Cuomo Finds Time To Make Yogurt Official State Snack, Can't Sign Teacher Safety Bill Into Law

 From State of Politics:

It’s official: Yogurt is the state snack.

As the Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday signed into law a measure that designates yogurt the snack of New York state.

The legislation’s approval comes as the third annual “yogurt summit” (yes, it’s annual now) kicks off at Cornell University in Ithaca.

Meanwhile the so-called teacher safety bill that provides a safety net for teachers who have their evaluations partly based upon Common Core tests that don't count for their students but do count against teachers languishes on his desk unsigned.

ALBANY—A month into the school year, districts are unsure how to proceed with the state-mandated teacher evaluation system because Governor Andrew Cuomo has not yet signed his own bill amending it.

After negotiating with teachers’ unions, Cuomo introduced and lawmakers passed a bill last session that aims to shield teachers from the rough rollout of the Common Core standards. The bill would create what state officials call a “safety net” for educators whose evaluations were negatively affected by students’ low scores on early administrations of new, more difficult Common Core-aligned state exams.

But because Cuomo has not yet signed the bill, it isn't clear whether educators who were rated “ineffective” or “developing”—the two lowest scores—will be affected by the “safety net” proposal.

“It’s confusing, because schools don’t know which set of rules they’re operating under and don’t know whether a teacher is going to be classified as ‘ineffective’ or ‘developing’ until those recalculated scores are made available,” said David Albert, spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association.

The governor's priorities here are quite clear.

He doesn't care about teachers at all.

Yogurt?

That he likes.