ConnCAN Education News Roundup: March 13-19,
2009
To recommend an article for next week’s News
Roundup, email Allison Pelliccio, ConnCAN’s e-advocacy associate, at
allison....@conncan.org.
| Take Action: Tell the Education Committee to support
Raised H.B. No. 6654 and H.B. 6666 to improve teacher quality
in Connecticut!
 Tell your
legislator to support H.B. 6654 and H.B. 6666 -- two bills
that will improve teacher quality in Connecticut. At no cost
to the state, Raised H.B. No. 6654, “An Act Establishing A
Resident Teacher Certificate,” would protect Teach for America
by allowing it to establish a one-year resident teacher
certificate.
There is an urgent shortage of teachers in
high-need subject areas such as math and science in our urban
schools. Raised H.B. No. 6666, “An Act Concerning Teacher
Certification” would allow teachers who score high on an
approved exam to bypass college credit requirements for these
subject areas. It replaces an arbitrary barrier – majoring in
a specific subject – with a rigorous exam to bring more
excellent teachers to Connecticut classrooms.
Click
here to write your legislator and ask them to support H.B.
6654 and H.B. 6666! |
| Spotlight Story: ConnCAN in the News: Researchers
want data on students
By Elizabeth Benton, New Haven Register, March 13,
2009
Since 2005, the state Department of Education has
been growing a system capable of tracking the progress of
individual students.
By assigning each student a code,
called a unique student identifier, the state now generates a
data trail as students move across districts and schools,
through grades and in and out of various programs.
Data
could be used, for instance, to show a student’s progress year
to year, or to study the impact made by specific programs,
teachers or schools on a student or groups of
students.
Education researchers eager to access that
wealth of information are seeking new legislation to open
access to the database, a push that has thus far been resisted
by the state Department of Education, citing federal student
privacy laws.
State Department of Education spokesman
Thomas Murphy points to the federal Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act, which bars release of student records to
anyone not affiliated with a school system.
New
Haven-based education nonprofit Connecticut Coalition for
Achievement Now is leading the fight to open the
records.
ConnCAN already publishes numerous reports on
the quality of state education. But its analysis is limited by
numbers it can access.
“The linked data sits idle, and
the promise of unique student identifiers remains unfilled:
parents, nonprofits and universities still do not have access
to data about growth in student achievement,” ConnCAN Chief
Operating Officer Marc Porter McGee testified last month.
“Because (the state Department of Education) does not release
growth data, it is difficult to fully determine a school’s
effects on student achievement.”
Read
More... |
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| Tougher Certification Could Hurt Teach For America
Program
Editorial, Hartford Courant, March 19, 2009
Message
to the state: Please don't make it difficult for Teach for
America to help Connecticut schools.
The state
Department of Education is considering an extensive overhaul
of teacher certification requirements that could be a
game-changing disincentive for talented graduates of top
colleges who take two-year teaching jobs in mostly urban
school systems. More than 60 percent of them either continue
teaching after their two-year Teach for America commitments or
they start up the school administrative ladder.
It
would be a loss to drive these recruits away. Teach for
America instructors — innovative, energetic and dedicated —
have had measurable success in helping close the academic
achievement gap between poor inner-city kids and the usually
better-performing children of suburban middle-class families.
There should be room for nontraditional teachers in public
school classrooms.
Last year, there were about 24,000
applicants nationwide for Teach for America. This year, the
number of applicants is expected to be around 40,000. One in
five is chosen. Hartford has about 70 instructors, with plans
to increase that to 100. These young teachers are in some 150
classrooms throughout Connecticut, teaching more than 9,000
students in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven and Stamford —
nearly 10 percent of Connecticut's low-income
children.
They are making a difference.
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More... |
| Bureaucracy threatens Teach for America in
Connecticut
By Rick Green, Hartford Courant, March 18,
2009
Teach for America, the program that brings top
college graduates into teaching in urban classrooms, will
likely shut down in Connecticut unless the legislature
approves changes in certification for educators.
There
are now 150 Teach for America corps members in Hartford, New
Haven and Bridgeport. Among the graduates of the two-year
program, 90 percent are still working in education and 75
percent are still teaching.
Since arriving in
Connecticut a few years ago, Teach for America has been able
to place hundreds of teachers -- who are college, but not
education school graduates -- in city schools. Now, proposed
changes and reforms to the state's teacher certification laws
make it essential that the state set up a "resident teacher"
program for Teach for America, supporters say.
"We need
this in place in order for it to make sense for us to continue
to be operating,'' Novak told me. "Teach for America has been
operating under a framework that doesn't make sense. This
certification would mirror the license that exists in every
other state where TFA works."
The changes are opposed
by the American Federation of Teachers, but supported by the
Connecticut Education Association.
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More... |
| Teacher Certification: Connecticut Plan Would
Increase Training Requirements
By DON STACOM, The Hartford Courant, March 17,
2009
Before new teachers get to run a classroom in
Connecticut, they should have to undergo extensive training
that includes lessons on working with children who speak
little English, have learning disabilities or exhibit
behavioral problems, according to state Education Commissioner
Mark McQuillan.
But at least two groups want
exceptions. Students at a New Haven magnet school say
part-time arts instructors should be free of the rule, and the
superintendent of Hartford schools wants Teach for America
workers to be exempt, too.
State lawmakers heard from
all sides of the debate Monday when they reviewed various
recommendations for overhauling the state's teacher
certification system.
McQuillan described the
centerpiece proposal as a way to train new teachers for a
student population that's changed significantly in the past
few decades.
Sen. Thomas Gaffey, co-chairman of the
education committee, repeatedly expressed doubts, though, and
advised McQuillan to produce a detailed explanation of the new
certification curriculum he seeks.
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More... |
| Connecticut School Officials See Possible Flaws In
Federal Stimulus Aid
By DON STACOM, The Hartford Courant, March 18,
2009
The strings attached to nearly a quarter-billion
dollars of federal stimulus aid could drive Connecticut
schools to launch new summertime and after-school initiatives
at the same time they're slashing classroom programs and
laying off teachers, educators warned at a conference
Tuesday.
At stake is $243 million; the federal
government wants it used for innovative new services for
special education students and those from poor families, while
local school systems want it to fill holes that the recession
has punched in their budgets.
"There's not much
flexibility in its use," state Department of Education
Commissioner Mark McQuillan told a conference at the Hartford
Marriott Tuesday that drew about 350 superintendents and
business managers from nearly every public school system in
Connecticut.
Educators in the crowd asked exactly how
they can — and can't — use the money, but McQuillan and his
staff insisted there's no simple answer.
"This is still
a work in progress. We expected the guidance from [education
officials in] Washington to be more robust," he
acknowledged.
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More... |
| School officials get information about federal funds
coming to state
By Elizabeth Benton, New Haven Register, March 18,
2009
School superintendents and leaders from 156 of the
state’s 166 school districts packed a conference room at the
downtown Marriott hotel Tuesday to hear how much they might
receive from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act.
Connecticut will receive $542 million through the
2009-10 and 2010-11 fiscal years from the federal State Fiscal
Stabilization Fund Program. Gov. M. Jodi Rell has opted to
funnel that entire sum toward local Education Cost Sharing
grants.
The money will be used to fund ECS grants to
local school districts at a time when many programs statewide
are being cut to fill a gaping budget deficit. In addition to
ECS grants, districts can expect a substantial windfall in
federal funding for education of low-income and disabled
students, according to state Department of Education
estimates.
The first round of funding could be
delivered to states as early as March 30.
New Haven,
for instance, is expected to receive close to $8.3 million
because of its low-income students, and about $6 million for
special education for the next two fiscal years. The money is
in addition to federal aid the city traditionally receives for
those programs.
But how districts can spend the money
is limited, and there are heavy reporting and auditing
requirements to assure the money is spent as
intended.
New Haven schools Chief Operating Officer
Will Clark said the district needs flexibility in its ability
to spend stimulus money.
“We’re looking to try to have
flexibility to use the money for what works, to keep programs
running that are effective,” he said. “Why would we start a
new program for reading if we have a reading program we know
works?”
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More... |
| More Than 100 Protest Planned Hartford School
Cuts
By JODIE MOZDZER, The Hartford Courant, March 18, 2009
Passionate objections to a proposed $367.6 million
Hartford schools budget took the form of a human whirlpool
Tuesday night, as more than 100 parents, teachers and students
marched in a large circle outside the Learning Corridor's
theater on Washington Street.
They chanted and waved
signs that said "Respect" and "I love my school counselor."
And then, inside the theater, they waited.
The speakers
unanimously urged the board to avoid cutting jobs. The
district Tuesday night released a list of positions that would
be among the 254 to be cut. It includes about 120 teachers, 48
central office staff, 30 paraprofessionals, 15 custodians and
10 guidance counselors.
The counselor cuts were
adamantly opposed by students, who offered stories about
counselors helping students' abused friends, averting paths to
drug dealing and leading students to college.
The PTO
Presidents Council, which organized the protest, had concerns
beyond the job cuts, including a lack of communication between
parents and the district.
But the board of education
has to work in a tough economic situation. Even if the state
keeps Education Cost Sharing grants at the same level as last
year, the district was counting on an increase to cover the
rising cost of salaries and utilities. Adamowski said it's not
clear if the state will reduce the amount Gov. M. Jodi Rell
proposed in her budget or if the city will increase its
payment to continue contributing about one-third of the school
budget.
Read
More... |
| PTO To Motley: We Like You, But We'll Be Watching
You
By Jodie Mozdzer, Hartford Courant, March 17, 2009
John Motley took charge at the Hartford School
Building Committee meeting Monday, after fellow committee
members unanimously elected him chairman.
Motley's
appointment comes after Mayor Eddie A. Perez stepped down from
his leadership posts on both the building committee and the
board of education last month.
A handful of PTO
presidents welcomed Motley to his new post Monday. But they
also gave a friendly warning that parents plan to become more
active in the happenings of the committee, which oversees
spending on building projects.
Still, Motley, who was
appointed to the committee last month and was officially voted
its chairman Monday, was hailed by committee members and
parents as a man very involved in educational and community
issues in Hartford.
Motley, a partner at the consulting
firm MotleyBeup, LLP, was the director of external affairs for
the school district and was president of the Travelers
Foundation. He is a trustee for the Connecticut State
University system, and serves on boards for the Connecticut
Center for School Change, Hartford's Achievement First charter
school and Teach For America.
Motley welcomed the
scrutiny from the parents, and handed out his card during the
public comment session to anyone who wanted to set up a
meeting with him.
Read
More... |
| 'No Picnic for Me Either’
By DAVID BROOKS, Op-Ed, The New York Times, March 13,
2009
In his education speech this week, Barack Obama
retold a by-now familiar story. When he was a boy, his mother
would wake him up at 4:30 to tutor him for a few hours before
he went off to school. When young Barry complained about
getting up so early, his mother responded: “This is no picnic
for me either, Buster.”
That experience was the perfect
preparation for reforming American education because it
underlines the two traits necessary for academic success:
relationships and rigor.
We’ve spent years working on
ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the
relationship between one student and one teacher. You ask a
kid who has graduated from high school to list the teachers
who mattered in his life, and he will reel off names. You ask
a kid who dropped out, and he will not even understand the
question. Relationships like that are beyond his
experience.
In his speech, Obama actually put more
emphasis on the other side of the equation: rigor. In this
context, that means testing and accountability.
The
problem is that as our ability to get data has improved, the
education establishment’s ability to evade the consequences of
data has improved, too. Most districts don’t use data to
reward good teachers. States have watered down their
proficiency standards so parents think their own schools are
much better than they are.
Obama’s goal is to make sure
results have consequences. He praises data sets that “tell us
which students had which teachers so we can assess what’s
working and what’s not.” He also aims to reward states that
use data to make decisions. He will build on a Bush program
that gives states money for merit pay so long as they measure
teachers based on real results. He will reward states that
expand charter schools, which are drivers of innovation, so
long as they use data to figure out which charters are
working.
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