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Could This Be The End Of Education Reform?


Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor will be retiring, according to a news report, in January, just as the New Year begins. When Mr. Pryor first entered the Malloy administration, he was warmly received by the newly elected governor, who was dissatisfied with the quality of public education in Connecticut’s urban areas. Mr. Malloy made it plain that students in low performing public schools were not dispensable.  Students in Connecticut’s larger cities may have languished in under-performing schools during the administrations of less solicitous governors; but, in Mr. Malloy’s view, such students, whose futures had for years been blasted by inadequate education, were no less precious than the children of more prosperous parents in West Hartford, Avon or New Canaan.

Mr. Malloy was to be an education governor. It did not take Mr. Malloy long to discover that it was nearly impossible to purge bad schools of bad teachers. To redress this socially destructive inequity, he backed a series of pedagogical reforms that tied teacher performance and hiring to educational outcomes, thereby richly earning the contumely of bad teachers and supporters of the pedagogical status quo such as Jonathan Pelto.

For months during the current election season, Mr. Pelto, who ran for governor as an Independent, was the teacher union’s stone in Mr. Malloy’s shoe. Mr. Pelto was particularly harsh on those pedagogical reformers who clustered around Mr. Malloy. Mr. Pryor was his bete noir. Common Core – or, as a critic of the critics of Common Core once called it, “Common Gore” – was Mr. Pelto’s campaign drum; he beat on it incessantly.

Mr. Pelto was able to make common cause with some conservatives, who detested Common Core for quite different reasons. Mr. Pelto objected to Common Core because it provided a standard according to which teachers might be rated, the worst of them to be drummed, one way or another, out of the profession.  The conservative beef against Common Core was that the control of schools and curricula should rest, in conformity to the principle of subsidiarity, with elected school boards in Connecticut’s towns – and NOT with some distant federal agency they would rather see dismantled and thrown on the ash heap of history.

Mr. Malloy, a self-described porcupine, very likely did not take kindly to Pelto’s whips and scorns. Quietly and without exciting notice, he and his subalterns managed to corral the endorsements of Connecticut’s major teacher unions, whose members were bleeding from quills early shot at them by the governor. Late in his reelection campaign, Mr. Malloy apologized for having said in a rare moment of candor during his first “State of the State” address, “Basically the only thing you [teachers] have to do is show up for four years. Do that, and tenure is yours.” What teachers heard on that occasion was: “We will be the threshing floor; we will separate the wheat from the chaff. In the future, tenure will be a reward for measurable services. It will no longer be a birthright of those who belong to unions.”

Game on.

The question now before the house is: Having softened his position on tenure, having regained the faith and support of teachers unions, having established a “working group” that will make changes in the implementation of Common Core State Standards, once the central pillar of Mr. Malloy’s pedagogical reform effort, and lastly, having bid a fond adieu to Mr. Pryor  -- who had, according to a send-off testimonial, raised Connecticut’s  “standards for educators and students; provided additional supports to districts; implemented a system of accountability for continuous improvement  and made notable progress toward closing achievement gaps" – what is to become of students left behind, the graduates of inferior urban public schools? And, perhaps more importantly, what is to become of the teachers in poor quality urban public schools holding on to their jobs with clenched tenured teeth?

Which Malloy will be governor in his second term: the Malloy who, during his first term, strutted the public stage like a pedagogical Samson, quite willing to pull the educational house down upon his own head, if such was necessary to save urban school children from cripplingly poor public schools; or the Malloy who marches gaily in union picket lines?

The late Bill Buckley – GOD, HOW HE IS MISSED!  -- was asked, after an address in WestConn what President Richard Nixon was really like. He had just finished raking Mr. Nixon over hot coals for having, as Buckley said, “clinked glasses cordially” with Chairman Mao, one of the most prolific mass murderers in modern history. Mr. Buckley smiled that world conquering smile of his and asked in return: “Which one? There are at least four of them, you know.”


On the pedagogical front, there are at least two Malloys – or, possibly, one Malloy with two faces.

Comments

peter brush said…
Jack Bryant, president of the Stamford NAACP, said he had no problem with traditional public schools, “but if there’s something better out there, I think a parent should have the choice.”
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elected school boards in Connecticut’s towns
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I can't make out with precision what the organization ConnCan stands for beyond a vague desire for Malloy to do something, get something done, regarding education. Still, the rally down in New Haven yesterday is encouraging. I can't say that it represents univocal support for vouchers, getting government out of the business of running schools, but it certainly represents a growing understanding that the government education structure based on exclusionary districts and bureaucratic control is a gross fraud.
My objections to the Common Corpse are multiple, but most importantly I don't want the National Government acting outside its Constitutional limits for both legal and policy reasons. On the other hand, we tend here in Nutmegistan to forget that the local school boards are agents of the State Government; i.e., local control is largely illusory. Unionization, special ed, even curriculum and standards are largely dictated by the State. Perhaps the most damaging public policy the State blithely conducts is the administration of schools by geographic district. In general, we should retain State funding for primary/secondary education, but expel the State from management.
peter brush said…
gross fraud
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Not only has the Veterans Administration provided poor service to those in our society who have sacrificed the most for us, but the hacks in the VA bureaucracy have gotten bonuses based on their falsified records of service never provided. Similarly with our government schools. Jonathan Pelto took notice last year of the test fraud at Betances School in Hartford, and used it as a vehicle for criticism of a policy of teacher pay related to test scores, and of Malloyalist "reform" generally. I don't necessarily disagree with Pelto on that. But, it is also an abuse of the kids, their parents, and the taxpayers. To my knowledge there has yet to be anyone identified much less held accountable by either the "local" school board, the State School Board (headed, as it happens, by a Hartford fellow), or by the now departing Education Commissioner, Stefan Pryor. I guess we're supposed to think that merely determining that fraud occurred is close enough for government work to actual rectification.
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In Hartford, Superintendent of Schools Christina Kishimoto called the test tampering “really poor judgment that I want to really get to the bottom of.”

And not to be outdone, Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, told the Courant that the state was discussing what steps to take with Hartford school leaders regarding the cheating scandal.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/11/07/wait-cheating-students-dont-know-changing-answers-right/
peter brush said…
Mr. Pelto's primary concern with the public schools is that they remain under maximum government control. Charter schools, government schools that operate with some independence from "local" school boards, are bad, not so much in their effects on kids, but because of their independence per se (compounded with Pelto's dread of implied private profits). He is probably against contracting out garbage collection in West Hartford or landscaping at the State Capitol.

So, as emblematic of the progressive profound sympathy for the children, Pelto's knickers are currently bunched on the theme of profiteering by one Steve Perry, charter school impresario. Pelto is outraged that Perry has applied to open schools in NY. The alleged sin is not that New York kids will suffer, but that Perry has misappropriated Nutmeg government property.
While a complaint has been filed with various watchdogs and an open letter to the "local" Board has been written, no complaints have ever been lodged (my certain knowledge only extends to the Ethics Commission) in reference to test fraud at the Betances School. Could it be because Betances is a District Bureaucratic School? That looking too closely at its operations might be embarrassing to the single-payer education movement? Could it be that ideology is so important that child abuse should be swept under the rug?
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Perry’s newly approved charter grants him the ability to collect a 10 percent annual management fee that will mean millions of dollars being transferred to his company.

The use of copyrighted materials for personal or private gain is a criminal offense under federal law.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2014/12/05/open-letter-hartford-board-education-hartford-superintendent-schools-regarding-steve-perry/
peter brush said…
After exhaustive research on the matter, my staff has determined that the Principal at the Betances School, Immacula Didier, and the "literacy coach," Linda Liss-Bronstein, were put on leave last year when the test fraud was exposed. Neither they, nor anyone else, have ever been accused of the fraud. Presumably, the investigation by the Connecticut Government School District continues.
“We took this necessary action to avoid any disruptions or distractions to your child’s education at Betances while the district investigates CMT testing irregularities that occurred last spring,” Kishimoto wrote. “We appreciate your understanding and cooperation during this difficult period.”

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The city board of education was informed that Betances Principal Immacula Didier and Linda Liss-Bronstein, Betances’ literacy coach and dean of professional development, are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, said Matthew Poland, the board’s chairman.http://foxct.com/2013/11/26/two-hartford-educators-placed-on-leave-during-cmt-probe/
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Things appeared to be looking up at Betances. In 2011, only 19 percent of third-graders at the pre-K-to-3 school achieved the state's reading goal, but in 2012, the number shot up to 74 percent, by far the most dramatic improvement by any Hartford school. Bonuses of up to $2,500 were awarded to teachers; school Principal Immacula Didier received a $10,000 bonus from the district, The Courant reported.

http://www.courant.com/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-test-tampering-20131108-story.html
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Immacula Didier, Principal of Betances Early Reading Lab
Immacula Didier is the principal of Betances Early Reading Lab Magnet School. She joined Hartford Public Schools two years ago, in August of 2010. Dr. Didier started her career in Connecticut in 1996 as a KG teacher in New Haven and continued as a reading specialist and an administrator. She holds a BA from Brooklyn College, an MA and a doctorate from SCSU. Dr. Didier’s doctoral thesis focused on creating change in schools in less than 3-5 years, and with her school’s recent success in this year’s CMT, she seems to be on track! Dr. Didier is passionate about closing the achievement gap and working with kids.

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