NY lawmakers pushing ban on releasing new teacher report cards to public

What great openness and transparency… We are being controlled by people that do everything behind closed door, in secret, with no accountability and no fear of voter retaliation. And we are a bunch of fools to allow it. Yet any that call attention to this kind of crap is badmouthed and excoriated by the very people we try to protect. We get they government and the system we deserve because we allow it to continue on. This should infuriate everyone but will it? Seriously, will it?

Facing tremendous pressure from the teacher unions, lawmakers are pushing to insert a provision in the state budget that would ban the public from seeing new teacher report cards, sources said tonight.

The effort to keep the public from viewing evaluations of public school teachers across New York State is being spearheaded by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), an Albany insider said.

Sources said that Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), trying to maintain the Republican Party’s slim majority in the upper legislative house, may go along with the controversial prohibition.

It’s unclear where Gov. Cuomo stands on the issue.

“This is real serious. They mean it,” said one state official.

“What does the governor do if the Legislature passes this? It puts him in a tough spot.”

Albany insiders view the proposed ban as a sneak attack.

Both houses of the Legislature recently introduced spending bills that didn’t include any restrictions on disclosing teacher ratings.

Cuomo and the Legislature are now in negotiations to approve a new state budget by April 1 – and 11th hour proposals are being put on the table.

The union leaders were infuriated when the Post and other media outlets recently published the ratings of 12,000 teachers. The Post won the right to disclosed the numerical grades after filing a Freedom of Information Law request with the city Department of Education.

The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit to block the release, but the courts sided with the Post.

Meanwhile the unions are ticked off at Cuomo and the Legislature for approving another law scaling back pensions for newly hired government workers.

via NY lawmakers pushing ban on releasing new teacher report cards to public – NYPOST.com.

Read more at Albany’s Insanity (Tea New York’s other blog)