LIFO Update

If you're paying attention to the LIFO issue, the last few hours have been pretty wild.

As of 8:40 PM, here is where we stand with the LIFO changes.

The State Senate Education Committee passed Mayor Bloomberg's LIFO proposal, but with "lukewarm" Republican support - 10 members of the committee voted to advance the bill out of committee, but 6 did so "without recommendation."

The Senate as a whole voted on the bill in the evening and passed it 33-27 with two Dems not voting.

Assembly Speaker Silver said the Assembly would NOT take up the bill and referred the issue to the Board of Regents. The Regents are working on new teacher evaluation systems as part of the Race to the Top legislation passed last year that NYSED Commissioner David Steiner says would supersede any changes to LIFO.

Then, moments after the State Senate passed the LIFO bill, Governor Cuomo issued his own LIFO proposal that closely tailors the RttT guidelines but moves the timeline up by a year. Teachers would be evaluated under the new ratings starting in 2011-2012 under Cuomo's proposal rather than starting in 2012-2013 as decreed by the RttT legislation.

Cuomo's legislation essentially undermines tenure and seniority protections for teachers, but unlike Bloomberg's LIFO bill, does so ALL across the state rather than just in NYC.

Bloomberg's aides trashed the Cuomo proposal tonight because the governor issued it without consulting with Bloomberg first and did not give Bloomberg the power to lay off teachers indiscriminately right NOW.

I haven't seen any comments from either the UFT or Assembly Speaker Silver.

Wild day.

More to come, I'm sure.