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A Manhattan Supreme Court justice yesterday blocked a bid by Gov. Cuomo to punish the city for failing to meet a deadline on a deal for a new teacher-evaluation system by pulling $260 million in education aid.
The preliminary injunction was issued after public-school parents in the city filed a lawsuit this month arguing that the funding was essential for providing students a sound education and that the governor’s move would unfairly punish kids for the squabbles of adults.
“Innocent students that had no influence over the legislative process or [evaluation] negotiations were potentially placed at risk academically,” Judge Manuel Mendez wrote in his ruling, which paves the way for hearings to proceed.
“There are alternative means of achieving [evaluation] goals while preserving federal . . . grant funds without the long-term effects of financial sanctions on the students.”
Last year, Cuomo and state legislators gave school districts until this past Jan. 17 to hammer out new teacher-evaluation systems with their local unions — or else forgo a 4 percent increase in state education aid.
The requirement was written into the state budget.
The city was one of five districts — out of nearly 700 statewide — that failed to come up with a viable and rigorous rating system before the deadline.
Despite the cuts to school programs that city officials said were necessary as a result of the pending loss of funding, Cuomo never wavered from his plan to yank the funds.
“This is a preliminary injunction, and the state intends to appeal,” a spokesman for the governor said yesterday.
Talks between the city Department of Education and United Federation of Teachers fell apart less than 24 hours before the Jan. 17 deadline, with each side blaming the other for killing a deal.
The main sticking point was whether the evaluation system would be tweaked in two years, as the union wanted, or whether it would continue in perpetuity, which the city insisted on.
“We’ve said all along that students should not be penalized for the UFT’s failure to negotiate, and our goal has been and continues to be a fair and effective evaluation system,” Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson said in response to the court ruling.
Union officials said they were still reviewing the decision.
Earlier this week, Cuomo pushed up the timeline for a measure that will let the state Education Department impose an evaluation system on the city and teachers union if they fail to reach a deal by June 1.
The move was meant to prevent the city from blowing an additional $224 million in state aid that’s tied to an evaluation system being in place for the coming school year.
It was also intended to put a stop to a drawn-out process that began in 2010 to create a more rigorous rating system that for the first time will judge city teachers in part on their students’ test scores.
Michael Rebell, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of city parents, said Cuomo’s move to impose a new evaluation system by June should render the need to punish the city moot.
“There’s no point to this penalty anymore,” he said. “I hope the fact that the governor knows it’s going to be solved . . . would get him and the legislators to reconsider and not impose this penalty.”
However, the state Education Department has warned that the city could still lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds if it doesn’t make enough progress toward implementing a new evaluation system by the end of this school year.
That funding is less likely to be affected by a potential lawsuit because the city signed commitments with the state Education Department that it is required to meet.