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ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo dramatically waded into the explosive “last in, first out” tenure fight last night with a compromise plan to ax bad teachers — minutes after Mayor Bloomberg’s own reform bill barely squeaked through the Republican Senate but faced certain defeat in the Democratic Assembly.
Cuomo’s bill would speed up statewide teacher-evaluation standards being drafted by the Board of Regents and allow the mayor and school administrators to consider merit before deciding who stays or goes.
The plan was welcomed by the Senate bill’s GOP sponsor and appeared to be in line with the position outlined earlier in the day by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) — the teachers unions’ most powerful ally in Albany — suggesting room for a deal.
Even Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, appeared to be on-board with Cuomo’s plan.
But the proposal appeared to blindside the mayor, and at least one City Hall insider dismissed it as a “total dodge.” Cuomo had for weeks rejected the mayor’s call to include an outright repeal of LIFO teacher protections in the state’s soon-to-be adopted budget.
The Regents are creating at least four categories for teachers — highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective — that could be considered along with seniority when firing teachers.
The Senate bill, which Bloomberg backed, had nine categories, including job performance, disciplinary problems, absenteeism and lateness, criminal record, and failure to obtain a teaching certificate.
School administrators across the state have warned that current laws, which force them to consider only seniority during layoffs, would severely worsen the impact of massive cuts in state and federal education aid.
Draft versions of teacher-evaluation standards expected next month would have applied only to math and English teachers in grades 4 to 8 in the 2011-12 school year.
Cuomo said he’ll offer legislation to prepare standards for all grade levels in time to make layoffs before the fall term begins.
“This will help make a statewide evaluation system ready and allow us to replace ‘last in, first out,’ ” Cuomo said.
“We need to put students first by keeping the best educators in the classroom, whether they have worked for one year or 25 years.
“While seniority should be part of the equation, it cannot be the only factor when making important employment decisions in our schools.”
An administration official said the governor hoped the Legislature would approve the standards by June — leaving Bloomberg time to implement a plan to sack as many as 4,600 teachers.
But a city Department of Education source rejected the governor’s timetable, dismissing the plan as “a delaying tactic” and “not a good-faith effort.”
Bloomberg declined to comment on the proposal, telling reporters last night that he had not seen the details.
“The bottom line is, we need legislation that allows us to lay off teachers this year using merit, and that’s the legislation the governor should put in the budget, and anything else doesn’t help us now,” Bloomberg said.
Cuomo announced his plan just moments after a far more sweeping Bloomberg-backed measure squeaked through the narrowly divided Senate, with two Democrats, including Sen. Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx), providing key support.
Sen. John Flanagan (R-LI), who sponsored the Senate bill, praised the governor’s proposal and credited The Post’s LIFO coverage with pressing the issue.
“It’s great and moves the issue forward,” Flanagan said.
“This shows that there’s a real interest in this. [If not] for The Post, this issue did not have legs.”
Cuomo’s proposal was seen as an effort by the highly popular freshman governor to avoid certain defeat of a LIFO-reform measure in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, where opposition from union-supported lawmakers is strong.
“I think we will take up a bill that deals with an objective evaluation system that gives people the ability to make determinations that are not purely ‘last in, first out,’ ” Silver told reporters.
“There will be an objective standard, I am fairly confident.”
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Additional reporting by Carl Campanile and David Seifman