Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott says that if the teacher’s union can’t agree to a new teacher evaluation system, then cuts will have to be made to staff, as well as music, art and sports programs, according to the New York Post.
Walcott has even moved the deadline for the new city guidelines to be in place forward to Dec. 21, almost a full month before Gov. Andrew Cuomo had said they should be instituted.
If an agreement can’t be reach, city schools would lose out on 4 percent of state aid, or more than $250 million, says the Post.
“The current system makes it impossible to distinguish great teaching from good, good from fair, and fair from poor,” Walcott said on Wednesday, according to the paper.
Currently, 40 percent of a teacher’s grade comes from student test scores, and 60 percent from principal observations.
United Federation of Teachers head Michael Mulgrew says that Walcott and Mayor Michael Bloomberg are “playing politics with our schools” with threatening the loss of state aid.
