Mayan/Walcott Deadline Set To Pass Without Evaluation Agreement

Chancellor Walcott and Mayor Bloomberg said the world would end today if the UFT did not agree in full to their prescription for a teacher evaluation system.

The Daily News reports that the deadline will come and go without any resolution.

The deadline that schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott set to settle a contentious dispute with the teachers union was expected to come and go Friday without progress.

The city and union must reach a deal on how teachers are evaluated by Jan. 17 or Gov. Cuomo will slash nearly $300 million in state aid to city schools, but Walcott had wanted the deal by Friday.

Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew broke off talks Wednesday, blasting the city for rolling out new evaluations before an agreement. “We believe this administration is falling apart,” Mulgrew said.

School officials fired back. “While Mr. Mulgrew is focused on his reelection, the Department of Education remains committed to reaching an evaluation deal that will benefit the teachers and students of New York City,” said schools spokeswoman Erin Hughes. Mulgrew won his last election with 91% of the votes.

And so now we begin the over/under until Governor Cuomo parachutes in to "negotiate" a deal between the two aggrieved parties, thus giving Mulgrew and his Unity hacks cover to sign off on some horrific deal.

You'll remember that it was Cuomo who "forced" the UFT and the NYSUT to drop their lawsuit against the NYSED and the Regents for making changes to the APPR system that were not in the law.

You can bet that Cuomo will not allow the January 17 deadline he imposed on school districts to pass without trying to force NYC teachers to accept an evaluation deal.

Cuomo likes to have 100% agreement on everything and he simply will not allow the largest school district in the state to not follow along with so many other districts and put into place a punitive and harmful teacher evaluation system.

The NYCDOE spokesperson suggests that Mulgrew is playing internal union politics with the evaluation deal - and there might be something to that.

With many rank and file angry already over the Danielson nonsense, the Superstorm Sandy PD Day By Candlelight and the lost February vacation days, the Unity hacks are finding they're facing criticism from teachers who usually respond with meekness to this kind of stuff.

There's a boiling point that's been hit, with all the teacher demonization, the changes to the system, the school closures, and the other Bloomberg policies that the UFT has done little to mitigate.

So Mulgrew and Company do have to tread lightly with this sell-out.

Remember, he does have an election coming up in a few months and it won't help his chances if he signs off on a punitive and harmful teacher evaluation agreement that gets rolled out before that election happens.

So I'm of two minds here:

The sell-out is still coming, that's for sure.

The timing is what we have to try and figure out.

Mulgrew needs to agree to the system before January 17 but his election is after that deadline given by Cuomo.

Is it possible he gets old pal Cuomo to extend the deadline for a few months for NYC only, citing Bloomberg's intransigence and refusal to agree to a system that doesn't "hold teachers' feet to the fire"?

Bloomberg has certainly made enough public statements that would give Cuomo the cover to extend the deadline a bit and take a swipe at the Mayor of Money too (something Cuomo seems to enjoy.)

Or does Cuomo tell Mulgrew "No deal - get an agreement done or lose the money," thus forcing Mulgrew and Company to have to decide whether they really want to go to the mattresses over this evaluation fight.

We'll see what happen.

I still believe the sell-out is coming because the UFT has shown no willingness to really fight APPR - they're simply fighting the "rollout" of the system.

Much depends on what Cuomo does and says both publicly and behind the scenes as we come closer to the deadline the governor set for all the agreements between unions and districts to get done.

Still, it is good to see that it looks like the Mayan/Walcott deadline will come and go without progress on the evaluation front.

Unfortunately, I think we will still get sold out in the end.