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New York City isn’t alone in having its federal School Improvement Grants frozen.

State Education Commission John King announced this afternoon that he was suspending the SIG grants of all 10 districts eligible for them even though six met the deadline to negotiate new teacher evaluations. The grants total more than $100 million altogether.

Roosevelt, Poughkeepsie, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and Rochester all submitted applications to use the funds before the Dec. 31 deadline, but there are shortcomings in all of them, King said in a statement today.

King outlined those shortcomings in letters to each district today. Rochester’s SIG spending plan, for example, simply did not outline appeals procedures for teachers who receive low ratings — the policy point that derailed negotiations in New York City. Buffalo’s plan outlined appeals procedures, but the state rated only five out of 13 components of the application as sufficient.

Three other districts — Schenectady, Greenburgh 11, and Yonkers — joined the city in missing the deadline entirely. Officials in Yonkers petitioned for extra time, saying that negotiators on both sides of the table were on vacation last week. (more…)