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Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D/WFP-125AD, Tompkins/Cortland) reacted Monday to the Education component of the end-of session agreement in Albany, saying she is pleased that there are improvements in the evaluation issue for school districts and teachers, but some important parts of the Nolan bill passed in May by the Assembly fell off the table during negotiations with the Governor and Senate.  She vowed to keep fighting to support public schools and the children they educate.

"I am pleased with the progress made with teacher evaluations which will be taking into account factors such as poverty, disability, and language barriers in assessing a student's performance.  Other improvements include more than $8 million in new funding to the State Education Department which will allow for more exam questions and answers to be released, and teachers will now be allowed to discuss the exams with their colleagues. Additionally, the legislation creates a committee to review Common Core exams to ensure these tests are fair, accurate and appropriate for each grade level," said Lifton.

But Lifton noted that the final agreement did not go far enough: "Our Assembly bill passed in May de-linked school funding from teacher evaluation systems and delayed the date of teacher evaluation systems by a year to allow ample time for consideration of local plans and for the development and review of evaluation criteria, which I strongly supported, because I am concerned about yet another hurried process after the rushed Common Core roll-out that was so disastrous.  The Assembly bill also eliminated the costly 'independent evaluators.'"   Lifton said she would be watching closely as the process moves along and will be eager to hear from those implementing or involved with these changes.

"I was also pleased to see that the controversial Education Tax Credit, most recently amended and dubbed the Parental Choice in Education Act, was not included in the final package.  In my view, the creation of this tax credit would have established a back-door voucher program for private and religious schools in New York State, something I have always opposed.  I was happy, however, to support the inclusion of $250 million in additional funding for non-public schools to purchase state-mandated services, such as transportation, textbooks, and other required supplies and infrastructure needs, which I think is appropriate, and I was pleased to be able to vote for that method of support to our state's schoolchildren, wherever they might attend school," continued Lifton.

"With the 2015 legislative session behind us, I look forward to hearing from parents, teachers and administrators and all my constituents on this critical issue, and I will look forward to continuing to keep a close eye on this matter and continuing the on-going fight for our public schools in the new session next January," Lifton concluded.

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