OP-ED | Education Reform Gets Away
by Susan Bigelow | Mar 30, 2012 9:06am
(5) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Education, Opinion
It’s the Year of the Lizard around here right now; specifically, it’s the Year of the Five-Lined Skink, an endangered critter who also happens to be Connecticut’s only native lizard.
In preparation, I’ve picked up a number of useful skink facts. For instance, when threatened they’ll actually voluntarily detach their still-wriggling tails, leaving confused predators with only about a quarter of a skink while the rest scurries away under your car or into your mailbox. It’s not a bad survival skill. The tail eventually grows back, the skink is still mostly intact, and the predator is annoyed but at least has something to show for its efforts.
In other lizard news, the legislature’s Education Committee passed the governor’s education reform bill this week, but not without making a few changes. Specifically, the most controversial piece of the bill, which significantly reshaped teacher tenure, was turned into a yearlong study after an unprecedented outcry from teachers and their unions. The problem may be that as of right now, there isn’t enough support to pass the bill with tenure reform in it. Like any good five-lined skink on the run from a vicious house cat, the bill has shed a piece of itself so it can keep moving forward.
But if there’s no tenure changes, is the bill still education reform? The governor wasn’t pleased that what he clearly feels is a crucial piece of the legislation was dropped, and urged legislators to put it right back in. Education reform groups like ConnCAN bashed the committee and the process, claiming that the resulting bill was “not reform.”
Are they right? Well, yes and no. After all, the bill still does other things, such as reforming teacher certifications, revamping school funding formulas and grants, and providing more support for charter schools. The debate over tenure had overshadowed a section of the bill that would give the Education Commissioner the power to put failing schools on a list and eventually apply to them one of four turnaround models. These models could involve getting rid of administration and staff, closing the school outright, or turning things over to charter school managers. The revised bill scales back the number of schools to which this would apply, but it’s still a major piece of the legislation and a crucial piece of reform efforts nationwide.
In fact, when people in government say that they “know how to fix” public education, they are talking about drastic school turnaround models like the aforementioned, as well as tenure reform. These turnaround models had their genesis in Arne Duncan’s Chicago Public Schools, and followed him to the U.S. Department of Education, where they’ve been hailed as a key way to fix ailing urban schools. However, whether these turnaround models actually work over the long term is now a matter of serious debate, even in Chicago itself. Ultimately what remains in the bill is definitely a kind pared-down reform, but whether it’s an effective one is another question entirely.
In fact, a lot of the reforms left in the revamped bill seem pretty lackluster. What was supposed to be the Year of Education Reform is dangerously close to turning into yet another Year of Education Tinkering. This is the fault of a lot of people, from wavering legislators to hard-charging, overzealous reformers, to a governor who has been less than effective in convincing teachers that the bill was anything but a slap in the face. It could also be the fault of the bill’s provisions themselves, which promise an education renaissance without a lot of evidence to suggest they could ever deliver.
Our little education reform skink is still on his four legs, scuttling off to safety without his tail. But it’s becoming more obvious that neither skink nor cat will really come away from this fight as winners. Maybe it’s time to pass what can be passed and start thinking about where we can go from here.
Tags: education, education reform, turnaround models, ConnCAN, Education Committee, Susan Bigelow, skinks, tenure, dh
(5) Comments
posted by: Mo Government | March 31, 2012 7:04am
“Reform” is always a code word for MORE government intrusion.
How about just the opposite? Why not let LOCAL communities run their schools and hire and fire as THEY SEE FIT?
Why would any parent in their right mind want to cede control of their schools to the state?
This makes no sense unless you have a blind faith in an omnipotent overseeing government, or you want to grab power and money away from rural and suburban districts. And in this case, this is what Malloy’s “reform” is all about.
Malloy isn’t concerned about the kids, parents, teachers or education, it’s all about grabbing control of how the schools are funded and taking this away from local communities.
If you like Malloy’s idea of reform, you probably just love hanging around the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you believe the state will fix your schools, then why not just let the state run everything else too why you are at it?
posted by: ALD | March 31, 2012 8:05am
To me the best part of this entire education reform matter is that finally it seems there is a lot of discussion about all that needs to be reformed. For so long the biggest worm in this education apple was not paying our teachers enough to attract and retain the best. Now we are learning the entire apple is filled with worms. I had no idea the entire system where the vast majority of our tax dollars are spent had so many problems until reading so many of the comments from both sides.
While there are major differences in opinion on what needs fixing, it’s clear virtually everyone feels what we now have is not coming close to serving the best interests of our children. Bottom line then that must mean that the status quo is unacceptable.
I understand the typical political logic Susan uses here by saying: “Maybe it’s time to pass what can be passed and start thinking about where we can go from here”. But to me that is like saying I know my car has 4 bad tires but I’ll still let my 16 year old son or daughter drive it as I find the means to change one bad tire at a time.
We cannot allow education reform to fall victim to the use of band aids as was used to kick the can down the road in our “budget reform”.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | March 31, 2012 8:30am
‘m guessing you wrote this before the Appropriations Commiteee took further whacks into Mally’s reforms.
Noteworthy changes:
♣ Canceled 3 new Charter Schools.
♣ Reduced increased fundng for Charters to $1,100 from $2,600.
♣ Reduced turnaround money by 53% from $22.9 Million to $10.8 Million
Pre-school will get better funding with another 500 seats and some additional Family Resource Centers.
http://www.ctfrc.org/index.asp
posted by: Linda12 | March 31, 2012 9:43am
Malloy is skilled at spin and the repetition of half truths. His dog and pony show faux forums were not designed to answer questions. He only asks a rhetorical question when put on the spot. He just wanted to repeat the same 5-6 memorized talking points over and over so they would end up in the newspaper and the public would then believe these statements to be factual.
All he had to do was keep stating the same soundbites repeatedly while also demeaning the teachers. We were misled by the union is another insult. As if we couldn’t read the 164 page bill and the 50 pages of the OLR report ourselves; we waited for the union to tell us what to think. Evidently, we do not have critical reading skills according to Dannell.
He also wants to ram through an evaluation system that hasn’t even been designed. If he and Stefan have no use for the unions and have called off the PEAC talks, why don’t they design their own system and make a proposal? They accept the PEAC framework, but then twist the facts to suit their main mission: privatize and get rid of collective bargaining.
He bashes teachers and the unions and never takes responsiblity for his own mistakes.
Listen to Fleischmann on WNPR - he makes it clear the Governor’s office/administration INVITED the unions to the discussions with the ED. Committee. When it didn’t go his way (full power to his charter school Commissioner) he began a whole new stream of lies.
http://www.yourpublicmedia.org/content/wnpr/where-we-live-revised-education-bill
posted by: Terry D. Cowgill | March 31, 2012 1:31pm
Very clever Susan. Talk about the tail wagging the skink. I had no idea we had such reptiles in the state. I figured, other than snakes, the closest we got to lizards was the spotted salamander, which of course is merely an amphibian.
Terrific column, though. I mostly agree with your analysis. I’ll probably be writing about the same topic on these pages next week, but suffice it to say that Malloy made a colossal mistake with his mischaracterization of tenure in the SOTS speech. If you’re going to pick a fight with the teachers unions, there are better bones of contention to grapple over.