Silver Kills Bloomberg's LIFO Bill - For Now

Just up in the last fifteen minutes or so at NY1:

The New York State Senate could vote on a bill today that would allow the city to do away with seniority rules when determining which teachers to lay off.

The bill, supported by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and opposed by the teachers union, would repeal the so-called "last in, first out" rule that requires the city to layoff the newest teachers first.

This morning the bill cleared the State Senate Education Committee, but it has to go before the rules committee before the full Senate could vote on it.

However, the leader of the New York State Assembly has already said the body will not be voting on it. Instead, Democrat Sheldon Silver says his chamber wants the state Board of Regents to create a teacher evaluation system to help decide who should be laid off come September.

The measure is strongly opposed by the teachers union.

The Department of Education released a list over the weekend detailing teacher layoffs at each city school if the state Legislature does not change the last in, first out law.

Interesting development.

Not surprising that the state senate committee passed the bill.

And I am convinced that the full state senate would have as well.

The interesting part was going to be how Sheldon Silver, who is opposed to the bill, was going to handle it.

What does Silver's handing this off to the Regents mean?

Well, NYSED Commissioner Steiner already told Cathie Black when she came up to Albany that when the Regents redo teacher evaluation guidelines, it will make the LIFO changes Bloomberg wants moot, so Steiner wasn't going to weigh on in the LIFO bill.

Yesterday, Silver said this about the current LIFO bill:

“I think we will take up a bill that deals with an objective evaluation system that gives people the ability to then make determinations that are not purely last-in, first-out,” Silver said after speaking to a gathering of the United Federation of Teachers and, subsequently, AFSCME. “There will be an objective standard, I’m fairly confident.”

Part of our Race to the Top application, the Regents were charged with the obligation to come up with an evaluating system, and I think our legislation would come off that evaluating system,” Silver said.

He followed through on that statement today.

So it looks like Bloomberg's lobbying and cash-throwing in Albany over LIFO has come to naught, at least for now.

I'll have more on this later.