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Michael Mulgrew has left UFT headquarters at 52 Broadway and a union official confirmed that any chance that a deal could be salvaged in the final hours tonight are “dead.”

And the other side also appears to have thrown in the towel. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said they “called the UFT a couple of hours ago and tried one last time with a proposal and they rejected it.” She did not say what the specifics of that proposal were.

Micah Lasher, a former aide to Mayor Bloomberg who lobbied hard for the evaluations, was optimistic that a deal could happen earlier in the day, even after the city and the union exchanged blows. But his mood had soured in a statement released late tonight. (more…)

• Even though fewer yellow buses ran today, more students made it to school. (GS Twitter 1,  2)
• The last school bus strike, in 1979, came against a backdrop of widespread labor activity. (City Room)
• A teacher is blogging again after switching schools and adding science class. (Mr D’s Neighborhood)
• Schools in a teacher-led turnaround effort in Massachusetts are outpacing others. (Teacher Beat)
• A panel considered the state’s plans to replace the GED exam; watch its discussions. (NYC Future)
• A preschool model favored mostly by some wealthy parents comes from humble roots in Italy. (Atlantic)
• A teacher describes his sneaky strategy to get students to stop proclaiming, “I’m finished!” (Mr Foteah)
• The city’s teacher evaluation fight reflects a “potent mix of politics” that will shape 2013. (SchoolBook)
• Chicago introduced a new evaluation system today, for principals, that includes test scores. (Catalyst)
• From the folks who review city schools, a guide for filling out financial aid forms. (Insideschools)
• Yes, parents needn’t freak out when picking a preschool, but all kids benefit from preschool. (Sara Mead)

Almost immediately after UFT President Michael Mulgrew finished ripping Mayor Bloomberg’s characterization of how talks broke down between the two sides this morning, he informed members that there might still be a chance.

“Now they want to talk,” Mulgrew told members at a Delegate Assembly meeting after being handed a sheet of paper, according to several teachers who attended.

In addition to $250 million that’s on the line if a midnight deadline passes, no evaluation plan would also be a black eye for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who devised the law to withhold state funding from districts that failed to submit plans.  Earlier this month, he declared the law succeeded, touting the fact that 99 percent of districts had submitted plans.

But New York City and its 1.1 million students have remained a prominent outlier as the time wound down. Heading into this week, officials acknowledged that they were close to a deal in between lengthy negotiation meetings. This morning, the meetings broke down and both sides spent the afternoon dodging blame about who was responsible.

The slim possibility that a deal could get hammered out before its midnight deadline came just over an hour after Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Mulgrew said the chances were grim that there would be enough time.

“The time to get all the paperwork done is not there,” Mulgrew said at a press conference that took place less than an hour after he said in a statement that Bloomberg stood in the way of a deal.

(more…)

Mayor Bloomberg blamed new and unacceptable demands by the UFT for ending the possibility of an agreement on teacher evaluations.

During a hastily convened press conference about the collapse of teacher evaluation talks, Mayor Mike Bloomberg rejected the teachers union’s account that he had “torpedoed” a deal.

It was the union’s insertion of new demands at the last moment, including that the evaluation system would expire in 2015, that made an agreement impossible, Bloomberg said.

“If the agreement sunset in two years the whole thing would be a joke,” he said. “Nobody would ever be able to be removed. The law would be gone before the process could finish. It would essentially sabotage the entire agreement.”

The vast majority of evaluation plans — about 90 percent —  that districts across the state have adopted are in effect only for this school year.

“Those deals are shams,” Bloomberg said when asked about them.

Flanked by Chancellor Dennis Walcott and two deputy chancellors who had headed negotiations, Bloomberg said the union also demanded additional arbitration for teachers who want to appeal their ratings and a change to the way evaluations are scored “in a way that would have ensured that fewer teachers were rated ineffective.” (more…)

Just in from UFT President Michael Mulgrew: There won’t be a deal on teacher evaluations today, and it’s Mayor Bloomberg’s fault.

In a statement that the union president said was “painful to make,” Mulgrew said UFT and Department of Education negotiators had reached a deal overnight on how to structure and execute new teacher evaluations. But when they presented their agreement to Mayor Bloomberg this morning, Mulgrew said, the mayor rejected it.

“Despite the involvement of state officials we could not put it back together,” Mulgrew said.

Just hours ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed again to withhold state aid from districts that did not adopt new evaluations today. For the city, $250 million was on the line.

Bloomberg is holding a press conference in just a few minutes to tell his side of the story. But he has said repeatedly — as recently as yesterday — that he would not sign off on a deal that “really evaluates,” or shows that some teachers are low-performing. And last year, he turned down an opportunity to finalize a teacher evaluation plan in favor of a different strategy aimed at removing teachers faster than evaluations would allow.

Our analysis of the costs and benefits of reaching a deal to every party to the evaluation talks foreshadowed the outcome that Mulgrew says has happened. (more…)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has stayed mostly quiet during the lead-up to the deadline he set for districts to adopt new teacher evaluations or lose funding. But now that the due date has arrived, he has released a stern statement repeating the ultimatum he laid out a year ago today:

Today is the final deadline for the handful of school districts, including New York City, that have failed to get their teacher evaluation systems in place. Please hear me — there will be no extensions or exceptions. Since we established one of the strongest teacher evaluation models in the nation last year, 98% of school districts have successfully implemented them. The remaining districts and their unions have until midnight tonight to do the same or they will forfeit the increase in education aid they have been counting on and both parties will have failed the children they serve.

New York City is one of six districts that had not submitted even a first draft of its evaluation plan by last week. But as of last night, city and union negotiators were still locked in a room trying to work out the remaining details, some of which seem to be significant.

“They’re definitely discussing serious stuff in there,” a union spokesman told GothamSchools late Wednesday.

A meeting of the union’s Delegate Assembly, which must approve a deal if one is made, is set for five hours from now. If there is no deal by then, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told members last week, the meeting will be used to plan an offensive against Mayor Bloomberg.

• Without buses, parents struggled to get their children to school safely and on time. (WSJ, Schoolbook)
• Attendance fell in special needs schools on Wednesday. (GothamSchools, NY1, Post, Schoolbook, WSJ)
• The strike stems from efforts to reduce the yellow busing’s sky-high and ever-increasing costs. (Times)
• The strike is extra inconvenient for families who have been displaced by Hurricane Sandy. (DNAInfo)
• The city’s largest (and troubled) after-school tutoring company is under federal investigation. (News)
• Without a city-UFT teacher evaluations deal today, the city will lose state funds. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• The Daily News says UFT chief Michael Mulgrew should get the blame if a deal falls through today.
• Mayoral candidate Adolpho Carrion, Jr. also attacked the UFT for stalling on a deal. (Daily News)
• Ex-public advocate Betsy Gotbaum isn’t endorsing parent leader Noah Gotbaum, her stepson. (Times)
• Civil servant work stoppages are illegal, but school bus drivers aren’t subject to same fines. (Post)
• Parents and politicians rallied outside a struggling school to celebrate that it won’t be closed. (News)
• Democrats in Albany are supporting a comprehensive DREAM act for the first time. (Times)
• A new report documents Mississippi’s school-to-prison pipeline, already under federal scrutiny. (Times)