SHERBURNE – With a list of new proposals for public education on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2015 opportunities agenda, New York State Assemblyman Gary Finch met with teachers and administrators at the Sherburn-Earlville Central School on Friday to hash out what it could mean for schools across the state.

Finch toured Sherburne-Earlville’s facilities, meeting with teachers, administrators and students to address key concerns as the state legislature begins negotiations for the 2015-2016 budget. The visit was a chance for educators to share their views of the governor’s executive budget which has been marked with criticism by teachers’ unions for allegedly attacking public education.

Critics argue that the governor’s proposed education reform would take money away from public schools in order to fund more charter schools, thus taking steps to privatize education. The proposal would also limit the power of school boards, allow a takeover of the NY Board of Regents to give full control over public education to the governor, increase testing, and withhold preliminary funding amounts needed to formulate a school budget if schools don’t agree with the new terms.

Additionally, the governor put a more stringent teacher evaluation process on the table that would provide a financial incentive for high performing teachers while essentially banishing from the classroom teachers who don’t score as “effective” or “improving” for two consecutive years.

“There is a lot of rhetoric from both sides of the argument that just isn’t making sense,” Finch said, noting that debate over education reform is mainly pitting union leaders against the governor. “There is a distinction between the union and union members. I think the governor's battle is clearly with the unions and union leaders.”

Finch also said the Master Teacher Program, while appealing on paper, presents challenges for teachers who deal with disadvantaged students. The program provides a $20,000 stipend to high performing teachers; but Finch said it’s mostly teachers in affluent districts with high performing students who will see the greatest benefit.

“Some of those ideas just are not going to work,” Finch added. “Many of the educational problems for students start at home, so each student is different and each group of students is different ... You might have teachers working harder and being more successful (in terms of progress) in poverty districts, but rich districts are getting more credit for scoring higher on teacher evaluations because their students are doing better.”