OP-ED | CT School Improvement Requires A Team Effort
by Patrick Riccards | Jan 8, 2012 4:35pm
(6) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
Last week, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made a passionate case for why we all must commit to education reform in 2012. Speaking at his education reform summit, the governor made clear that school improvement is a team effort, requiring the involvement of all stakeholders.
No truer words have been spoken with regard to education reform in Connecticut. Improving our public schools is not just the role of teachers and principals. Parents and students play a key role, as do community leaders, local and state elected officials, advocates, the business community, and all of us who ever interact with anyone who went to public school – that is, every one of us. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire state to fix a child’s public schools.
And Connecticut’s public schools do indeed need fixing. Connecticut currently posts the worst achievement gaps in the nation. Two-thirds of our low-income third graders can’t read at grade level. One in five students drops out of high school. And the vast majority of our public school graduates going on to postsecondary education in Connecticut require basic remedial studies in English, math, or both. Now is the time for the Nutmeg State to wake up. The governor has made that clear, and is looking for all parties to join him in the restoration of Connecticut’s public schools.
Unfortunately, there are some who are continuing to insist that we allow procedural disagreements or superficial distractions to be valued over our children’s futures. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported very disconcerting comments from Gary Peluchette, head of the Bridgeport Education Association, referring to Connecticut residents trying to improve Connecticut public schools as “robber barons.” And last week we read some extreme vitriol from Jonathan Pelto calling into question the motives of nonprofit organizations in Connecticut and those citizens who are supporting student-focused causes.
These are just the latest examples of the venom with which some speak when discussing the role of public/private partnerships and the growing philanthropic interest in improving our public schools. Local community members, who want to see their local schools improve and have the financial means to help jumpstart a reform process, are now “robber barons?” Really?
A century ago, American public education was hardly the model to write home about, and private philanthropy was a big part of how we got to the top. We saw our medical schools take a significant step forward because of folks like Carnegie. Libraries benefited from people like Ford. General education and research were supported by the likes of Rockefeller.
There is now an entire literature dedicated to the role of corporate philanthropy and the societal benefits that derived from such giving. Today, we see large foundations as a result of those original “robber barons,” foundations that are committed to improving children’s health, education, and society as a whole. They do so without a profit motive, just hoping to make a difference with the resources the have available. They do so because they want to leave the world, and our state, a better place.
That is why it is so disappointing to see the Peltos and Peluchettes of the world try to place some sort of shame on those who are willing to support important causes such as education improvement in Connecticut. We should be proud of those who are willing to put their own dollars toward efforts to improve our public schools. We should applaud those who volunteer their time to ensure every child has access to great public schools. And we should demand that more get involved, with both their time and their money, to ensure that our children and our state have a stronger future. Instead of looking for conspiracy theories or seeking to ascribe sinister motives for those who are trying to do the public good, we should be joining with them in the cause.
Let there be no mistake, there is no money to be made or financial return on investment to be won from donating to education nonprofits or public charities. The financial return to be gained from education reform is held solely by those children who will benefit from better public schools, and by our state, which will spend less on remediation and social services and gain more from revenues contributed by productive adults who reach their professional peak.
Ultimately, we are doing our kids, our schools, and our community a disservice when we try to run off well-meaning philanthropists and civic leaders with name-calling, insinuation of ulterior motives, or promoting a general sense of “ickiness” because the private sector wants to contribute to our public schools. Instead, we should be embracing such involvement, and answering the call from Governor Malloy to have all concerned parties at the table, fixing the problems of Connecticut public education.
For us to be truly successful, we must engage the entire educational “village” – the village we saw firsthand at last Thursday’s education reform summit. From the teachers unions, to superintendent and board of education groups, to think tanks, to community organizations, to advocacy groups, we’re all in this together. And as the adults in the village, it’s our job to focus on the kids. We must stop with the name-calling and the feigned procedural concerns. When we look back in 20 years and ask “What became of the Year for Education Reform?” the worst possible thing would be to say that this unprecedented moment was hijacked by a few status quo defenders who won out by making everyone feel icky. What a disappointment that would be. Can’t we do better, Connecticut?
Now is not the time to turn away a helping hand, and try to walk the road alone. We need all the help we can get.
Patrick Riccards is the CEO of ConnCAN, a statewide education reform advocacy organization.
Tags: education, Malloy, funding, ConnCAN, Patrick Riccards
(6) Comments
posted by: jonpelto | January 8, 2012 7:48pm
Patrick,
As a traveling PR guy you should know better than anyone that when you move into a state it’s best to get the lay of the land before you start making observations or comments that reveal you haven’t yet learned the history or the dynamics surrounding an issue.
In your first Op-Ed in the CTNewsjunkie back in November 2010, you trashed the ECS Formula and asked whether the Governor and Legislature will “perpetuate Connecticut’s long tradition of defining the problem and doing nothing to fix it.”
Not only is your comment wrong, it’s absurd. As an education advocate, legislator and policy activist for the past 30 years I had the opportunity to witness and at times participate in the development of the original GTB formula, the landmark Educational Enhancement Act and the Educational Cost Sharing formula. In 1986, for example, we moved Connecticut from 36th in the nation to 1st in the nation when it comes to providing teachers with a fair salary level. That change has attracted and retained some of the brightest teachers in the country.
Furthermore, I can assure you that those of us who have served as policy leaders on educational issues have spent decades working to confront the incredible challenges that face our school funding system. There is no reason you’d know this but since Connecticut relies primarily on the local property tax to fund our schools, there are 169 different situations and the various formulas have sought to address that problem while still respecting the historic importance of “local control”.
For a history lesson on this topic I’d urge you to sit down with Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman who has done more to develop and refine school funding then virtually anyone.
In your latest commentary piece, I have to say I was amused by your comment that my comments that you have “read some extreme vitriol from Jonathan Pelto calling into question the motives of nonprofit organizations in Connecticut and those citizens who are supporting student-focused causes.”
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. I made some very specific observations and pointed out some very specific concerns that require a more detailed response than simply calling them “extreme vitriol”.
Let’s start with just one of those issues.
You’ve recently become the CEO of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Inc (ConnCAN). When ConnCAN was formed by members of the Achievement First Board of Directors also formed a second entity called the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc. Over the past few years, the 2nd organization has spent more than half a million dollars on lobbying but due to a fluke in the law has never had to identify where that money comes from. This year, your organization, ConnCAN has taken over paying that contract for $95,000.
It is hardly “extreme vitriol” to ask who paid for that extraordinary lobbying effort.
Also you say “that is why it is so disappointing to see the Peltos…of the world try to place some sort of shame on those who are willing to support important causes such as education improvement in Connecticut.”
“Shame on those willing to support educational improvement”?
You’ve got to be kidding.
Personally I think there is nothing more honorable or important than working toward “educational improvement” and that is why hundreds, even thousands of us have been working on that task for decades.
You are most welcome to join the effort, but the first step would be to speak opening and honestly about the relationship between Achievement First, ConnCAN, Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Advocacy, Inc. and 50-CAN.
And while you are at it, Achievement First and ConnCAN claim great success when it comes to mastery test scores but they overlook that fact that their success comes from “creaming” the brightest students out of our urban school districts.
Achievement First’s students are less poor, have far fewer language barriers and enjoy far greater parental involvement then do the children left behind in the public school systems. If you weren’t getting better test scores something would be very wrong.
Educational Reform is the most vital issue of our time. Now is hardly the time to resort tactics better left at the PR firms of Madison Avenue.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | January 8, 2012 11:57pm
Jon Pelto:
When I see you advocating the use of regional vouchers for public, private, parochial and decentralized home schooling options then I’ll believe you truly support education reform and innovation.
What we are doing is not working and solutions that put union contracts first and foremost need to be summarily thrown out the window and discounted as propoganda.
Let the parents chose. Let them vote with their feet and their wallets and take their vouchers where ever they want.
I’m certified in CT and MA in multiple areas, I’ve taught and I know the funding issues and special ed issues and so forth. It doesn’t change the fact we’ve created a monster.
CT needs to be a trendsetter in innovation and results—not a trendsetter in teacher salaries and encouraging the Masters +30 cultus of certification requirement creep unrelated to any meaningful classroom performance.
Here’s why I love the legislature: they simply hate the free market approach to healing the system. The thought that free markets could help solve some problems and quicken the pace of innovation is taboo.
Why free market when a P/T legislature can provide all the answers and funding and lack of accountability a system needs to become a behemoth of failure?
The day I see the “Pelto and Wyman Model School” in Hartford, the CT franchise model and its success is publicized in every academic journal and teaching rag, “that’ll be the day when I die” to borrow from Buddy Holly.
Instead of a small proof of concept to establish a baseline we’ll take the usual approach: throw money at organized crime! Let’s rip off another generation of kids!
posted by: Martha H | January 9, 2012 12:33pm
Mr. Riccards,
You write:
“Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported very disconcerting comments from Gary Peluchette, head of the Bridgeport Education Association, referring to Connecticut residents trying to improve Connecticut public schools as ‘robber barons.’”
But the term “robber barons” appears nowhere in the WSJ story to which you provide a link.
{Goes to credibility sir.}
posted by: PatrickRiccards | January 9, 2012 7:42pm
Martha, you are correct. The phrase in question appeared in the print edition of the December 23 Wall Street Journal. For some reason, the sentence has been removed from the online version. But any library should have the print edition where you can verify the statement.