Connecticut gets poor grade in how it prepares students
Published: 10:43 p.m., Thursday, January 28, 2010
The National Council on Teacher Quality is a nonpartisan research and advocacy group committed to restructuring the teaching profession, led by our vision that every child deserves effective teachers.
Its not like the New Fairfield School District is underfunded. If so, why did our Superintendent Dr. Castagnola give $50,000 from his budget towards a gold plated Porta Potty by the ball fields ~ even after we voters rejected that $200,000+ project at referendum, yet approved his buget on the first vote? Perhaps misplaced funding priorities is a better description?
Connecticut just got graded, and the news is not good.
The National Council of Teacher Quality gave the state a D+ for its preparation of teachers in its third annual grading of states.
Connecticut received a C for delivering well-prepared teachers; a B- for expanding the teaching pool; a D+ for identifying effective teachers; an F for retaining effective teachers; and a C for exiting those deemed ineffective.
This is an unacceptably poor grade.
It also represents a significant problem, since most research credits teacher quality as the single biggest school influence in improving a student's academic performance.
"I was not surprised by the report's findings," Lynne Clark, dean of the school of professional studies at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, said Thursday.
"I think Connecticut, pretty well until the early 2000s, had been one of the top 10 states in the nation on teacher preparation, but over time, people have rested on their laurels," she said. "We have not stayed up with the rest of the nation."
WestConn's teaching program places about 120 new teachers in elementary and secondary schools within one hour's distance of Danbury each year.
It speaks well for WestConn that Clark led her school's effort last fall to earn national accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. It required the university to improve some programs and began a rigorous self-assessment protocol that will continue.
Clark said the state is looking to improve its regulations for teacher-prep programs, but she's not convinced yet they are rigorous enough.
The teacher quality report praised Connecticut's strengths in a few areas: teachers are prepared in the science of reading instruction; its admission process to alternate route programs for teacher certification; the requirement of basic skills testing for admission into undergraduate teacher preparation programs; and the ensurance that middle school teachers are prepared to teach appropriate grade-level content.
The report criticizes Connecticut for awarding tenure virtually automatically, for failing to make evidence of student learning the heart of teacher evaluations, for not ensuring that elementary teachers are well prepared to teach mathematics, and for not ensuring that special education teachers have subject-matter knowledge.
Sandi Jacobs, project director and vice president of the council, said the report does not criticize the quality of teachers; it is examining state policies.
"States are really falling down on the job," Jacobs said. "What's surprising is the amount of influence the state has. If the policies aren't there then the districts can't make the changes, which affects the teachers and the students.
"The states that got higher grades are states that have lower student achievement and are really proactive," she related. "States with a tradition of higher student achievement tend to rest on their laurels."
Jacobs said she was surprised at how far behind Connecticut is in identifying teacher effectiveness and in the data collection needed to determine effectiveness.
"If you can't determine who are good teachers and who shouldn't be in the classroom, you really have a problem,'' Jacobs said.
The state doesn't deny the problems it faces, and that's a good thing because that means it can make the changes necessary to turn around the disturbing realities reflected in the report.
"We had a strong tradition of excellent public schools and an excellent system over the decades, but in the past 10 years we have not done much to keep up with the rest of the country,'' state Department of Education spokesman Thomas Murphy said.
"We still have some of the best schools in America and some of the best students," Murphy said. "We have to do some things to change. This is a matter of retooling our system and helping support our teachers."
The findings in the report are a wakeup call, and to his credit, Murphy admitted it.
Students deserve the best teachers, and teachers deserve the best training.
If you would like to see the report for yourself, go to www.nctq.org.
Contact Eileen FitzGerald
at eileenf@newstimes.com
or at 203-731-3333.
