Cuomo and teacher evaluation.

Two of our last three posts have concerned the fight over how much of a New York teacher's evaluation will be based on standardized tests. (See The Devil's in the details and Some editorial writers get it and some don't for complete background.)

The short version is that NYSUT cooperated with the state last year in coming up with a law that allocated 20% of a teacher's evaluation to standardized test results. After the law was passed, the Board of Regents unilaterally changed that 20% to 40%. When they were taken to court, the judge agreed with NYSUT that 20% did not mean 40%, and the state is appealing that ruling.

Enter Gov. Cuomo who is threatening to impose his own evaluation system by Feb. 16. How can that be? Well, it seems that in recent years governors have discovered that they can legally include such measures--which the legislature cannot strip out-- in the budget bill.

There was an interesting column published the other day in the Albany Times-Union that sheds additional light on this matter. Here's some of what Fred LeBrun had to say: "It could just as persuasively be argued that he, Andrew Cuomo, is the one primarily responsible for "blocking progress" toward a statewide teacher evaluation format that would pass muster with the feds for $700 million in Race to the Top funds, the State Education Department and the unions. All those stakeholders were on the verge of signing just such an agreement last year, an agreement that did include a rigorous new teacher evaluation standard. But the governor intruded with a letter May 13, 2011, specifying he wanted a higher reliance on state standardized tests as a measure of teacher effectiveness than even the law allowed."

"Bear in mind, the Education Department, Board of Regents and education commissioner are all supposed to be independent of the executive branch, and what the governor wishes or doesn't. Historically, there have been colossal battles between the education establishment and prior governors over attempted intrusion. Not this time. Negotiations buckled after a crude, last minute attempt by the Regents to placate the governor. That failed, winding up in a lawsuit. Since then, I'm told the governor has destabilized negotiations a couple of times when an agreement was only a few words away." [Emphasis mine.]

"Clearly, Cuomo has an agenda here. What that is, who knows, but it is not the betterment of public education in New York. His continual bashing of those who are the front-line troops of education is having an enormously corrosive effect....Well, I'm going to ask you again to do a reality check on the Cuomo rhetoric. Because he single-handedly is the one responsible, through his reductions in school aid, for the loss of music and art teachers, remedial programs, enrichment programs, advanced placement courses, even kindergarten and prekindergarten in many schools across the state. While he was distracting the public by pinning the tail on the teacher, the administrator, and the so-called "bureaucracy," he was eviscerating public schools from Montauk to Williamsville. It was not the Legislature, it wasn't the teachers, and it surely wasn't the local school boards. It was the governor, one heck of a lobbyist, who made those choices." [Emphasis mine.]

"The most absurd aspect of this year's plan to "reform" New York public education is to introduce competition among school districts for much of the state aid available. "Competition works," he said more than once. Sure, when the playing field is level and the contestants evenly matched. Pitting high-needs districts against the affluent is ridiculous; pitting them against each other is right out of Spartacus. One irate school superintendent for the Genesee Valley called poor districts going at each other for school aid a "Dickensian competition. That conjures an image of a two shabby public orphanages brawling out on the street to see which one will be fed dinner." [Emphasis mine.]

"Properly funding high-needs districts, rural and urban, shouldn't be an afterthought or some game of "blame the victim," as Cuomo is making it. It should be a budget imperative for a state as wealthy as ours, even if it means irritating high-resource school districts which won't do as well..."

"Last May 15, Cuomo met a surprising defeat. He publicly called for a voting down of local school budgets. They were approved instead at a near-record level. Don't mess with our schools, the majority were saying. It's a message still in the air as the governor heads for the teacher evaluation showdown. If he appears to broker a deal between education professionals that would have happened anyway, he can escape. If he tries to become the new education czar, watch out." [Emphasis mine.]

Oh, there's one last thing. That $700 million that everyone's so worked up about? All of that money is in targeted funds. None of it would be available to districts to put additional teachers in classrooms.