Andrew Cuomos pandering to the vile teachers union sets a record for shamelessness

Even in a state packed with shameless politicians, ex-Gov.Andrew Cuomo has long stood out — but his gyrations in wooing the United Federation of Teachers as he runs for mayor are still a marvel to behold.To be clear: We’ve long had the impression that Cuomo privately despises New York’s teachers unions, whether on personal grounds or (conceivably!) the principled objections we share; it’s one of his most attractive qualities.

And he took on all the state’s teachers unions early in his first back term as governor, first by championing charter schools against an assault by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and then by pushing for a rigorous-sounding statewide public-schoolteacher-evaluation process — a drive for which he declared himself “the students’ lobbyist.” The unions hate charters, but saw the evaluations as an existential threat, since the point of them was to get incompetent teachers fired; they fought back, and beat him soundly.But now the UFT could derail his comeback run, so Cuomo’s desperate to jump if he even thinks the union might’ve said “frog!”At a cozy sitdown with UFT boss Michael Mulgrew and union activists last weekend, the ex-gov attacked his own past support for teacher evaluations and disowned the money-saving “Tier 6” public pension reforms he pushed through as gov.

He’s not yet trash-talking charters, but he’s getting closer.Notably, the 25-point education plan he dropped Monday could’ve been ghostwritten by a UFT stalwart.It even buries his support for mayoral control of the city schools (which the union mislikes) at point No.

15, just above his remaining support of charters at No.16 — which it buried under the heading “Support Diverse High Impact School Models.” Everything in the “plan” was either a boilerplate policy retread or an item off the UFT’s wish-list; it had not a mention of turning around failing schools, raising math and reading scores or weeding out incompetent educators.Nothing abou...