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Friday, February 17, 2012

Bloomberg threatens more school closings until union agrees to teacher rating system - NYPOST.com

Bloomberg threatens more school closings until union agrees to teacher rating system - NYPOST.com:

Bloomberg threatens more school closings until union agrees to teacher rating system

Last Updated: 12:45 PM, February 17, 2012

Posted: 12:44 PM, February 17, 2012

The honeymoon’s over.

Not even 24 hours after officials toasted the deal on a statewide framework for new teacher evaluations, Mayor Bloomberg and teachers’ union president Michael Mulgrew made it clear the city has anything but smooth sailing ahead.

Bloomberg indicated this morning he not only intends to shutter 33 schools already on the chopping block as a way to remove ineffective teachers, but he also threatened to close more schools in coming years until the union signs off on a local rating system.

The state-level deal left 80 percent of the fine print up for local negotiation.

Gov. Cuomo also set January 2013 as a deadline for a local deal -- after which the state would revoke more than $200 million in increased aid to city schools.

“Let’s use the process that was negotiated and agreed to yesterday rather than stretching it out," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show this morning. "If you stretch it out another year, the Department of Education...has the ability to change out a lot of poorly performing teachers [by



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bloomberg_threatens_system_school_A6KtLz1Ffk8ad9wG4aV4ZO#ixzz1mfNlskyh