Certainly your editor is a tad skeptical about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s successful effort this week to convince legislators to pass a reform package that includes the overhaul the state’s teacher evaluation regime. At the same time, Cuomo deserves credit for making key steps that can help all Empire State children.

Why the skepticism? Start with the statement by Meryl Tisch, who heads the Empire State’s Board of Regents, that high-performing schools could be exempted from the new evaluation system is none too pleasing because it essentially allows teachers working in those classrooms off the hook for their performance. Given that even top-performing schools have laggards working within them, and that the quality of education varies between classrooms than between schools, exempting one group of teachers from performance management means denying school leaders, families, researchers, and even teachers the data they need to help all children succeed.

The fact that the state doesn’t ensure that state test score growth data accounts for 50 percent of the new evaluations leaves too much room for mischief (and watering down of performance management) to take place. The American Federation of Teachers’ Big Apple and Empire State affiliates, knowing that Tisch and her fellow Regents are up for reappointment over the next two years, can simply lean on Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to oppose their continued rolls on the body, leading them to allow test score growth data to account for as little as a quarter of the overall evaluation. This, in turn, will make subjective observations count for a greater portion of the performance review, essentially making the evaluations as inaccurate as they are now.

Given that a decade of evidence (including the Measures of Effective Teaching studies conducted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) shows that observations are absolutely ineffective in measuring how teachers improve student achievement — the unobservable aspect of teacher performance that is the most-important for our children’s lifelong success — the lack of a specified percentage makes almost no sense at all. Gov. Cuomo will have to put pressure on Tisch and her fellow Regents to ensure that test score growth data takes up 50 percent of the overall evaluation.

[Your editor knows that some reformers, most-notably Educators4Excellence and Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, think that test score growth data shouldn’t account for half of an evaluation. But they are arguing against evidence, including studies by Thomas Kane (who also oversaw Gates Foundation’s MET initiative) and are incorrect in their respective stances. That’s all.]

Then there’s the fact that Cuomo dropped his demands for expanding charter schools and passing a tax credit scholarship initiative as conditions for signing the state budget in order to get the package — which includes a school takeover plan and an effort to improve the state’s ed schools — passed by the legislature. After all, by doing so, the governor loses critical leverage in expanding school choice. Yet your editor isn’t as concerned as charter school advocates about this move because Cuomo still has leverage it the form of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s effort to renew mayoral control of the Big Apple’s traditional district.

Because de Blasio played a key role in helping Heastie succeed the disgraced Sheldon Silver as assembly speaker, de Blasio will work hard with him to renew mayoral control. The fact that de Blasio must also make amends with the state senate’s Republican majority, which is still perturbed over the mayor’s effort last year to help Democrats take control over the upper house is also a factor. If expanding charters and passing tax credits (the latter of which is a key priority of State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos) are the conditions for winning renewal of mayoral control, then de Blasio will probably support it. Cuomo knows this and will likely get his way in the end.

As I said, your editor reserves some skepticism about the reform package. Yet at the same time, that Cuomo has managed to get the legislature to go his way is good news for children and families in the state.

The fact that the new evaluation system will only use score growth data from the Empire State’s battery of standardized tests is a strong blow for high-quality data on teacher performance. No longer will data from district-developed assessments of lower quality (including formative tests from Northwest Evaluation Association — which aren’t aligned to Common Core’s reading and math standards, and those written up by teachers lacking the knowledge to develop high-quality tests) be included in evaluations. The current evaluation regime’s use of locally-developed tests for 20 percent of evaluation is likely one reason (along with the low percentage of state test data used in the reviews) why nearly all of the Empire State’s teachers were ranked as meeting or exceeding expectations, which is laughable given the low levels of student achievement.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew (right) and NYSUT boss Karen Magee (far right) suffered another big defeat.

If the state education department and the Board of Regents do their jobs properly on this front and require state test data to be used for half of evaluations, this will lead to more-accurate (and fair) data on teacher performance that is useful to everyone. Especially families, who under state law, can actually look at data on the teachers serving their children. This is also true with the new evaluation system’s requirement that observation from outsiders, along with those from school leaders, be included in the evaluation. As D.C. Public Schools has demonstrated through its successful IMPACT evaluation system, using skilled outside evaluators to observe teacher performance can be especially helpful for newly-hired teachers

The even bigger moves lie with two key aspects of Cuomo’s reform plan: Extending the time it takes for newly-hired teachers to attain near-lifetime employment through tenure from three years to four; and making it easier for districts to fire laggard teachers.

New York has long been one of 36 states in which newly-hired teachers gain near-lifetime employment within one-to-three years of entering classrooms. Given that it takes at least four years for teachers to prove their worth, granting such status so quickly makes it difficult for districts to weed out laggards (and even criminally-abusive teachers). By becoming the 12th state to grant near-lifetime employment after four-to-five years on the job, the Empire State is making it easier for districts to keep those who don’t belong in classrooms from gaining near-permanent jobs. Which will help end the role of tenure as protection for bad teachers and AFT locals living off their dues payments.

Just as importantly, by requiring newly-hired teachers to demonstrate that they are effective or highly effective for three years before attaining tenure, the state is also setting a high bar for attaining near-lifetime jobs in classrooms. By the way: This also puts the onus on districts to do a proper job in evaluating new hires — and gives reformers as well as families a tool for holding school leaders accountable for failure in personnel management.

An even bigger move lies in requiring districts to remove laggards after being rated ineffective for three consecutive years — and requiring those being fired to prove that the ratings are fraudulent in order to win an appeal. Currently, laggard Empire State teachers can appeal their dismissals without proving that the district engaged in an unfair firing. This change in the state’s tenure law, along with another rule allowing districts to remove laggards rated ineffective for two years in a row, also keeps school leaders from using excuses for failing to do proper work in providing all the children they serve with high-quality teachers.

By overhauling the teacher dismissal law, Cuomo and legislators finally made incompetence grounds for dismissal and allow districts to no longer waste precious time on trying to improve the performance of teachers who have long ago demonstrated they can’t hack it. This matters because under previous the state’s previous teacher dismissal law, there was almost no way for districts to remove laggards for low-quality teaching. Between 1997 and 2007, three out of every five New York City teachers found to be incompetent, abusive of children, or excessively absent still remained in classrooms, according to an analysis of the state’s teacher dismissal law by the American Enterprise Institute.

The inability to remove laggards and the criminally abusive in classrooms is one reason why the New York City Parents Union and Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice launched their Vergara suit last year challenging the state’s tenure and dismissal laws. The suit is one reason why Cuomo pushed hard for the teacher quality reforms in the first place. His moves help address the issues raised by the suit, and, along with the tort, hasten even stronger reforms in the next few years.

The fact that Cuomo managed to get all these reforms passed by the legislature despite the opposition of the AFT’s United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers is absolutely astounding. Certainly NYSUT has been significantly weakened over the past year, as an internal feud, along with political mistakes such as refusing to endorse Cuomo’s re-election bid and backing Democrats in their bid to take control of the state senate, earned it the ire of the governor and Republicans alike. In fact, NYSUT’s influence is in such decline that its president, Karen Magee, has been forced to lobby families to opt out of standardized tests in order to keep the data from being used in evaluations. This is just pure desperation.

But the fact that UFT, which once again has sway over New York City’s traditional district, couldn’t convince Heastie and other Big Apple legislators to shoot down Cuomo’s entire agenda is shocking. The AFT local, after all, has spent the past three months lobbying classrooms and organizing sham protests against Cuomo’s reform plans. For UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who is angling to succeed Randi Weingarten as national AFT president, the passage of the teacher quality reforms is defeat plain and simple. [AFT national also takes a beating this time around.] And this political loss will be magnified if Cuomo manages to get the charter school expansion plan passed.

The jury is still out on Cuomo’s evaluation reform. Whether Cuomo will succeed in expanding school choice is also an open question. But one thing is clear: The governor has succeeded in passing a series of reforms that will help provide Empire State children with high-quality teaching they need and deserve. And for that, Cuomo deserves praise.

As you know by now, the United Federation of Teachers and the rest of the American Federation of Teachers have spent the past few weeks aggressively opposing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plans (and that of his school reform allies) to expand the number of public charter schools and refine the state’s teacher evaluation system. This included the AFT local lobbying within New York City’s traditional public schools as well as trying to win over parent-controlled Community Educational Councils that are the advisory boards within them. And UFT, along with AFT and New York State United Teachers, are getting vassals such as the Alliance for Quality Education and Citizens Action of New York (which have collected $180,000 from AFT and NYSUT in 2013-2014 alone) to prep their activists for visits to state legislators in their district offices.

But as Mona Davids of the New York City Parents Union alerts Dropout Nation this week, UFT is going further by asking the Community Education Councils to approve a resolution it drafted decrying Cuomo for daring to do the right thing by children. The move is another reminder to reformers in the Empire State as well as around the nation that working the grassroots is key to advancing and sustaining systemic reform.

The UFT’s resolution itself is rather hysterical in part because it is so focused on the union’s concerns for its own future. By proclaiming that Cuomo is “punishing low-performing schools” by floating a plan for the state education department to take over failing district schools, the union essentially betrays the real reasons why it opposes the concept: The schools would likely be placed into a Recovery School District-type model similar to that which has worked successfully in New Orleans in slowly improving quality of teaching and curricula.

In such a model, the UFT’s contracts with the New York City Department of Education (along with collective bargaining agreements its fellow AFT locals have struck with other districts) would likely be null and void. No more ability by UFT and other AFT locals to use the Empire State’s tenure law and teacher dismissal rules (which give them effective control over the process) to keep laggard and even criminally-abusive teachers in classrooms. Given that UFT collect $101.46 every month from every laggard teacher working in a failure mill, a state takeover means lost revenue into its coffers.

The UFT’s declaration that Cuomo’s plan to expand charters “reward” the sector for “bad behavior” would seem valid until you understand what they mean by misbehavior. As I noted last month, UFT and other AFT locals are annoyed at charters because they don’t over-label kids as special ed cases the same way New York City and other traditional districts do. For the union, every new charter that opens means fewer kids being given dubious diagnoses of mental retardation, learning disabled, emotionally disturbed or developmentally delayed — and therefore fewer kids condemned to academic in childhood as well as economic and social failure in adulthood.

This means the Big Apple and other districts lose out on an extra $1,227.61 in state aid per student. As you can expect, some of those dollars end up flowing into UFT’s coffers (and that of other AFT locals and the AFT itself) in the form of union dues of $14,154.60 paid by 186 teachers and paraprofessionals (based on an equal number of 93 of each) employed in district classrooms every month. For UFT, expanding choice that is beneficial for children and their families is a detriment to its finances.

Then there is UFT’s complaint that Cuomo’s effort to make state standardized test score growth data a larger component of the teacher evaluation system (from 20 percent of the performance measure as now structured) would “move high-stakes testing into overdrive”. But that isn’t so. For one, as the UFT would admit if pressed, standardized tests already account for 40 percent of the entire evaluation; this includes data from state exams as well as from district-administered tests essentially chosen by AFT locals. So nothing would change in terms of how many tests are administered. Given that testing itself helps improve student learning by helping teachers and policymakers learn how well kids are learning as well as what adults in schools are doing in instruction and curricula, UFT’s declaration is pure hype.

The real problem for UFT and its fellow AFT locals is that Cuomo’s plan would replace data from the local tests (which as I mentioned, the unions control, and thus, can game for self-protection) with using state test score growth data for half of the evaluation. Why? Because the state data, being of higher quality and less-subjected to gamesmanship, would likely lead to more laggard teachers being identified as such. This was made clear two years ago by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in its study of teacher evaluation models. Again, the last thing UFT and the rest of the AFT want is for more teachers to lose their jobs; that means lost revenue (even if it would also mean elevating the profession, as younger teachers within the rank-and-file demand).

The funniest line of all in UFT’s declaration is that Cuomo’s reforms would be “silencing the voices of parents and educators”. This coming from the union that moved two years ago to suppress the voice of its rank-and-file members by increasing the number votes from retired members no longer in classrooms that could be counted in union elections from 18,000 to 25,000. This coming from the union which teamed up with the NAACP’s New York unit on unsuccessful legal bid to effectively end school choice by keeping the Big Apple from allowing charters to share space with traditional district schools in half-empty school buildings. This coming from a union that continues to maintain its sorry legacy of opposing the ability of families, especially those black and brown, to exercise their rightful roles as lead decision-makers in education.

As far as UFT’s leadership is concerned, families and teachers only exist as tools of co-opting in order to maintain its declining influence — and to keep its bank accounts filled. That they even attempt to portray themselves as being truly concerned for the grassroots is laughable.

But the union can occasionally get away with such sophistry because reformers often do such a poor job of working with families and communities on the ground. This time around, UFT is putting something before committees of families that they can vote on — which reform outfits such as StudentsFirst’s Empire State unit and others haven’t done. Which they can and should do. And if reformers in the Big Apple and the rest of the state don’t get to work now, it may succeed in doing so again.

There has been even more happening in New York State in the days since Dropout Nation analyzed the steps the American Federation of Teachers would take to help its three affiliates deal with the departure of scandal-tarred soon-to-be-former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and oppose efforts by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and school reformers to continue transforming public education in the state.

On Wednesday, Assembly Labor Committee Chairman Carl Heastie, who was cited by your editor Tuesday night as a likely candidate to succeed Silver, formally announced his bid for the top legislative job. His candidacy was joined by that of Catherine Nolan, the Assembly Education Committee Chairman who, like Heastie, was originally part of the five-person committee charged by Silver to run things when he planned to temporarily step aside. Nolan is hoping that her fellow assembly members from Queens will ignore calls from the Democratic party machine there and give her a chance. But this isn’t likely to happen, especially after both the Queens Democratic machine and that in Brooklyn gave Heastie their support.

The support from Democrats in the Big Apple’s second-largest borough explains why longtime Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, who had announced his bid earlier today withdrew it hours later. Keith Wright, the assemblyman who recently chaired the Empire State’s Democratic Party, also backed off his bid for the job. The Harlem politico likely kiboshed his plans after getting Heastie’s backing to run for the congressional seat that will be vacated by the infamous Charles Rangel next year; after all, part of Rangel’s district extends into the Bronx, where Heastie and his ally, Borough President Ruben Diaz, have control of the Democratic machine.

As a result of these machinations, Heastie is considered to be the front-runner to succeed Silver. But it isn’t a fait accompli. For one, Nolan could still rally women among Assembly Democrats to her side, especially playing upon their desire to replace Silver with the first woman in the state to hold one of the two top jobs in the state legislature. There’s also Joseph Morelle, Silver’s top lieutenant as Majority Leader, who can still command upstate Democrats to his side. Then there’s Heastie’s own reputation for alleged political corruption. This includes amassing more than $25,000 in credit card expenses that haven’t been accounted for, as well as collecting $20,706 in per-diem expenses, the most of any assemblyman. Imagine what the Daily News and the New York Post will sniff up in the coming weeks before February 10, when Assembly Democrats formally vote on Silver’s replacement. [Update: Both the Albany Project and the aforementioned Post have dug up some dirt on Heastie, while the Daily News decried his ties to the various Democratic Party political machines that are trying to regain power in both Albany and the Big Apple after decades of government reforms.]

What could this mean for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s school reform efforts and those of the movement? Who knows. As Dropout Nation noted on Tuesday, Heastie doesn’t have much of a record on reform issues; he is also heavily backed by private-sector unions, who are more-supportive of school reform than the American Federation of Teachers, its three affiliates in New York, and their public-sector union allies. There’s also the fact that Heastie’s main ally, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz and his father, a state senator, are both backers of charter schools. But Heastie could also end up being an obstacle to any reform effort just because the AFT and its three affiliates are big backers of Assembly Democrats; Heastie alone collected $27,670 from New York State United Teachers and New York State Public Employees Federation since successfully winning his assembly spot 14 years ago. Heastie may have to give a little to AFT, which means watering down some reforms Cuomo wants to put in place, and blocking any effort to make state test score growth data a larger component of the teacher evaluation system, the bane of the union’s existence.

Meanwhile outside of Albany, AFT’s Big Apple local, the United Federation of Teachers, is taking up the charge against Gov. Cuomo’s reform efforts. Today the union’s boss, Michael Mulgrew, railed against the governor’s plan to expand the number of charter schools in the state, proclaiming that this shouldn’t happen. One reason why: Because the charters enroll lower numbers of kids labeled special ed than traditional districts; special ed students accounted for just 8.9 percent of kids in Big Apple charters in 2012-2013 versus 12.7 percent for the city’s traditional district, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. Playing off sister local Chicago Teachers Union’s practice of issuing white papers, UFT then issued a package of hit pieces accentuating Mulgrew’s point.

But as Manhattan Institute scholar Marcus Winters pointed out in a 2013 report, the reality is that Big Apple charters enroll fewer kids labeled as special ed than the city’s traditional district because they are less-likely to overlabel struggling students. It isn’t that charters are refusing to let kids in special ed through their doors. In fact, as the Independent Budget Office shows in a study released this week, kids who are other health impaired (or suffer from actual health issues such as asthma or diabetes) make up a larger percentage of charter school special ed populations (10.5 percent) than in the city’s traditional district (8.6 percent).  It is that they are not looking to condemn kids as special ed cases in the first place. Which, in turn, means that kids labeled as special ed by New York City’s traditional district are then brought into charters as regular ed students. As they almost always should be.

This is especially clear considering that, as Winters and others have noted, most children condemned to special ed ghettos are often put there based on rather subjective diagnoses that can often mistaken real learning issues as signs of cognitive problems. Many kids are condemned to special ed after being labeled as suffering from a “specific learning disability”, a vague catch-all that can include anything from dyslexia to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, burdened by emotionally disturbed (which could easily mean that the kids could either be poorly disciplined at home or suffer severe depression), considered developmentally delayed (which could mean that the kids are either cognitively damaged, dyslexic or functionally illiterate), or mentally retarded (for which illiteracy can often be mistaken).

What is happening is that charters, who usually attempt to ditch the same failed thinking as traditional district counterparts, simply educate kids otherwise labeled as special ed as regular students as they often should be. Which as the Independent Budget Office shows, is showing good results, especially in charters retaining larger numbers of all students (and losing fewer of them to attrition or push-outs) than Big Apple district counterparts. One reason why? Because in most cases, the decisions by traditional districts such as New York City to condemn kids to special ed ghettos (which, in turn, benefit AFT and National Education Association affiliates) are driven by factors other than the actual learning issues (especially illiteracy) with which they are struggling.

One is financial: Special ed kids generating more in state per-pupil spending than kids in regular classrooms. New York City, for example, collected an extra $1,227.61 in state aid per student for the 171,333 kids condemned to the district’s special ed ghettos, according to a Dropout Nation analysis of data from the state’s Budget Office. [This, by the way, doesn’t include additional dollars provided by the state for special ed students through the main school funding formula or the dollars given to the city for special ed kids put into specialized private schools.] The additional money spent by the Empire State on special ed is likely one reason why districts in the state identified and condemned 17.3 percent of kids to special ed ghettos in 2009-2010, according to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in a 2011 report; that was four percentage points more than the national average and more kids than every other state in the nation except Rhode Island.

The increased spending, in turn, benefits UFT and other teachers’ union locals because districts end up hiring more teachers and staffers under union contracts. UFT collects $50.74 every month from special ed paraprofessional on New York City’s payroll and picks up $101.46 from every teacher. In New York State alone, districts employ 186 teachers and paraprofessionals per 1,000 students, more than the national average of 129 per 1,000; just on those numbers, UFT may generate $14,154.60 per 186 teachers and paraprofessionals (based on an equal number of 93 of each) every month.

Put it bluntly, more kids in special ed ghettos means more dollars into UFT (and ultimately, AFT). Given its slow growth in rank-and-file as of late, UFT can use every dime it can get. And any expansion of charters, which are mostly non-unionized, will mean even fewer kids being labeled as special ed cases, and thus, less money for the union.

The other reason lies with the reality that many adults working in schools condemn children, especially those from poor and minority backgrounds, with low expectations. As Vanderbilt University Professor Daniel J. Reschly noted in his 2007 testimony to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, adults in schools have a tendency to confuse the statistical probability that certain ethnic and gender groups may end up being diagnosed with a learning disability with the ethnic composition with ethnic composition within a disability category; essentially they end up labeling certain groups of students as learning disabled because they think they are destined to end up that way.

These acts of condemning the futures of Big Apple children aren’t the only examples of educational malpractice committed by many teachers and school leaders in the New York City Department of Education. As Contributing Editor Michael Holzman has noted in the past few years, the district’s continued practice of rationing high-quality education from some children, especially through gifted-and-talented programs that benefit white middle class kids at the expense of peers black, Latino, and poor, remains shameful. Yet Mulgrew and UFT have expressed little concern about these issues, and have remained silent amid the raging debate over whether to keep in place the district’s system of selective public high schools such as Stuyvesant, another legacy of denying high-quality education to those who need it most.

Certainly Big Apple charters can do better on some fronts. The overuse of out-of-school suspensions and other harsh forms traditional school discipline by many charters, especially by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy chain, betrays the mission of the charter school movement to build brighter futures for all children by not replicating the bad practices of traditional public education. But Mulgrew’s professed concerns about equity are mere covers for defending a failed system that has benefited UFT and AFT, as well as his own pockets. Expanding charters that can help more kids avoid special ed ghettos should be the first thing state legislators do once Assembly Democrats choose Silver’s replacement.

It isn’t hard for anyone, much less school reformers, to be enrapt by the last week’s arrest and indictment of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on charges of wire fraud for allegedly accepting $4 million in bribes from companies through his outside job as a lawyer. After all, the New York City politician, who has reigned for 21 years as the most-powerful legislator in the Empire State, has long-managed to escape the kinds of scandal that befell the likes of predecessor Mel Miller, former State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

But particularly for school reformers in and out of the state, Silver’s indictment and decision to temporarily step down as overlord of the state assembly is another promising opening to advancing the array of proposals they back for overhauling public education. This is because Silver has long worked on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers and its two branches, New York State United Teachers and United Federation of Teachers, to block all but the weakest versions of reform. Now with Silver out of the way, reformers rightly think they have a strong chance of getting more thing done. Especially with Gov. Andrew Cuomo looking to expand charter schools and overhaul teacher evaluations, the Republican-controlled state senate hankering to pass a voucher-like tax credit plan, and both Cuomo and State Senate Republicans looking to teach NYSUT and UFT some lessons for trying to deny them power.

Yet reformers must not get so caught up in irrational exuberance and think that it will be easy for them to get their measures passed. This is because of Randi Weingarten and the national AFT, which will likely spend as much as they can to win as many defensive victories as it can so that its affiliates can maintain their declining influence. If anything, reformers must become even savvier in playing the political game than they have been so far.

Certainly NYSUT is none too happy with Silver’s indictment. It comes on the heels of four years of defeats on nearly every aspect of education policy — including the successful move by Cuomo two years ago to keep in place a teacher evaluation reform plan passed by predecessor David Paterson that required state test growth data to account for 20 percent of performance reviews, and the move by the state to increase the number of charters as part of winning money from the federal Race to the Top initiative. Sure, NYSUT succeeded in temporarily staving off the ability of districts to use the evaluations in hiring and firing decisions (ostensibly to allow for the implementation of tests aligned with Common Core reading and math standards). But it is quite likely that Cuomo will successfully overturn that legislation this year.

Why? Because of the AFT unit’s decisions on the political front that have alienated it from both the governor and State Senate Republicans (the latter who have proven in the past to be occasionally willing to go the union’s way). NYSUT’s decision last year to not endorse Cuomo’s bid for a second term and push to keep the AFL-CIO’s state affiliate from giving him an endorsement didn’t hurt Cuomo’s successful run. If anything, as seen last week with Cuomo’s budget proposal to require test score growth data to play an even bigger role in teacher evaluations as a condition of increasing state school funding by $1.1 billion, NYSUT’s decision has actually empowered the political scion to push even bolder on advancing systemic reform.

Meanwhile NYSUT, along with fellow AFT affiliates UFT and New York State Public Employees Federation (and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio), faces payback from Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his fellow Republicans in the upper house for backing efforts by Democrats to take full control of the legislative body. The $5 million spend by NYSUT, which included buying ads accusing Republicans of being unwilling to address domestic violence against women, didn’t work out well at all as Skelos and his allies gained enough seats to control the state senate without having to reach out to Democrat dissidents as it has had to do the past few years. Given that Cuomo prefers Republican control of the state senate — the better for him to win passage of his centrist Democrat agenda — NYSUT and the rest of the AFT can’t expect any help from the governor in beating back any of Skelos’ plans.

But at least the AFT affiliate could count on Silver. A longtime beneficiary of AFT largesse to the tune of $44,800 since 1996 (from both NYSUT and NYSPEF), the assembly speaker has done everything he can on their behalf to blunt reform efforts. This includes helping NYSUT pass the legislation delaying the use of data from Common Core-aligned state tests in hiring and firing decisions last year. But now with Silver out of power (for now) and control of the assembly delegated to his hand-picked committee of less-formidable legislative players, NYSUT and the rest of the AFT have to work harder to blunt reform efforts. Given that some Assembly Democrats are no more willing than Cuomo and Skelos to do NYSUT’s bidding, reformers theoretically have the upper hand this time around.

Karen Magee, the former local AFT boss who took control of the NYSUT presidency after ousting Richard Iannuzzi as head of the union last year, can ill-afford another political defeat. Her patron, UFT President Michael Mulgrew doesn’t need her to lose either, especially since he has staked his aspirations to succeed Weingarten as national AFT president on Magee making the kind of gains that Iannuzzi could not.

But reformers can never forget the national AFT or Weingarten, who presided over UFT (and effectively, through the union’s outsized presence within NYSUT, controlled the state affiliate) for 11 years before becoming the leader of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union seven years ago. This is because New York State is for the AFT what California is for the National Education Association: The lynchpin of the union’s influence. Every gain made by reformers in the Empire State is a loss of clout for AFT at all levels of education policymaking. Given all that is at stake, Weingarten isn’t going to simply sit by and let the AFT units flounder.

AFT has already shown that it will spend plenty to preserve influence, especially when the political (and ultimately, financial) fortunes of its affiliates are at stake.

Empire State reformers must never forget that in any battle over reform, he specter of Randi Weingarten won’t be far behind.

In Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is battling with the state-controlled district over the latter’s efforts to address its fiscal and academic woes, AFT subsidized the local to the tune of $1.5 million in 2013-2014, a 10-fold increase from the previous year, and spent plenty to hold events and subsidize the local’s vassals on its behalf. This includes holding three meetings (including two so-called community events) at the ritzy Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown at the cost of $142,129, dropping $272,715 at the rather nice Sonesta Philadelphia hotel to cover “member related expenses”, and handing out $129,120 to the ACTION United, Youth United for Change, and the Philadelphia Student Union in exchange for their support.

At the state level, the AFT spent big to successfully oust erstwhile reform-minded Gov. Tom Corbett from the state’s top executive post; this includes pouring $581,400 into Democratic rival Tom Wolf’s successful bid against Corbett’s re-election run, a move that ensured that PFT’s push to remove Philadelphia from state control will get a more-favorable hearing. AFT’s move on the campaign front, along with the $499,661 in subsidies to its state affiliate (including funding for campaign finance activities) was a strategic move that can yield dividends for the union on other fronts (including blunting any effort to overhaul the Keystone State’s woefully-underfunded pension).

If AFT was willing to pour $3 million just into Pennsylvania (and is spending almost-as-considerable sums in Louisiana as part of an effort to oppose reformers showcasing New Orleans’ partially-successful overhaul), it will spend even more in New York. As Dropout Nation has previously reported, AFT subsidized NYSUT to the tune of $14 million in 2013-2014, according to its disclosure with the U.S. Department of Labor, while putting down another $300,900 into NYSPEF, which has served as its stealth vehicle for opposing reform by funneling campaign cash to legislators on senate and assembly education committees. Given that NYSUT is also struggling financially, with $380 million in pension and retired worker healthcare liabilities, AFT will have to step up even more on its behalf.

This has already begun this week with the so-called “emergency meeting” being held tonight by UFT to strategize on how to oppose Cuomo’s plans as well as that of his school reform allies. You can soon expect several of AFT’s reliable vassals, including Alliance for Quality Education and New York Communities for Change, to launch their own campaigns decrying Cuomo’s ties to reform outfits such as the Empire State branch of StudentsFirst as well as Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice (which, along with the New York City Parents Union, is battling with UFT and NYSUT in court over the Vergara suit looking to abolish the state’s near-lifetime employment and dismissal laws). AFT will also look to hire other so-called grassroots groups on its behalf the way it has done in New Jersey, where it has poured considerable sums into outfits such as One New Jersey to do its bidding.

But don’t think the AFT will limit itself to working through its affiliates and traditionalist allies. Chances are that the union will spend even more money in Albany on events and rallies to convince legislators to side with its affiliates. There’s also AFT’s considerable campaign coffers, which it can utilize to donate to statewide campaigns as well as on so-called independent expenditures as ads decrying Cuomo’s and reformers for supposedly defaming teachers.

Weingarten will also spend some time in Albany this year personally lobbying Assembly Democrats on behalf of AFT’s locals. This includes reminding key players chosen by Silver to run the body on his behalf — especially Majority Leader Joseph Morelle and Herman (Denny) Farrell (who collected $56,650 in campaign funding from NYSUT and NYSPEF since 1996) — that they need to repay the favors the union has given them. Catherine Nolan, who chairs the assembly’s education panel and is also part of the assembly’s new governing committee, will also feel pressure from Weingarten. After all, Nolan has also benefited from the largesse of AFT locals (to the tune of $39,712 over the last 18 years) and must also deal with traditional districts who will also be opposed to any effort to expand charters and choice; it is one reason why Nolan put the kibosh on her plan four years ago to introduce a Parent Trigger law.

Meanwhile the AFT will have plenty of allies within traditional public education to help out. As mentioned, the expansion of charters and the passage of a tax credit voucher plan will run afoul of traditional districts opposed to any effort to weaken their hold on children and the tax dollars that flow with them. While de Blasio, who is looking to renew the state law giving the mayor control over the Big Apple district (and having already been defeated by Cuomo and reformers on the school choice front) will keep quiet, districts such as Yonkers and Buffalo that are home to the Empire State’s worst failure mills will fight vigorously against any choice measure.

Districts and AFT will also look out for any plan from Cuomo to give the state Board of Regents power to take over failing districts; the governor hinted at doing this two years ago. Expect them to remind Cuomo that his picks for the board (including Chairman Meryl Tisch) are also up for consideration this session, and while the state senate will likely approve all of them, the assembly could hold up any appointments, forcing the governor to back down from any number of his proposals.

Finally, expect AFT to try to play its part in the state budget proceedings, which ultimately involve Cuomo compromising with Skelos and whoever represents Silver as speaker to come up with a deal. As seen seven years ago when NYSUT and UFT worked with Silver during the budget proceedings to abolish a tenure reform law Spitzer had managed to pass the year before, AFT can gain some victories by getting someone in the assembly to hold hostage state finances.

So Empire State reformers must be ready to play hard and fast this session. Because Silver’s fall may not mean their victory on behalf of our children.

Editor’s Note: In the hours since Dropout Nation ran this piece, Silver has been forced to permanently step down as speaker. You can read more about the implications of this and other moves.