Cuomo criticized for veto of teacher evaluation bill

Many Long Island educators are criticizing Gov. Andrew Cuomo's veto of his own bill on teacher evaluations. Under the bill, standardized Common Core tests would not be counted against teachers in their

News 12 Staff

Jan 1, 2015, 8:30 AM

Updated 3,623 days ago

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Many Long Island educators are criticizing Gov. Andrew Cuomo's veto of his own bill on teacher evaluations.
Under the bill, standardized Common Core tests would not be counted against teachers in their evaluations for the next two school years.
The veto comes less than two months after the governor was reelected, and former Schools Superintendent Michael Cohen says that is no coincidence.
Many teachers and administrators openly criticized Cuomo during the primary and general elections. Cohen believes the governor's veto is in retaliation to that criticism, but in a message that accompanied his action, Cuomo provided a different reason. He said the teacher evaluation system was flawed, citing that this past year just .7 percent of teachers were rated ineffective.
Elias Mestizo is a middle school teacher in the Hempstead School District and president of the Hempstead Classroom Teachers Association. He says the governor's veto only muddies the water on his stance on Common Core and his views on teachers.
In his veto message, Cuomo also said that he will propose comprehensive reforms designed to strengthen the teacher evaluation system in 2015. He did not comment on the specific changes he intends to implement.