ALBANY — Criminal prosecution of parents who publicize teacher evaluations would be “absurd,” Gov. Cuomo said yesterday, taking on one of the major wrinkles in how to release the reports.
“One thing that’s clear: The parents have a right to know,” Cuomo said of a proposal to release teacher evaluations to parents — but not make them available to the public at large via the media.
Cuomo and legislative leaders are trying to figure out how to release the evaluations to parents, while limiting their disclosure to the general public.
But Cuomo rejected concerns that parents could be hit with criminal charges for publicizing the evaluations. “I think that’s stretching it to the absurd,” Cuomo said on Albany’s Talk 1300 radio.
Cuomo said he understands both sides of the argument over whether new evaluations should be made public.
Teachers unions and some legislators are fighting to keep the new evaluations secret even from parents, claiming publicity would discourage prospective teachers.
Parents argue that they and other taxpayers pay teachers’ salaries, so the grades should be available for all to see.
Courts ordered the city to disclose 18,000 teacher evaluations over the objections of the United Federation of Teachers.
The key hang-up for top state officials is how to provide the evaluations to parents while keeping them from sharing the reports.
Mayor Bloomberg has said he favors full disclosure.
But 11 Assembly members have lined up behind a bill to keep teacher evaluations confidential even from parents.
Under Assemblywoman Sandra Galef’s bill, only teachers themselves or a court order could make particular evaluations public.
Galef (D-Westchester), a former Virginia and Scarsdale lower elementary- school teacher, said she hasn’t been pressured by teachers unions or anyone else.
“All I’ve done is think about what’s right in the educational field,” she said.
City Democrats Jeffrey Dinowitz and Carmen Arroyo of The Bronx, along with several upstaters and Long Island Republicans, have signed on to the bill.
Galef said evaluations should be “a tool for administrators to use to better the process of teaching.
“I could just see a parent saying, ‘Well, I want an “A” teacher.’ ” But grades “can be very subjective,” she said. “It can depend on what kind of kid you have in the classroom, the motivation of the parent. It’s just too severe to have the grades so public.
“Walking around with a grade on your back is a difficult thing,” she added. “We don’t want to frighten people away from the profession.”
When she was a teacher, she had “one hyperactive kid who changed the whole character of the classroom,” Galef said. “You don’t choose who’s in your classroom.
“I just can’t think of another profession where we have a name and a grade that goes out.”