Gov. Cuomo is pushing a new proposal to prod Mayor Bloomberg and the teachers union to finally reach agreement to enact a more rigorous teacher-evaluation system, sources said yesterday.
City education officials and the United Federation of Teachers blew a Jan. 17 deadline to reach an evaluation deal to qualify for $250 million in additional state aid.
One of the main sticking points was how long the teacher-evaluation agreement would remain in place before it expired.
Bloomberg rejected a two-year timetable as unworkable because it takes that long to fire a bad teacher.
He called such a short deadline a “fraud and hoax.” UFT President Mike Mulgrew disagreed.
But Cuomo has offered a solution. His plan would allow a teacher evaluation system that expires to remain in effect until the city and the UFT renegotiated a new one — something the mayor wants.It would allow the teacher-evaluation program to fall under the so-called Triborough law, which allows all the terms of an expired labor contract between localities and public employees to remain in place until a new agreement is approved.
“The governor is standing firm on this,” said a source briefed on the talks.
Cuomo giving Bloomberg what he wants on the evaluation system.
No sunset.
Exists in perpetuity or until another system is agreed to by the union and the NYCDOE.
Cuomo seems to be scared of Bloomberg.
Wonder if it has anything to do with that PAC Bloomberg has that he plans to use to bludgeon politicians with after he leaves office?
Here is what I don't understand about this: Pretty much every district in NY State has a "sunset clause" in regard to the new evaluations. NYC does not. Now Cuomo is going to make NYC have a "permanent" evaluation, but what about the rest of the districts? It seems to me that if Cuomo decrees the end of "sunset clauses" for every district in NY State, then there will be grounds for an unfair contract lawsuit. In fact, ANY change to NY State school district contracts via decree by Cuomo is in direct violation of the Tribourough Amendment which states that a current contract stays in place until a new one is negotiated between a union and it's district. Seems to me there will be literally hundreds of lawsuits in the NY State districts that already signed "sunset clause" contracts in the past few months.
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