Opinion

Whose side is Andrew on?

When is a line in the sand just a line in the sand? When Gov. Cuomo says it is.

Cuomo’s apparent openness to shielding teacher evaluations from public scrutiny is raising more than a few eyebrows.

He was talking of a different matter when he recently noted that “when you draw lines in the sand, some people are on one side or the other.” But the rule still holds when it comes to data on evaluations of public-school teachers: Taxpayers and parents are on one side, teachers unions and their legislative allies are on the other.

And Cuomo seems to be straddling the school-accountability line he drew eight weeks ago.

This week, a Siena poll confirmed that New Yorkers strongly support holding school districts, principals and teachers accountable. Accountability has always mattered, but parents and taxpayers long lacked the tools to make it so.

This issue is personal for me: My mother is a retired public-school teacher. I wince at the idea of her pay, reputation and public standing hanging on how well she did. But she was an excellent educator — and she worried about the teachers her students would have after her. She knew that some of her colleagues were uncaring and unskilled.

The critics have fought every step of the way — against standardized testing of students, against use of those scores in evaluating teachers, against the public release of teacher-evaluation data.

They complain that all this forces teachers to spend too much time on test-prep. That’s utter nonsense. Taught correctly, skills such as reading comprehension and problem-solving translate into better scores on standardized tests.

The UFT, NYSUT and their allies want us to believe that racially biased tests together with poverty impair student performance. More nonsense. Students don’t have to live on a farm to know that cows produce milk, or own a car to calculate how many gallons of gas $20 will buy. It’s the job of teachers to teach the skills that all students need.

A powerful influence on any student, teachers must be held to higher account than other public employees. Shield laws are for rape victims and whistle-blowers, not for ineffective educators. Teachers and union officials must realize that the best job protection is superior performance.

Perhaps the unions fear that taxpayers, parents or reporters will match poor-performing educators with their Facebook and Twitter accounts and uncover other unpleasant information.

Remember Sharron Smalls? She’s the disgraced former principal at a low-performing Bronx high school accused of a massive course-credit scam — who turned out to have posted on Facebook a picture of herself cavorting in chocolate sauce with a male stripper.

Incompetent educators turn out to have other flaws. But sadly, the public is likely to be more outraged over an educator’s Facebook wall or Twitter feed than their classroom incompetence.

Making these evaluations public doesn’t denigrate great teachers. On education reform, Cuomo must stand with students, parents and taxpayers on their side of his line in the sand.