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The debate that began in Los Angeles over whether it is ethical to release public school teachers’ effectiveness scores has made its way to New York City. The city’s Department of Education plans to give the ratings, which are based solely on test scores, to reporters this week.

According to sources familiar with the discussion, city officials are debating with the teachers union over whether to release the scores with or without teachers’ names attached. The union has announced that it plans to seek an injunction in order to halt the release.

“The union will charge in its lawsuit that the TDRs [teacher data reports] are ‘unreliable, often incorrect, subjective analyses dressed up as scientific facts,’ and the methodology’s calculations of individual teachers’ value-add is ‘a complex and largely subjective guessing game on the part of the DOE,’” union officials said in statement.

DOE press secretary Natalie Ravitz said the city plans to give reporters the ratings this Friday.

“It had been our intention to respond to those FOILs and release the information today. However, UFT lawyers informed us that they intend to sue us to prevent the release,” she said in a statement. (more…)

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill passed the Assembly 121-18 just now, our Anna Phillips reports to us from Albany. The bill would continue the mayor’s control of the schools until 2015, with some added checks, including strengthened audit powers over Department of Education data.

All eyes now move to the state Senate, where the new Democratic leader, John Sampson, is vowing to fight for more checks to the mayor’s power.

UPDATE: Anna sends in the no votes. They are Alan Maisel, Hakeem Jeffries, Carl Heastie, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Joseph Abbate, William Colton, James Brennan, Mark Weprin, Jose Rivera, Naomi Rivera, Jeffrion Aubry, Daniel O’Donnell, Annette Robinson, Deborah Glick, Vanessa Gibson, Nick Perry, Marcos Crespo, Nelson Castro. Inez Barron did not vote, and Rory Lancman voted yes.

Lancman had been leading the charge to make the Department of Education both a state and city agency, a revision that is not included in Silver’s bill.

We just heard from a source with connections in Albany: The Assembly’s education committee has passed Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill. Five of the committee’s 29 members voted against the bill, which some critics have said includes too few checks on the mayor’s authority, our source reports.

The committee’s approval means that the bill can now be voted on by the Assembly as a whole. After Silver formally proposed the bill on Sunday night, lawmakers told the New York Times that they thought the Assembly would pass the bill by Wednesday. So far, they appear to be on pace to meet that deadline.

More on this story as it develops.

UPDATE: According to committee chair Catherine Nolan’s office, the five committee members voting against the bill were James Brennan, Alan Maisel, and Joan Millman of Brooklyn; Daniel O’Donnell of Manhattan; and Mark Weprin of Queens. The bill passed the education committee last night and is headed to the Ways and Means Committee today, with debate on the Assembly floor likely tomorrow, Nolan’s office confirmed.

UPDATE 2: A reader points out that this means only half, or five of 10, of the Assembly education committee members from New York City voted for the bill. They are committee chairwoman Catherine Nolan of Queens, Carmen Arroyo and Michael Benedetto of the Bronx, and Karim Camara and Barbara Clark of Brooklyn. (Clark is one of Mayor Bloomberg’s strongest mayoral control allies in the Assembly).

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post suggested that the mayoral control bill would become law upon its passage by the full Assembly. In fact, a bill becomes law only after the State Senate passes a similar bill and the discrepancies between the two bills are negotiated away in a conference committee consisting of members of both legislative bodies. The governor then has to sign the reconciled bill to make it law. The State Senate has not tackled legislative business in the nine days since its dramatic leadership coup.

After infuriating activists pushing for checks to the mayor’s control of the public schools, teachers union president Randi Weingarten today stood next to them at a press conference in Albany, joining a declaration that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s proposed bill does not give enough voice to parents.

Teachers and principals have unions, but parents do not, Weingarten said, according to someone who attended the press conference. That’s why she said she is calling on lawmakers to write additional voice for parents into a revised mayoral control law.

In making the statement, Weingarten stood beside representatives of the Campaign for Better Schools and the Parent Commission on School Governance, two groups that have called for stronger checks to the mayor’s power than the union ultimately demanded. Members of the Parent Commission on School Governance have criticized Weingarten for giving in to the wishes of Mayor Bloomberg, who has endorsed Silver’s bill.

It was not clear exactly how much of those groups’ positions Weingarten endorsed. At least five Democratic Assembly members also joined the press conference.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Weingarten, Ron Davis, just called to say she is concerned about this story. The spokesman said that Weingarten had “nothing but praise” for Silver’s bill at the press conference, though she did say that she thinks it should be revised to “ensure a greater parental role.” (more…)

The head of the Assembly’s education committee, Catherine Nolan of Queens, is expected to release a revised proposal for the mayoral control law this evening, in the Assembly Democrats’ second closed-door conference  on the law. Opponents of mayoral control, anticipating that the proposal will not include as many checks to the mayor’s power as they had hoped, are scrambling to encourage supporters to call their elected officials and demand more changes.

The goal is to persuade Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver not to finalize a plan the opponents think is too weak, said April Humphrey, an organizer with the Campaign for Better Schools, which is pushing for checks to the mayor’s power over the schools. A main concern is that the proposal will not create fixed terms for members of the citywide school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy.

Humphrey suggested that her group has abandoned efforts to revise the board to give the mayor a minority of appointments. “I don’t know if there’s a lot that we can do on that,” she said.

Humphrey said opponents of mayoral control feel a particular sense of urgency because they don’t expect the Senate, which has flipped to Republican control, to produce a palatable proposal. “Who knows what’s going to happen with the Senate, but if the Senate ends up in Republican hands, they’re not going to do any better for us than the Assembly will,” Humphrey said.

“Emergency!! Call you [sic] assembly member NOW,” was the subject line of an e-mail blast the Campaign sent out this afternoon. (more…)

A KIPP charter school in the Bronx. (By Leila Haddouche, via Flickr Creative Commons)

The next front in the tug of war between teachers unions and charter schools is about to commence, and this development will occur at the bargaining table. The game: UFT vs. KIPP.

There’s been no official word yet, but everyone involved in the saga between the politically powerful teachers union and the prominent charter school network is expecting that 16 KIPP teachers in Brooklyn will become official members of the city teachers union today.

UPDATE: It’s now official, confirmed by both the union and KIPP. Press releases from both parties are below. And here is the PERB decision.

David Levin, KIPP’s co-founder and the superintendent of New York City KIPP schools, told me this afternoon that he hopes negotiations will begin as soon as next week.

Teachers at the charter school, KIPP AMP, petitioned to form a union in January, but their pitch has to be accepted by the Public Employee Relations Board before the union becomes official. Reports had said a final decision would come yesterday, but both the union and KIPP officials were still waiting for word this morning. Now, all signs point to PERB sending the green light to the union today. (more…)