BUFFALO, N.Y. — New York State United Teachers and many local unions like the Buffalo Teachers Federation remain in favor of a bill that would eliminate the mandatory use of state assessments to determine an educator's effectiveness.

"The only thing that stopped it last time is that the Republican Senate tried to tie a charter school bill for New York City to increase the number of charter schools there, otherwise it would've gone through without any problem," BTF President Phil Rumore said.

The Assembly passed the legislation last year. Now with Democrats in control of the state Senate as well, Assembly co-sponsor Robin Schimminger, D-Kenmore, thought it was well on its way to a quick passage, possibly as soon as this week.
   
"This bill is identical to last year’s bill which had the enthusiastic support of the teachers," Schimminger said.

But a coalition of parents, teachers and advocates called New York State Allies for Public Education has organized a phone and letter writing campaign, asking legislators to vote no.

"It seems that just in the last 24-48 hours, teachers have been communicating with state legislators asking them to reconsider their support for the current bill," Schimminger said.

NYSAPE said it's always been opposed to the legislation, which it says still mandates districts use testing to evaluate teachers. It just allows the districts and unions to negotiate which assessments to use. Schimminger said with a Democratic-led Legislature the group may believe they can do better than a bill they viewed as a compromise at best.

"You know they say it's a whole new world in Albany and so far, in the first week of activity, last week, we saw a whole lot of unanimity and a whole lot of rapid, very hasty action. Now we're going to begin to see other aspects of that whole new world," he said.

However, Rumore said that may be the case but believes what's already proposed would be a major improvement.

"You say lookit, this looks like it makes sense and then you build on it from there. If you wait to have a perfect bill, you'll never have a bill," he said.