(Photo: Wikimedia)

There's a bona fide disagreement between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg when it comes to teacher evaluations.

"He and I have had a discussion, and I think, basically, we sort of disagree," Mr. Bloomberg said on John Gambling's radio show this morning when asked about Mr. Cuomo's indication that he only wants teacher evaluation data to be available to the parents, rather than the public at large.

Mr. Bloomberg proceeded to lay out a multiple point defense of providing the data to the public, suggesting that only a carefully worded law would survive a legal challenge, and even if one passed, it would simply not be "practical."

"In a practical sense, you know on Day One, there will be a website out there where everyone will be asked to post grades, and [of] the grades that get posted, who knows who makes them up?" he rhetorically asked. "I mean, it would lead to just chaos, and it would be very bad for our teachers [with] people unfairly and erroneously or deliberately trying to hurt somebody they don't like."

With the internet and the press, he continued arguing, much of the information would simply be out there anyway.

"It's just not that practical to give them to the parents in this day and age of social media and an aggressive Fourth Estate," he posited. "You know that if you give it to the parents it's going to be out, except it would be incomplete, and that's not in anyone's interest."

Governor Andrew Cuomo

A new Siena College poll showed New York voters approve of Governor Andrew Cuomo's teacher evaluation plan, though support is slipping for his proposed constitutional amendment allowing non-Indian casinos in the state. The governor's overall approval rating remains high, although his numbers took a bit of a hit since last month. 

Siena found half of New York voters believe the teacher evaluations agreement will improve the quality of public education compared to 38 percent who say it will have no effect and three percent who say it will hurt schools around the state. Voters said the agreement was fair to teachers by a margin of 57 percent to 30 percent.

According to the poll Governor Cuomo is viewed favorably by 69 percent of voters and just 25 percent view him unfavorably. Those numbers are quite strong, but down from February's poll, which found 74 percent of voters viewed the governor favorably and just 18 percent had an unfavorable impression. Governor Cuomo got his highest marks on improving the ethical standards of government in Albany (41 percent of voters said his work has improved Albany's ethics) and his lowest performance grades on public education (just 22 percent said his efforts have made schools better and 27 percent said he's made education more of a problem).

Last month, 52 percent of voters said they supported a constitutional amendment allowing non-Indian casinos in the state and 44 percent registered opposition. This month, support has slipped with voters nearly evenly divided 48 percent in favor and 49 percent against the plan.  Two of Governor Cuomo's other major proposals; pension reform and a large convention center near the Aqueduct racetrack, continue to be supported by over 60 percent of voters.

Rupert Murdoch (Photo: Twitter)

News Corporation media mogul Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter today to weigh in on Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address. Mr. Murdoch praised Mayor Bloomberg's education proposals, encouraged the United Federation of Teacher's to drop their opposition to the initiatives and wondered how New York's "chicken" governor will respond.

"Bloomberg's bold teacher proposals today terrific. How will chicken Cuomo respond? If UFT refuses this money good teachers will scream," Mr. Murdoch wrote.

In his speech, Mayor Bloomberg proposed merit pay and teacher evaluation programs. Teacher's unions have generally fought similar programs. The UFT has already clashed with Mayor Bloomberg about his evaluation plans.

Mr. Murdoch joined Twitter to great fanfare on New Year's Eve. Though he's been on the site for less than two weeks, but he's already written several postings on the social media site expressing admiration for Mayor Bloomberg. His 16th Tweet dubbed Hizzoner "New York’s best mayor in memory." On January 4, he described Mayor Bloomberg as one of the "three greatest philanthropists" along with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.

Full Disclosure: From June 2010 until November of last year, this reporter worked at The Daily, an iPad newspaper owned by Mr. Murdoch.

Governor Cuomo (Photo: Getty)

In his appearance on Fred Dicker's radio show today, Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed the controversy over teacher evaluations. Last week, State Education Commissioner John B. King announced suspended millions of dollars in funding from schools in the five boroughs and nine other districts around New York that missed a deadline to agree on plans for teacher evaluation programs. Governor Cuomo, who called for an education commission to come up with an evaluation plan in his State of the State address last week, described the situation with as a "major crisis for the state." Though he doesn't plan on personally getting involved in the tense negotiations on evaluations going on between local school districts and teacher's unions, Governor Cuomo said something has to give.

"This situation is not going away, we need the evaluations done because it's how we improve education. Second, we need an evaluation system, because it was the condition of the federal funding and it's not going to get better," Governor Cuomo said.

Establishing teacher evaluation programs was a condition of the $700 million in "Race to the Top" education education funding New York received from the federal government. In order to qualify for the funding, Governor Cuomo passed a state law requiring teacher evaluations in 2010. Teacher's unions have successfully challenged that law in court arguing that it places too much emphasis in a teacher's evaluation on student performance. Governor Cuomo admitted to Mr. Dicker that the current law on evaluations has proven to be "a failure."

"Every state that wanted to qualify had to pass a teacher evaluation law, we did as part of the 'Race to the Top,'" Governor Cuomo said. "The law has been a failure, it has not been implemented. It is unworkable, some would say it was unworkable by design ab initio, but time has shown that it's unworkable."

Teacher's unions have also battled other plans for evaluation in local districts. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has clashed with the United Federation of Teachers because they want an independent commission to come up with an evaluation policy while he wants principals to have control over the process. In a radio appearance of his own Friday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the governor should help "intercede and try to bring the parties together." Governor Cuomo rejected the idea that he should step in to the negotiations in the five boroughs or anywhere else in the state.

"I'm not going to get between Mayor Bloomberg and the UFT. There are roughly 700 school districts in this state, the answer isn't, 'The governor should intervene between the local political official, or the school board and the union,'" Governor Cuomo said. "I can't negotiate 700 union contracts, that's not going to be the answer here."