Have you noticed a few more cars with New York State license plates driving the streets of Manatee County. High taxes and Democrat politicians have chased many New Yorkers southbound.
Democrats control New York and they continue to show their loyalty is to those with a leftist agenda.
Recently, New York Governor, Kathy Hochul signed a bill that turned back the clock on school reform. Hochul’s actions, like Joe Biden’s actions, show that Democrats care little for school students but rather act as stooges for the teachers unions.
In 2015, Andrew Cuomo, then Governor of New York, and the Republicans, who controlled the NY Senate, negotiated some school reforms. The reforms mandated that school districts consider student performance when they evaluated teachers. The reforms also allowed school districts to use faster procedures to remove tenured teachers who received two consecutive “ineffective” ratings. The same reforms required the school districts to use faster procedures to remove teachers who were rated poorly three years in a row.
The horror, the horror! Democrats were livid that ineffective teachers were able to be removed from the classroom. The Democrats were fine with having incompetent teachers continue to doom many students to a lifetime of lower income because they were not given a proper education.
Governor Hochul and the Democrats took over control of the NY Senate and then passed legislation that repealed the ability of school districts to consider student performance when evaluating teachers. The real effect of this is that incompetent teachers will continue to teach students and the teachers will keep voting for Democrats.
This is why Manatee County needs strong Republicans to keep control of our school board and county commission. Our students are too valuable to become political pawns in the hands of union leaders.
New York, in the past, had Republican office holders. Eventually, the Democrats took control and the state is failing. Stay vigilant in Manatee County to avoid the New York debacle.
Bob Spencer
Publisher
Manatee Herald
publisher@manateeherald.com
