State Teachers Union Stands Its Ground In Battle Over Evaluations
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Though Governor Andrew Cuomo has blamed a lawsuit from New York State United Teachers for holding up an agreement on teacher evaluations, the union's president says an appeal from the State Education Department is the real offender. NY1’s Zack Fink filed the following report.Governor Andrew Cuomo says he's had enough. The law establishing new teacher evaluations was passed a year and a half ago, but it has yet to be implemented.
It was slowed down by a lawsuit filed by NYSUT, the union representing New York State teachers.
"It's not the lawsuit that's causing that. I'll remind everyone that our lawsuit was confirmed by the court as making the right argument. It's SED's appeal that is holding everything up," says Richard Iannuzzi, NYSUT president.
The State Education Department, or SED, which is technically separate from the executive branch, is appealing a state Supreme Court ruling that went in favor of the union.
At issue are how much standardized tests can be used to evaluate teachers. According to the law, the tests should account for 20 percent of those evaluations. However, the union says the state Board of Regents determined last May that 40 percent of teacher evaluations should be based on standardized test results.
The union claims that is not consistent with the law, and the court ruled in its favor.
Now, the governor is threatening to place an ultimatum in his budget. School districts that fail to implement the new evaluations will lose out on a 4 percent increase in state aid. For New York City, that's $224 million.
"There is no question that the idea of having a hammer, an equal hammer in some ways to school districts as it is to teachers unions, is not a good process because those are dollars that school districts need to plan on," says Iannuzzi.
"It's an aggressive strategy in budget. I think it’s not unfair, and I don't even think Governor Cuomo would mind me saying he has an aggressive strategy," said State Senator Liz Krueger.
There are some who believe that evaluations are a done deal. The governor's use of his executive power to withhold aid forces the parties to come to an agreement. They have 30 days to negotiate or the governor will amend the budget to withhold aid.
The State Education Department would not comment.