The Sunday morning talk shows were filled with party leaders and talking heads all waxing and waning about the fiscal cliff. They all agreed: we can’t let it happen! If Congress and the President do not reach an agreement by January 1, 2013 sequestration kicks in: drastic across the board cuts in federal programs and the Bush tax cuts end, substantial increases for virtually all taxpayers, from the middle class to the rich and super rich.
Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman takes a tougher view,
Both the Bush-era tax cuts and the Obama administration’s payroll tax cut are set to expire, even as automatic spending cuts in defense and elsewhere kick in thanks to the deal struck after the 2011 confrontation over the debt ceiling. And the looming combination of tax increases and spending cuts looks easily large enough to push America back into recession…. Nobody wants to see that happen. Yet it may happen all the same, and Mr. Obama has to be willing to let it happen if necessary.
In New York State there is a different kind of cliff, an education fiscal cliff established by Governor Cuomo. If school districts and collective bargaining agents, the unions, do not teach an agreement on the principal-teacher evaluation plan (APPR) by January 17, 2013 the governor will withhold state funds, for New York City a cut of $300 million.
Chancellor Merryl Tisch in a New York Post op ed chides all sides and urges a settlement,
… more than 600 school districts around the state have submitted evaluation plans, and Commissioner King has approved more than 250 of those plans. Unfortunately, New York City isn’t one of those districts.
This isn’t just about money, although the city stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if it doesn’t have an approved plan in place by Jan. 17. And it’s not about a “gotcha” system to get rid of teachers. This is about giving teachers and principals the tools they need to strengthen their skills and improve their instruction
Change is never easy. But it is necessary. Hundreds of districts and local unions large and small across the state have found a way to get this done. It’s frustrating that the state’s largest district still can’t find a way to reach some common ground.
Just as Paul Krugman urges President Obama not to avert the fiscal cliff by agreeing to a bad deal union leader Mulgrew may not be bullied by threats of budget cuts, on the other hand he must be nimble.
Mayor Bloomberg has made it clear: teacher evaluations should be in the hands of the principal, solely in the hands of the principal. Yes, pre and post observation meetings between teachers and the school leaders are preferable, and not, according to the mayor, required. The mayor has attacked the current arbitration process (Sec 3020 of the NYS Education Law). He has accused arbitrators, who are jointed selected by both parties, as being in the thrall of the unions.
Teacher bloggers ask the union to hold firm: don’t sign any agreement and let the city absorb the funding loss, and, how can the governor actually cut funding in mid-year. Is it even legal? Would a judge allow it?
On the other hand the governor made it clear that a proposed law changing the “last in, first out” layoff law was not necessary: the teacher evaluation law would rid the state of bed teachers.
Angering an enormously powerful and vindictive governor could have dire consequences.
The evaluation law actually calls for mediation under the auspices of the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) if the parties can’t reach a settlement.
As the clock ticks toward the end of the Bloomberg regency his power wanes. The lesson of the 2012 election was that dollars without “feet on the ground” cannot win elections. The mayor poured dollars in elections around the state – with little impact. The governor on the other hand will run for another term in 2014 with an eye on 2016.
Will the governor surrogates lean on both sides? Or allow both sides to wallow in the mud?
As Santa slides down chimneys and the ball drops in Times Square the union and the city may be at the bargaining table.
I believe Michael Mulgrew will be tough and remember the words of Edith Piaf, “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
Ed In The Apple 
I pray! We’ve lost too much without getting anything I return!
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