By James Lomuscio
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s education reform bill aimed at fixing Connecticut’s failing public schools—and its ramifications for high performing districts such as Westport—drew more than 100 teachers and parents to a legislative information session at Town Hall tonight.
Kathy Sharp. president of the Westport teachers’ union, makes a point at tonight’s Town Hall forum. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Teacher tenure reforms, evaluations tied to standardized tests, the bill’s impact on salaries and the fact that there was no teacher input into Senate Bill 24 topped the list of teacher concerns about the 163-page bill revised by the state Education Committee last week.
Present at the dais were state Sen. Toni Boucher (R -26), Rep. Jonathan Steinberg (D-136), Rep. Gail Lavielle (R-143), Kathy Sharp, president of the Westport Education Association, and Staples High School teachers Julia McNamee and Anne Lutz Fernandez-Carol.
Boucher, who sits on the state’s Education and Higher Education Committees, noted that the bill aims to close dramatic achievement gaps between high performing and failing systems, pointing out that over the years the state has fallen from the nation’s top spot to 16th place.
“Too many students’ lives are at stake,” Boucher said.
“We can’t let the status quo stand because it is failing 41 percent of the students in our state,” she added.
Tonight’s educational reform discussion drew more than 100 to the Town Hall Auditorium. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Sharp stressed that the gap between school systems is tied to poor communities, not poor teachers.
“A lot of this comes down to the state’s socio-economic inequality, and it’s not fair to blame teachers,” she said to a round of applause.
She added that 98.4 percent of Bridgeport students receive free or reduced lunches compared to 2.7 percent in Westport, some of them Bridgeport students enrolled in Westport schools.
McNamee took aim at standardized test scores being tied to tenure and pay. She also called teaching to the test “a stultifying process” robbing students of creativity and overall learning.
“Tell me that standardized tests will not be tied to tenure and pay,” she said. “Tying it to tenure, I have no choice but to teach to the test.”
Boucher noted that in the revised bill 22 percent of the evaluation process compared to the original 45 percent would be based on standardized test results.
Fernandez -Carol had written to the Education Committee in late February that her salary was a mere 10 percent of what she had made as an investment banker, but the tradeoff was was doing something socially valuable “and that my job would be relatively secure.” SB 24, she said tonight, only fosters job insecurity.
Tonight’s panel heard views on the proposed education reform legislation. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
“I call that demerit pay,” she said about tying salaries to test scores.
“I hope that whatever we do keeps the incredible school system we have here,” said Sharp.
Steinberg said that the meeting’s outset that more talk and collaboration with teachers is needed.
“Probably the best solution for Westport would to be leave us alone; we have a great district,” he said.
“We have heard you loud and clear, and it’s been a consistent message about teaching to the test,” Steinberg added.
“We have too much at stake, and I’m extremely concerned about rushing to judgment on evaluation criteria. I believe in testing it out before we make it the law of the state.”
According to Senator Boucher, Connecticut’s education system currently is failing 41% of students. The fatal flaw in that statement is that CONNECTICUT DOES NOT HAVE AN EDUCATION SYSTEM. Education is left to the individual towns. To enact a bill that treats Westport like Hartford, Weston like Bridgeport, and Avon like Stamford is just plain wrong. Fix what is wrong with the towns that have failing schools. Instead of treating all towns the same, examine the successful systems (there are many) to see if you can apply their success to the failing schools. If this bill is adopted, we won’t be failing 41% of our students—we will be failing far more.
In three instances I have heard Toni Boucher express her dismay over the fact that “we have lost our number one perch,” and have fallen to number 16 in education “over the past 8-10 years.” I would ask her to consider what changed 8-10 years ago to cause this to happen: the No Child Left Behind Act, which stimulated the influx of standardized testing that we immerse our children in today, was passed in 2001. That’s no coincidence. Testing has lowered the standards of education and it shows. As educational reformer Alfie Kohn explains, “Research has repeatedly [shown] a positive correlation between shallow thinking and how well kids do on standardized tests.” The answer is less testing. Take the money invested in testing and help the 41% who need food, sleep and services.
Towns like Westport (and many others) did a pretty good job educating kids for over a couple centuries, so it