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ALBANY — Go ahead, sue me.
Gov. Cuomo vowed to plow ahead with new test-heavy teacher evaluations yesterday despite threats of lawsuits from incensed teachers unions.
“We’re going to persevere and we’re going to accomplish the goal,” Cuomo told radio station WOR/710AM. “If there are lawsuits, there are going to be lawsuits and we’ll win the lawsuits and we’ll prevail.”
Cuomo and state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch whipped teachers into a frenzy earlier this month when they announced a more rigorous evaluation formula that would allow standardized tests to account for up to 40 percent of a teacher’s score.
The governor’s recommendations, which were unveiled May 13 and approved by the Board of Regents three days later, also required schools to begin using the performance-based formula in the upcoming school year.
The changes were hailed by Mayor Bloomberg and other education-reform advocates who found the previously negotiated evaluation formula — limiting the impact of tests to 20 percent — too weak.
The 600,000-member New York State United Teachers cried foul, accusing the Regents of reneging on its deal and violating the year-old law establishing the teacher-evaluation system.
NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi called a lawsuit “almost unavoidable,” although the city’s United Federation Teachers hasn’t said whether it intends to join any suit. Teachers argue the tests are flawed and administrators won’t be ready to apply the standards by next year.
Cuomo, however, says the state quickly needs an evaluation system to improve results in a state that spends the most on education — $18,126 per pupil — but ranks 39th nationally in four-year graduation rates.
“Then we can actually measure the performance and we can see what we’re buying and what strategies work and what schools are working,” Cuomo said.