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The city and teachers union won’t meet this week’s deadline to hammer out a new teacher evaluation system — and it doesn’t look like they will reach an agreement any time soon.

State Education Commisioner John King this week issued a strict ultimatum to New York and nine other districts: Agree on new teacher evaluations in a subset of low-performing schools by Dec. 31 or lose special federal funds for those schools. The city is receiving about $60 million in the funds, called School Improvement Grants, for 33 schools.

In July, the city and union agreed to roll out new evaluations in the schools, but they still had some details to finalize. They were locked in negotiations until today but threw in the towel this morning, citing irreconcilable ideological differences, particularly around due process protections for teachers who receive low ratings.

The impasse has potentially far-ranging consequences. The first is that the 33 struggling schools will stop receiving funds midyear, leaving them in the lurch to pay for programs, personnel, and nonprofit partners that are already in place.

“I am left with no choice but to suspend SIG funding” to New York City, King said in a statement this afternoon, hours after city officials essentially petitioned him to consider awarding the funds despite the impasse. (more…)

The State Education Department will cut districts off from one pot of federal funds within days unless they settle on new teacher evaluations for some struggling schools.

In a move that the state teachers union called “an arbitrary exercise of brinksmanship,” State Education Commissioner John King issued the threat today to New York City and nine other school districts that are receiving School Improvement Grants to overhaul their lowest-performing schools.

King said all but two had not met the requirements to continue receiving the funds — most notably, the requirement to hammer out agreements on new teacher evaluation systems. Those agreements are supposed to be in place by Dec. 31.

In July, city and UFT officials reached an agreement to roll out new teacher evaluations in 33 of the schools, known as “persistently low-achieving” schools. That agreement came a week after the state turned up the pressure on the city and just in time for the schools to receive nearly $60 million in federal funds.

But city officials said today that the agreement was only a “framework” that must be formalized by the Dec. 31 deadline.

If that doesn’t happen, a funding freeze would not only prevent new reforms from being put in place but also could threaten changes that are already underway. Yonkers is warning that SIG-funded teaching positions at some of its schools would effectively be terminated. Some New York City schools have “master teachers” whose salaries are paid out of the federal grant money.

City and union officials say they remain locked in negotiations — which are sure to be tense after a semester when relations between the groups grew strained over the new evaluation system’s rollout. (more…)

A State Supreme Court judge has ruled that the city can move forward with its plans for 22 school closure and 15 co-locations.

In May, the UFT and NAACP filed a suit charging that the city had not adhered to the law and its own promises when planning the closures and charter school co-locations.

In a decision released late tonight, Judge Paul Feinman denied the UFT and NAACP’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the city from moving forward with its closure and co-location plans while those charges are considered. A temporary restraining order preventing the plans from advancing had been in place since early June.

Feinman’s decision came just hours after State Education Commissioner John King approved 12 of the closures, of schools on the state’s list of “persistently low-achieving” schools. The UFT and NAACP suit had argued that the city could not close schools on that list without state approval.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott applauded the decision, which he said validated the Bloomberg administration’s approach to fixing low-performing schools. (more…)

After months of negotiations, the city and teachers union announced a deal today on a set of reforms that will allow the state to claim millions of dollars promised to struggling schools.

The announcement comes a week after the state ramped up pressure on the city to finalize its plans for how to improve its lowest-performing schools. The state’s deadline to complete its application for federal School Improvement Grants is just two weeks away. New York City is eligible for up to $65 million to help 33 “persistently low-achieving” schools undergo one of four processes over the next two years.

The 33 schools will undergo one of two revamp options, “restart” and “transformation,” according to the agreement. Those models are the least aggressive and also the least objectionable for the teachers union: They do not involve removing teachers or asking them to reapply for their jobs. “Restart” assigns a new management organization, and “transformation” replaces the principal and brings in additional resources.

Decisions about which model each of the 33 schools on the list would undergo will be made “over the next week,” according to the city’s press release. Last year, 11 city schools underwent the “transformation” process, and nine schools are undergoing the restart process this fall.

The city’s press release is long on relief but short on specifics other than that the city and union have agreed to implement the state’s new teacher evaluation model — but only in the 33 struggling schools. (more…)

John King (left), the new state education commissioner, meeting with a teacher in February.

John King is New York’s new state education commissioner, after a unanimous vote by the state Board of Regents this morning.

King, the deputy state education commissioner, replaces David Steiner, who announced he was planning to leave at the end of the academic year in April. The announcement was a surprise, but concerns that Steiner might leave the state in the lurch were tampered by the expectation that King, his close partner, would likely succeed Steiner as commissioner.

King and Steiner’s ambitious agenda has included changing the way teachers are prepared and certified, overhauling the state’s standards, curriculum, and assessments, and implementing a slew of other innovations laid out in New York’s winning Race to the Top application.

Part of that plan was an effort to change the way teachers are evaluated. Members of the Regents vote today on whether to approve the plan that state education officials are proposing. Under urging from Governor Cuomo, the plan increases the portion of a teacher’s evaluation that would depend on student test scores to 40%. Any actual teacher evaluation system, though, will have to be bargained in each local district by school officials and local teachers unions. (more…)

New York City’s teachers union lost its suit to block the city from releasing 12,000 teachers’ ratings and names that, for years, have been kept confidential.

State Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern ruled today to deny the United Federation of Teachers’ request that the city redact teachers’ names from the Teacher Data Reports. The reports measure a teacher’s effectiveness based on how good she is at improving her students’ test scores from the beginning of the year to the end.

Underpinning the union’s lawsuit was the claim that releasing teachers’ ratings with their names included constituted an unlawful invasion of privacy.

A spokesman for the union said that the union’s lawyers are reviewing the decision.

Kern’s ruling:

New York Historical Society CEO Louise Mirrer, Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman, and State Education Commissioner David Steiner met this afternoon to discuss the chancellor appointment of publishing executive Cathie Black.

In a rebuke to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an eight-member panel of education experts recommended this evening that State Education Commissioner David Steiner deny publishing executive Cathleen Black a waiver to become the next schools chancellor.

And Steiner told the panel that his own preference is to wait to grant the waiver until the city also installs a top educator with some independent power, the panel’s chair said.

Four panel members voted against granting the waiver, two voted in favor, and two voted “not at this time,” said the panel’s chair, Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman. Neither Fuhrman nor state education officials would say how individual panel members cast their votes.

Without a background in education, Black needs a waiver from the state that will let her bypass the prerequisites: that she have a degree in education and several years of teaching behind her. The final call rests with Steiner, who would not say when he plans to make his final decision.

Speaking to reporters after the panel adjourned, Fuhrman said that Steiner gave the panel several options: they could vote to grant the waiver, deny it, or to reconsider Black “in a different context.” Fuhrman gave a specific example of what those different circumstances might look like: if, for example, the city proposed to install Black as chancellor alongside a Chief Academic Officer who had academic experience and some autonomous power in the department.

“I think it’s novel, and innovative, and an attempt to split the baby,” said former city schools chancellor Harold Levy.  ”But I think…it would be very difficult as a pragmatic matter to make this work.” (more…)

DOE Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology Photeine Anagnostopoulos submitted her resignation Wednesday. Photo via Harvard College Libraries

The city’s top finance and budget official is following Chancellor Joel Klein out of the Department of Education, officials confirmed Wednesday evening.

Photeine “Photo” Anagnostopoulos, Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology, submitted her resignation Wednesday, effective immediately.

“She has served the DOE well through tough and challenging budget times and I wish her the very best in her next endeavor,” Klein wrote in an email.

“Given the transition we are about to undertake, she felt it was the right time to move on,” said DOE spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz. “We wish her well in her future endeavors, and are already beginning the process of identifying qualified candidates for her position.”

Anagnostopoulos’ departure signals that Klein’s resignation and the arrival of Hearst Magazines executive Cathie Black as chancellor will also bring a shift in power in the top circle of the DOE.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon that he was replacing Klein with Black came as a surprise to many DOE officials, including some of Klein’s senior aides.

And while Black has indicated that she plans to rely heavily on the team of top officials that Klein brought together — especially Klein’s team of eight deputy chancellors — the willingness of some of those officials to stay on without Klein is far from certain. (more…)

For the second time, the city’s attempt to close 19 schools has been foiled by the courts.

Five appellate court judges unanimously upheld a lower court ruling today that voided the city’s attempt to shut down the schools. The ruling means that the city will have to re-start the lengthy and arduous process to shutter the schools next year, when the city had hoped to begin closing them.

In March, a state Supreme Court judge ruled that the city did not follow the proper school closure process laid out in state education law. State law requires that the city prepare “educational impact statements,” or EIS’s, that analyze the effect that closing a school will have on the students and surrounding community, as well as hold a series of public hearings with local parent boards.

In their decision (available in full below the jump), the appellate court justices unanimously agreed, saying the city did not follow the legal requirements for a hearing, nor did the city prepare detailed enough impact statements. (more…)

A school board vote to close 19 city schools is “null and void,” according to a decision handed down by a state Supreme Court justice today.

The bombshell decision leaves the fate of all 19 schools and their staffs up in the air and could force the Department of Education to rewrite arguments for why they deserve to be shut down. The ruling is the first time a court has interpreted the new mayoral control law Albany put in place last summer.

A lawyer for the city, Michael Cardozo, said the Department of Education would appeal the decision.

“We are disappointed by today’s ruling, which, unless it is reversed, requires the Department of Education to keep open schools that are failing our children,” Cardozo said. (more…)