ALBANY — The Board of Regents buckled under pressure from Gov. Cuomo and dropped a provision delaying teacher evaluations from the changes it recommended to the Common Core curriculum Tuesday.
Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and state Education Commissioner John King removed a controversial recommendation allowing teachers who faced firing to cite problems in the rollout of Common Core as an excuse for their poor performance.
“There are complications, we heard this, we are responding, we are acting under accordance,” Tisch said in a radio interview before making the news public four hours later.
The board tabled a final decision on teacher evaluations until April, but passed several other measures, including a five-year delay on using the more challenging Common Core standards to determine high-school student graduation.
Cuomo had castigated the Regents for “stalling” teacher evaluations, and suggested the board and the state Department of Education should be under his control.
The state Assembly appoints Regents members, who then choose the education commissioner.
“It is inarguable that we have not made the progress we need to make statewide in public education,” Cuomo said in a radio interview.
“If you don’t have the results, then maybe you say, ‘We have to question the way we’re providing the service.’ ”
An hour later, the Regents blinked.
Tisch acknowledged that the teacher evaluation piece did not satisfy the concerns of teachers unions or the governor. She downplayed the governor’s caustic rhetoric and said it was “time to move on.”
“I took the governor’s remarks that he does not want to see this get any weaker and he doesn’t want to see this get away,” she said.
Cuomo convened his own panel to recommend changes to Common Core before the end of the legislative session in June.
School officials can still use the new education standards in teacher performance evaluations, but educators are currently not able to use Common Core as an excuse for poor ratings.
The public will also be able to comment on the teacher evaluation provision over the next 90 days.