Firing back at our grenade-throwing governor.

Heard enough about how New York's public schools are an expensive disgrace filled with inept teachers who only care about their paychecks and pensions? Me too.

Fred LeBrun comments on education matters for the Albany Times Union, and filed a column today titled Throw grenade, walk away. Here's how he begins: "Public education has been a disaster for Andrew Cuomo, and vice versa....In two years of nastiness from his bully pulpit, he has derided teachers, their unions, administrators and school boards, and made them out to be barely competent. Yet, with ashes in his mouth, he portrays himself as the state's No. 1 advocate for students. And his tearing apart teachers helps students how, exactly? His favorite statistics, to support his education-bashing, have been that New York pays more per pupil than any other state, yet has a 38 percent graduation rate." [Emphasis mine.]

Strangely, the governor leaves out what the late Paul Harvey would have called "the rest of the story."

"Those statistics are galling because they are highly misleading. New York yearly jockeys with Connecticut and New Jersey for the highest per pupil cost. They are neighboring states, you'll notice, a factor that has a bearing on high costs. The low graduation rate is dictated by New York City, where 140 languages are spoken and that has challenges and hardships completely alien to upstate and Long Island education." [Emphasis mine.]

"Far more typical is this year's Education Week national ranking of statewide New York public education as the nation's third-best, behind Maryland and Massachusetts. By nearly every meaningful measure, New York is in the top handful in the country, year after year. A far cry from the governor's self-serving propaganda of derision." Now that seems strange. Most governors brag about accomplishments such as these. [Emphasis mine.]

LeBrun then addresses the new tax cap: "Out of the gate, he rode a popular political hobby horse and got passed a 2 percent cap on school taxes. He strutted over that. But he made no progress on what was supposed to be the matching piece — mandate relief — which if it had gone far enough would have made the cap workable for local school districts. In addition, state support of public education, at his direction, is $1.1 billion less today than when he took office....The state's 700 school boards have two sources of revenue: state aid and local taxes. So, he's decimated the first and put a ceiling on the second and instilled terror in the hearts of school boards across the state with his bombast. And as a result, by gosh, the governor has been successful in creating the disaster for public education he said was there in the first place, but wasn't."

"A growing number of school districts are now out of reserve funds. A local school board member told me that a third of the state's school districts will be insolvent in three years at the present rate. A true crisis looms. What happens then? No one is quite sure, but you can be pretty confident it won't be good for the taxpayer, or for public education." [Emphasis mine.]

Later in the column, LeBrun identifies another problem: "...a widening gap between state funding to needy school districts and wealthier ones. In a Rutgers University study, New York ranked near the bottom in equitable distribution of education funds. That disparity is the equivalent of unequal opportunity. That is wrong, not to mention contrary to the spirit and language of our state constitution, and is going to come back to bite the Cuomo administration in the tail unless there's a dramatic course correction." [Emphasis mine.]

LeBrun finishes by pointing out that the governor has appointed a blue-ribbon commission to come up with an action plan for public education. "Never mind that the constitution I keep referring to puts the responsibility for that sort of plan in the hands of the Board of Regents, not the governor. For some reason, wiser heads long ago felt education ought not to be victimized by the whims of political opportunists." [Emphasis mine.]

"But wouldn't it have been both sweet and fitting if he had done so before advocating absolutely for a 2 percent tax cap, before making teachers and the state's public school system perpetual objects of ridicule, before putting school boards in the awful position of having to make choices that can only hurt education in their district? Before inciting the public over supposed shortcomings in our current education system. You know, putting the cart before the hobby horse." [Emphasis mine.]

"Instead, for reasons that remain a mystery, the governor opted for his version of thoughtful public policy. That is, throwing a hand grenade at a thorny problem, walking away, and seeing who and what survives. He does like the show, I notice."

Sometimes it's nice to read the newspaper!