Where We Live: Teachers Unions
Today the heads of the state’s two major teachers unions lay out their goals
Connecticut teachers have been feeling under fire since Governor Malloy announced a sweeping new education plan.
Among the many points in his 163-page plan that’s now being debated by the legislature is a provision to change the rules on teacher tenure.
Malloy says that unions have already agreed to a deal that would tie student performance to teacher evaluations – but they’re cool to the Governor’s tenure plan.
Last night at yet another education forum - this time in West Hartford - faced a room full of teachers - with questions about what his proposals might mean for them.
Today, where we live, Mary Loftus-Levine and Sharon Palmer, the heads of the state’s two major teacher’s unions, join us in studio to lay out their goals for education reform, and to answer questions about teacher quality and educational achievement.
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Interesting point about not
Interesting point about not being able to fund an extended school year. Here's another consideration: the vacations aren't really for the teachers, they're for the kids. I personally don't mind working year round, but a five-year-old probably does. Same for an 8-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a teen. School can be very stressful, and kids need time with their families, time with their friends, time for sleep, and time for hobbies. Please remember that when you insist on longer school days and years.
Listener Email from Bethany
As a former education lawyer, it drives me crazy that performance standards, and their role in evaluating teachers and schools, measure the student against the standards for the grade they are in rather than where they were at the beginning of the year. Measuring against grade level isn't an accurate test for what the teacher has taught, or what the student has learned.
Listener Email from Amy
1. I can't understand why the discussion always focuses on the teachers as if they are fully in charge of what happens in a school/school district. One of most important issues, which no one ever mentions, is that Superintendents of Schools do not remain in districts for an extended period of time. It is they who set the tone, propose and manage the budget, and drive the policy under which the teachers must perform their jobs. As a former member of a Board of Education (10 years, two as Chair) I've witnesses a significant difference in the manner in which teachers function under the styles of several different Superintendents. As the "Captain of the Ship" a Superintendent, in concert with the Board, sets the priorities and goals for the District. With each change of management comes a change in those goals that teachers must reach. It's very difficult for teachers to maintain a consistant methodology for teaching and evaluating their students when the federal and state governments change their policy every few years; Superintendents newly arrived make changes to prove that the Board made the right decision when hiring them; and the latest "fad" touted by the education experts require the teachers to constantly navigate toward a different destination. Like a ship a School District cannot turn on a dime. It takes an extended period of consistant focus to reach the right destination. Unless we recognize that the problem is systemic in the manner in which we manage our School Districts we'll never have an excellent education system, because we just blame the teachers.
2. I'm very concerned that the fiscal restraints imposed by town budgets will rarely allow for enough administrators to properly evaluate the teachers. A quick snapshot of a teacher at work won't adequately constitute an evaluation. There's isn't enough time in the day for a Principal to conduct proper evaluations unless the school is very small.
3. In response to a caller who suggested an extended school year: unless the schools in CT are retrofitted to provide airconditioning, we'll never be able to entend the school year. Local town budgets can rarely afford to accomodate such a large capital expenditure.