The state's largest teachers union is urging state legislators to remove the authority to set certification and ethical standards for teachers from the State Department of Education and have an autonomous panel led by educators determine those requirements for themselves.
"You'll find teachers are harder on other teachers than anyone else will ever be because they know the job," said Mary Loftus Levine, the executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, calling this a top agenda item of hers. "This will elevate the profession."
The question of how standards should be set is under review now by the legislature's Program Review and Investigations Committee, which will hold a public hearing in November on the topic and make some final recommendations in December.
"There are many, many educators in the state who would be effected by any kind of change," Carrie Vibert, director PRI committee staff, told the committee this week when releasing a preliminary report on the issue.
But Nancy Pugliese, who leads the teacher certification division at the SDE, said taking the authority for setting standards from her department is a bad idea. The CEA has thwarted efforts by the department to update the standards for years, she said.
Levine sees it differently: The revised standards "still not done because they're stuck over at the State Department of Education," she said.
Currently, a 17-member committee develops recommendations for the SDE and State Board of Education consider on changes to teacher requirements. Four of those committee members are teachers appointed by the CEA. The rest of the panel is made up of business and industry officials, school administrators and parents.
Pugliese said the union is able to exert considerable influence over the process. "We have been trying to advance the standards more than they wanted to go along with," she said. "A lot of the pushback was from the union."
Allan Taylor, chairman of the state board of education, said setting standards is vital--it "decides what our schools accomplish," he said--and agreed that it doesn't work well. But he said he's not sure the answer is an independent body of educators.
Phil Apruzzese, president of the 41,000-member CEA, said giving teachers the authority is important.
"We hear regularly from our members that they want a voice in decision-making through a new board because they know firsthand what it takes to deliver excellent teaching and learning, and they want to be accountable for excellence. A new board would give them the opportunity to set high standards and be responsible for achieving them," he said.
But Robert Rader, the head of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said the SDE must maintain authority over this function.
"It's critical a third party handles these standards and also the enforcement of it to ensure there is quality in the classroom," he said.
Pugliese said in states where this shift has occurred, the result has been a decline in standards.
"I know some states that this hasn't worked out so well for," she said.
And the fox should guard the henhouse!
Detached from Reality.
The education problems in CT aren't caused by the licensure system. A self-regulating board of teaching raises the profession and the dignity of teachers?
OK. I read the web site. Teachers want fewer CEUs for practicing teachers and don't want to pay out of pocket for maintaining their license. They do want to make it harder for teachers with non-public school experience to get certified or through alt certifications.
Nowhere is it mentioned that the kids are failing at an alarming rate in Hartford and how any of these changes are truly relevant?
As a certified
Read MoreThat was my first thought - What the fox guarding the henhouse?? That is why we're in this mess. I quess it was worth a try. We are at such a critical place here. Here's hoping the RIGHT decisions will be made for the future of our education system. I have an indoctrinated daugther to help see the light. So many kids, young people to help now to save this great country. :)
Educators and their powerful unions already have, and have exercised, this power. What they seek of course is to remove all interference to their complete, unilateral power over all facets of education. Union heads want to officially name themselves the state department of education. Power they effectively already have.
Next move of course is that union leaders will ask to be the sole budget setting authority in each community. These are not very big steps: we are almost there already.
The last thing we need is self-regulation of teachers, and giving them the power to keep everyone else out of the system.
The current teaching cadre, their educational pathways and personal academic performance in gaining their degrees, their administrative hierarchies, and more are all at the root of the collapse of American education.
We need intellectuals working as teachers. Anyone with a graduate degree with a 3.0+ GPA in the relevant area of study should be allowed to be a candidate for a teaching position. No certificate grad degrees ... true research grad degrees only. No fake doctoral degrees for
Read MoreHaving the teachers' union(s) being responsible for setting teaching standards for the State and its municipalities would be a HUGE mistake - and I'm a unionist!
Unions are NOT professional guilds - they're UNIONS, and there's a big difference between the two. Also, if we start having unions become responsible for setting professional standards, the unions' role in collective bargaining - and their responsibilities to their members in that regard - will become significantly compromised.
The current process and structure should remain in place; otherwise the potential for students, taxpayers AND teachers to be harmed becomes significantly increased over time.
The CEA is out of its mind. They are clue-less - we don't need more inbreeding. The system needs an injection from outside that box of teachers that hates change. The state ed department is clueless too - the certification standards always have been a glorified credit count- unable to look at holisic factors in good teaching. This is particularly true in the leadership certifications. Hell, this new commissioner (while not a certified role) would be considered unqualified by the mentality these bureaucrats use to determine quality. Let's hope Mr Pryor and his new team of
Read MoreThe CEA's charge is to protect and promote the interests of its members. Its members are the teachers. So it is doing its job. It is up to the government to protect and promote the interests of the children and society. I see the CEA doing its job - sometimes to the detriment to the children and society. What I don't see yet is the government doing its job and standing up to the CEA. The result, in part, is very bad for lower income children and communities.
Tell Malloy to keep going forward with the Common Core State Standards that the CT Dept.of ED. signed on july 7 2010
Susan Bysiewicz, Democractic candidate for U.S. Senate, during a debate with U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy.
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