What About the Teacher Coaches…
Last week, Karissa Niehoff, the Executive Director of the Connecticut Association of Schools participated in a press conference at the State Capitol to support Governor Malloy’s “Education Reform” package and to condemn the changes Democratic legislators made to Malloy’s controversial “reform” proposals.
Many know the Connecticut Association of Schools by its other name – the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC).
Niehoff joined a coalition of state business and “education reform” groups, as well as, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents and the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
Although the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER), a group made up of Connecticut’s largest CEO’s, “won the day” with their bizarre pronouncement that poverty was not a barrier to educational outcomes, the Executive Director of the Connecticut Association of Schools/ Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference came in a close second when she observed that allowing teachers and their unions to participate in developing and implementing turn-around plans for failing schools was a terrible idea because when you allow them to join the effort, “you’ve really lost the emphasis on the evidence [of low performance] itself.”
While I, for one, am still trying to figure out what she actually meant by such a statement, it certainly appears that she and her “education reform” colleagues are saying that teachers have no place when it comes to determining how to make our schools succeed.
AFT CT (American Federation of Teachers Connecticut) is committed to improving the quality of education for every child in the state. Education reform issues like teacher tenure, teacher certification, teacher evaluations, early childhood education, charter schools, school funding and more need input from all educators. PreK-12 teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel are working every day to improve learning and help students to grow. From urban schools in Connecticut, such as Hartford, New Britain, New Haven and Meriden, to suburban schools, such as, Bloomfield, Simsbury and Waterford, to regional school districts, our members are working to provide quality education.
