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. Read More