Metro

Deal near on release of NY teacher ratings

ALBANY — When it comes to teacher evaluations, parents will have it in writing.

Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers are expected to reach a deal as soon as this weekend to require some form of written disclosure of teacher evaluations to parents, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said yesterday.

The state’s teachers unions, which have been fighting the release of evaluations tooth-and-nail, have been pressing to limit the information that parents get to a verbal conversation with school principals.

And the unions’ effort to minimize the impact of releasing teacher data also called for barring parents from seeing any written reports, or even taking notes during an appointment with their kids’ principals.

But the union push to restrict evaluations to verbal discussions is off the table as negotiations are drawing closer to the end of the legislative session next Thursday, sources said.

Court rulings have made teacher evaluations subject to full disclosure, but the two sides have been wrangling over how to put that into effect.

Cuomo has been trying to craft a bill that provides some confidentiality for teachers while allowing for some public disclosure — and he has acknowledged the difficulty of keeping data given to parents from becoming information that could be shared and collected widely.

Though insiders characterized the disclosure negotiations as between the Cuomo administration and New York State United Teachers — the statewide teachers union — the administration disputed that.

“We had a meeting with the UFT [the city’s United Federation of Teachers) and NYSUT to hear them out as a courtesy, but we negotiate with the Legislature, period,” an administration aide said. Teacher-evaluation disclosure “is a goal for the end of session, but talks with the Legislature have not been serious yet,” the aide added.

Cuomo has imposed a Monday deadline for locking down agreements, signaling that he’ll require the standard three-day “aging” of bills and not approve last-minute deals before lawmakers head home.

Teachers unions have pushed to limit disclosure of evaluations as much as possible since the state adopted a new evaluation system in February at Cuomo’s insistence.

The UFT referred calls to the NYSUT, which did not return calls for comment on the negotiations yesterday.

Unions challenged Freedom of Information requests from The Post and other news organizations for the public release of teacher evaluations but lost three times in court.