Governor Malloy’s education reform bill, commonly known as the Senate Bill 24, has been met with both opposition and encouragement across the public education sector.
On March 26, the legislature’s Education Committee took on the controversial bill.
According to the CT Mirror, many changes were made, including a dismissal of Malloy’s tenure reform, which called for salaries, tenure, and new certification requirements for teachers to be linked to an evaluation system.
According to TheDay.com, “Both state teachers unions — the 43,000-member Connecticut Education Association and the 28,000-member AFT Connecticut — lobbied hard against those proposals.”
The newly modified version of the bill calls for the University of Connecticut’s Education College to conduct a study on 10 schools using this method, and report back to the Education Committee in a year with their results, keeping Malloy’s tenure reform temporarily off the table.
Teacher certification did not go untouched, and has been slightly adapted with the addition of a “distinguished teacher” category. This category is available to teachers who have taught for at least 5 years, have a master’s degree, and have education in training other teachers. Being a distinguished educator could mean receiving additional compensation from a teacher’s district.
The “2.0” version of the S.B. 24 also minimizes funding for charter schools. Malloy originally called for a $2,600-per-pupil budget, but it has been reduced to $1,100-per-pupil. The $1,000 local contribution for each student that transfers to a charter school has become optional.
Another note-worthy change to the bill is that collective bargaining, or the ability to negotiate conditions of employment as a large group or organization, is limited for unions, specifically when it comes to motivating high quality teachers or transferring teachers to other schools.
Malloy also intended to grant control of Connecticut’s lowest-achieving schools (about 25 schools) to the education commissioner and the State Board of Education, however this portion of the bill was omitted.
The approval of the Education Committee is just one step in the legislative process to reform Connecticut education.
