Last week, Cuo­mo lashed out at pub­lic schools again. Dur­ing an inter­view with the New York Dai­ly News edi­to­r­i­al board, he said he would ​“break what is … one of the only remain­ing pub­lic monopolies.”

Back in March, he told John Cas­ti­ma­tidis dur­ing a radio inter­view that pub­lic schools ​“have their lob­by­ists and they have their lit­tle pub­lic rela­tions teams, and they have their front groups and their advo­cates, and this [char­ter schools] is dis­rup­tive to that entire system.”

Andrew Cuo­mo has made no secret of his dis­dain for pub­lic school teach­ers. He sees him­self as a dis­rup­tive force in pub­lic edu­ca­tion, using a Sil­i­con Val­ley term sup­pos­ed­ly describ­ing inno­va­tion. For Cuo­mo and many neolib­er­al Democ­rats attempt­ing to pri­va­tize pub­lic edu­ca­tion, char­ter schools are a key form of this disruption.

It is part of an increas­ing trend nation­wide to turn pub­lic schools from a pub­lic good to cap­i­tal-pro­duc­ing machines. Recent stud­ies have shown char­ter schools in oth­er major cities to be no more effec­tive than pub­lic schools. But per­haps effec­tive­ness is not what most con­cerns Cuomo.

It is easy to see why Cuo­mo would put pub­lic schools in the crosshairs so close to an elec­tion where he has a 20-point lead over his Repub­li­can oppo­nent Rob Astori­no. Through­out his tenure as gov­er­nor, Cuo­mo has been an unabashed sup­port of char­ter schools. Many of his largest cam­paign con­trib­u­tors are con­nect­ed and stand to prof­it from the expan­sion of char­ter schools.

The most vis­i­ble of these sup­port­ers is Eva Moskowitz. For the 2012 elec­tion cycle, her PAC, the Great Pub­lic Schools, con­tributed over $60,000 to Cuomo’s cam­paign. Moskowitz is also the CEO and founder of Suc­cess Acad­e­my Char­ter Schools in New York City, the largest — and grow­ing — char­ter school oper­a­tor in New York City. In Octo­ber, the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York (SUNY) com­mit­tee charged with over­see­ing char­ter schools autho­rized 17 more char­ters in New York, 14 of which would be Suc­cess Acad­e­my schools.

It’s not just PACs. Accord­ing to the New York Post, Suc­cess Acad­e­my board mem­bers, which include hedge fund man­agers, attor­neys and pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als, have also donat­ed over $375,000 to Cuomo’s reelec­tion campaign.

The chair­man of the SUNY com­mit­tee, Joseph Bel­luck, was called out in by Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion pro­fes­sor Alan Singer ear­li­er this month because of his con­tri­bu­tions to the gov­er­nor while chair­man of the committee.

It’s clear where Cuomo’s alle­giance lies, but teach­ers in New York have not backed down qui­et­ly. In August, New York State Unit­ed Teach­ers (NYSUT) made a point of not endors­ing Cuo­mo or any oth­er guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date this elec­tion cycle. This is a hos­tile neu­tral­i­ty, and an indi­ca­tor of a larg­er rift, because teach­ers unions have tra­di­tion­al­ly been bas­tion of sup­port for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

Oth­er teach­ers asso­ci­a­tions have not been so neu­tral. Pro­gres­sive Green Par­ty can­di­date Howie Hawkins, a Team­ster from Syra­cuse, has amassed endorse­ments from a num­ber of the state’s teach­ers unions. Trail­ing a dis­tant third, Hawkins is still like­ly to strength­en the Green Party’s posi­tion in New York. His 2010 cam­paign brought it back to promi­nence after hav­ing been off the bal­lot for a num­ber of years.

Cuomo’s antipa­thy for teach­ers is clear­ly mutu­al, and it’s not just because of his sup­port for char­ters. New York has adopt­ed the nation­wide Com­mon Core stan­dards that were adopt­ed in 43 states. The stan­dards are wide­ly crit­i­cized by all sides of the polit­i­cal spec­trum for a vari­ety of rea­sons: too dif­fi­cult, poor­ly planned, too much gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence. Ear­li­er this year, even Cuo­mo had to admit Com­mon Core was hav­ing a neg­a­tive impact on stu­dents’ test scores, but still wants to see teacher eval­u­a­tions tied to tests in the future.

Cuo­mo is like­ly to be reelect­ed tomor­row. The extent to which he will be able to dis­man­tle pub­lic edu­ca­tion in New York dur­ing his next term in office is uncer­tain. But one thing is clear: Cuo­mo is going to try his hardest.