funding but I wanted to talk about the waivers. He conceded the waiver point once I told him without them, all schools will be labeled troubled (See State of WA), and within 3-5 yrs some very good schools will be candidates for takeover, closure, or conversion to charter. I told him for good measure again, that the funding was just a diversion. Bishop went on to tell me that they are working on a bill to reduce testing (Not Steve Israels bill). I think he said there are currently 17 Fed tests administered, but they want to reduce it to 6 (this might have been Testing days? because 17 tests seems like a lot--my apologies, my notes are a little sketchy here). He also jabbed Flanagan a little by saying, I dont know how many tests the state wants to administer, thats up to them. I said its not so much the tests as it is the consequences attached to those tests. Bishop also played some tongue twister game with me by saying, Everyone in Congress knows NCLB is bad, and they know it needs to be repealed, but they cant decide on how to repeal it. Bishop said states did not have to accept Common Core, and I quickly cut him off and said Yes they did if they wanted that NCLB waiver, but he then said that Vermont did not accept Common Core. I quickly tried to recall in my head the map of states that did not adopt CC but I wasnt 100% that Vermont was not on that map. I shouldve went with my gut because I later confirmed that Vt. did in fact accept CC. Im sure I forgot some things, but at this point we wrapped it up cordially and promised to follow up (oh, I will). I then listened to Lee Zeldins spiel and he definitely made a stronger impression than Bishop. He actually drew applause when he said he will work to Stop Common Core, but I need to call his office and remind him it is NCLB in Congress and Common Core in state legislatures. It was not a debate, but Zeldin was the clear winner, until he got tripped up when asked about the environment. I finally make my way back to my seat and find Assemblyman Englebright sitting right behind me. lol Ive talked with the Assemblyman multiple times on the phone and email, but weve never met in person. After he gave his Vote for Me speech, I introduced myself and he warmly greeted me. I told him it was 9:00pm, hes tired, Im tired, and theres a crowd of people behind me waiting to talk to him, but I will be calling him tomorrow to set up a meeting. He said he looked forward to it. I felt great driving home from there and I want to Thank all you Warriors for providing me with all this information and I want to Thank myself for holding my own in a duel debate with 2 very seasoned politicians, Sen Flanagan and Congressman Bishop. I wish it was videotaped, it was completely surreal.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:43:39 +0000
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