We know Cuomo is here in the state. But we have to ask, is he paying attention?

We wonder, for example, if the governor is aware of a new Siena College Research poll showing that the public doesn’t buy his politically motivated rhetoric of blaming teachers for the challenges faced by public schools.

Asked what obstacles hinder student success, poll respondents said: too little parent involvement (37 percent), insufficient school funding (18 percent), the impact of poverty (17 percent) and ineffective state oversight (12 percent).

In other words, 35 percent of New York voters believe that student poverty and inadequate school funding are the primary obstacles facing schools, and at least 84 percent see that the challenges are not the fault of teachers.

The same poll affirmed the findings of previous surveys that people in New York State trust teachers more than him.

Other signs abound that our governor is increasingly out of step.

A few states away, in Chicago, voters just forced a sitting mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, into a runoff election. Emmanuel, like Cuomo, had thought he could get away with attacking teachers and unions over the challenges facing the city’s underfunded public schools. He had thought he could get away with a blame-and-punish approach of closing 50 schools, most of them in black or Hispanic neighborhoods.

But in this election that turned mostly on education issues, Emmanuel was held to account.

The public in New York will also hold Gov. Cuomo responsible for his cynical attacks on public schools and educators.

The governor needs to start listening to the people he was elected to represent.