The teachers union’s refusal to come to the negotiating table on a new rating system for its members will end up costing the city $250 million in state education aid, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
Hizzoner and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott slammed the president of the United Federation of Teachers for ditching talks on how to meaningfully evaluate the performance of teachers — just weeks shy of a strict Jan. 17 deadline for an agreement.
“I thought we were well on the way of having productive discussions, but for some reason Mr. [Michael] Mulgrew has instructed his people to walk away from the table,” Walcott said during the mayor’s weekly radio appearance. “It’s really tough to negotiate when the UFT walks away from the table.”
Bloomberg said the city is recalculating its midyear budget with the assumption that the anticipated $250 million boost is now a bust.
“It takes weeks to figure out what we’re going to have to cut if we don’t get the money,” he said. “We can still keep negotiating, but we’re going to start assuming in our budget preparations . . . that we will not have the money.”
The rules of the deadline say the city needs to not only reach a deal before that date in order to get the funds, but it also needs to have its plan approved by the state Education Department — and implemented.
That’s why Walcott had imposed an even earlier deadline for striking a deal, but his hopeful deadline expired last night.
Mulgrew said he’s open to continuing talks with the city, but he’s insisting that officials agree to discuss the implementation of the new rating system before the two sides hammer out the details of the evaluations themselves.
He said it’s because the DOE has already botched preparations for introducing the new ratings — including a lack of training for key personnel.
“[If] the implementation and training is all messed up, then the evaluation [system] will fail — and that’s too important for the schools system,” said Mulgrew.
Gov. Cuomo insisted earlier this week that he would not extend the approaching deadline.
The city is one of just 27 districts — out of 692 in the state — that have yet to submit a plan to the state.
The rating system will include a component that judges teachers based on how well their students do on state tests — something the union had been opposing for years.
yoav.gonen@nypost.com
Mike is kickin’ class over $250M aid loss
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Mike is kickin’ class over $250M aid loss
