“Today, Governor Cuomo demonstrated his outstanding public speaking skills in his well-presented combined State of the State and budget address, which he entitled the Opportunity Agenda for New York. The Governor continued to add resources to his economic development plans for Upstate New York, which have been creating hope and progress for the future of our communities. Consequently, I look forward to learning more about this year’s budget details and hopefully continuing our streak of on-time budgets. Unfortunately, I do not agree with his proposal regarding additional, more onerous teacher evaluations. In my district, schools like Schenectady consist of many students who are from families in poverty suffering from economic and social dislocation. Schools do not cause these issues. Rather, these problems work their way into their way into the schools, making educational achievement more difficult. We should not be using the evaluation process to terrorize teachers who are working on the front lines, sometimes in difficult circumstances, to try to give every student the opportunity to succeed.”