If you happen to have $40 million, the Buffalo City School District could really use some cash.
That's the amount of funding that the state might remove over this and next year after the Buffalo Teacher's Federation (BTF), the teachers union in Buffalo, overwhelmingly supported a measure to maintain an attendance clause in this year's teacher-evaluation agreement.
In an attempt to reform New York's school system Governor Cuomo mandated that every school district come up with a plan to institute a system to evaluate educators. Previously, teachers were evaluated almost entirely by classroom visits and colleague opinions.
Cuomo's plan included more of an emphasis on standardized testing, and was accepted by the state teachers union.
Educators in Buffalo find a flaw in the plan, however: there is no clause excluding absent students from being counted among evaluations. See, they object to the fact that a student who doesn't show up to class ever will obviously test poorly and reflect badly on the teacher.
Teachers don't believe they should be held accountable because some students miss school very often, an aspect of education that is entirely out of their control.
State Education Department officials don't exactly see eye to eye on that idea, and have promised that no teacher-evaluation plan that includes an attendance clause will be accepted.
Because of this disagreement, it's fairly certain that the district will lose $9.3 million in state grants for this year. If the two sides don't broker a deal within the next few months, the district stands to lose over $30 million more next school year.
Almost like a high stakes game of chicken that James Bond would play, only that Buffalo School District is no rich playboy. It doesn't have the money to make it rain.
Forcing teachers to be evaluated on the record of all students, even the ones that don't attend class, is unfair to the educators. You could be Albert Einstein teaching calculus and if the pupil is never there to see the lessons, he or she will never learn the material well.
Two bad years of attendance, however unlikely, could skew good teachers into groups with bad teachers.
Cuomo and the state look like nothing but bullies for strong-arming this issue and refusing to negotiate a deal with the Buffalo teachers.
However, we must admit, we are decidedly pragmatic on this issue. It's certainly not fair to the teachers to have incessantly absent kids count along with punctual students, but this is a very expensive stand.
The school districts can replace that money with a fund designed to be used in the event of a loss of grant money, but there's only so far that will go until Cuomo's cash will be a necessity again.
Most of the governor's plan is reasonable. A reasonable evaluation system is necessary to ensure not only that good teachers are rewarded, but also to keep public confidence that our schools are moving forward and becoming better.
It's not perfect, but in the end Buffalo can't afford to sit on its thumbs while important funds drain away.
Sometimes what we need hurts a little bit.
