Andrew Cuomo (Robert Kalfus)
Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers are closing in on a deal to give parents full access to the new teacher-evaluation report cards, while banning their general release to the public, The Post has learned.
The agreement, which could come within two weeks, would also guarantee that all teacher-performance statistics for every public school, including the percentage of teachers in high- and low- performance categories, would be made public, sources said.
But still to be determined — and a major stumbling block — is whether there is a legal way to prevent parents from disclosing to the public the private performance evaluations they will receive in confidence.
“No one wants to see parents arrested for disclosing the information they receive on a teacher, and that’s one of the important unanswered and difficult questions, how to deal with that,’’ said a source close to lawmakers involved in the ongoing negotiations.
“We don’t have an answer on that It’s still an open question,’’ the source continued.
Also at issue is whether parents should be given information about every teacher their child has contact with — for instance, one whom the student might deal with only once a week for a special class — as well as information prospectively on teachers that kids might have in their next grade.
“Can the parents get the information on a teacher their child may have in the next school year, or can they get it on several possible future teachers so that they can see if they can make a choice on who they might like to see their child have?” asked the source.
“That’s what is being dealt with — difficult questions.’’
Negotiators are concerned about the implication of making any evaluation data public because similar personnel-evaluation records on other public employees — such as cops, firefighters and even Department of Motor Vehicle clerks — have traditionally been ruled by the courts to be exempt from disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Law.
“There is no other public-employee evaluation available under FOIL, and therefore, the teachers have a legitimate argument that they shouldn’t be singled out for this kind of disclosure,’’ said the source.
Union leaders were furious earlier this year when The Post and other media outlets published the ratings of 12,000 city teachers — only The Post did so in print — after state courts ruled they were, in fact, covered by the FOIL law.
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The well-followed “fake Sheldon Silver’’ Twitter feed really outdid itself at the start of Passover Friday night with a series of hilarious “live Tweets’’ purportedly from Silver’s own family seder.
“Spill a drop of wine on your plate for each of the 10 plagues: 1-Late budget. 2-Pedro Espada,’’ read one.
“Someone tell Weiner (as in THAT former congressman) to stop fondling the shank bone,’’ declared another.
But the most hilarious was, by far: “At tonight’s seder we will tell the story of Matilda finding baby Andrew floating in a reed basket on the Hudson.’’
“Fake Sheldon Silver’’ has more than 1,500 followers, including some of the state’s most influential politicians, and trying to figure out the source has become a popular sport at the Capitol — even with Assembly Speaker Silver himself. Many insiders are convinced it’s someone fairly high up in the Assembly bureaucracy.