Reader: Comprehensive Education Plan Advisory Committee Lacks Teachers

Commissioner Pryor and Chairman Taylor:

I’m a member of Middletown’s Board of Education, and I write to you, not officially as a representative of the board, but as an individual member, a parent of public school students, and as a community volunteer who is involved deeply in education issues in Middletown.

Frankly, I’m concerned and dismayed by the direction the State Department of Education has taken in regards to school reform. The Common Core and new evaluation system being implemented is supposed to be founded on empirical data and evidence of success. Yet the entire system is being rolled out, untested, unproven and not completely formed.

Our district has had to adhere to deadlines for rollout and implementation, but our educators have repeatedly found, to their frustration, that the state Department of Education is unprepared, and provides incomplete guidelines and late materials. 

The cost of these programs to the district can be added to the list of unfunded mandates handed down by the state and the legislature.

As a Board of Education member, I have been briefed by our administrators on Common Core and the new evaluation program, but my understanding is incomplete, and I get the sense that state implementers themselves are not completely clear on the program details or implementation.

Recently there have been a few actions taken by the State Board of Education that leave me puzzled and dismayed. 

I understand that Connecticut’s new Comprehensive Education Plan Advisory Committee met a week ago to begin formulating the next five-year plan. 

From looking at board minutes, I found that on Jan. 9, the board voted to implement the committee, by populating it with (unnamed) members of a number of organizations. I can’t find any evidence that the board voted later to ratify the actual members, as is required by state law.

Still, the committee has been assembled, and has held its first meeting. 

This committee, which sets educational policy for the state for the next five years, does not contain a single, working public school administrator, principal, teacher, superintendent or local Board of Education member. Admittedly, the committee does include leaders from CABE, CAS, CAPSS, CEA, and AFT, but they do not necessarily accurately represent the needs and concerns of beleaguered districts, nor the concerns of many working teachers and administrators.

I believe that leaving working educators off the committee is a serious oversight.

Worse still, the committee is populated by several charter school and education reform organizations (ConnCAN, Northeast Charter Schools Network, Teach for America, Connecticut Council on Education Reform, Connecticut Parents Union, Students for Education Reform, Achieve Hartford, Excel Bridgeport). 

Some of these reform organizations are funded by national organizations and businesses. Some of these organizations stand to grow and profit if expanded “reform” measures are included in our state’s five-year goals. 

Focusing on improving schools and students who need the most help is essential, but the charter school and magnet school system that the state has created is a parallel, educational system that competes with, is funded by, and diverts funding from public schools, even successful public schools and districts. 

In another matter, our district, and I must assume other districts, who are part of Connecticut’s Alliance School Districts, have been frustrated by the response to grant applications. 

Apparently, these grants are being processed by an out-of-state consulting group, MassInsight Company, who recently signed a $1 million contract with the state Department of Education.

Alliance grants are late in arriving to our district.   Could it be that consultants, who are unfamiliar with state or district systems, are the reason applications are returned to us repeatedly for clarification?

In the past, our district threaded the complicated process of Alliance grant application with experienced state staffers, who, it is my understanding, have largely been released as a result of the contract with MassInsight.  

An experienced educator on your staff, Megan Flick, has been instrumental in helping us move our application forward, but it has not been without frustration for us all.

I’ve also learned that the commissioner has appointed new leaders in the department’s “Turnaround Office.”  

Morgan Barth is the director of the office. His experience includes five years as teacher for Achievement First charter schools (though, reportedly, he has never received teacher certification in Connecticut). Barth named Nasir Qadee as another leader in the “Turnaround Office.”  

Qadee is a veteran of State Street Global Markets and Goldman Sachs, influential financial firms, but reportedly has no educational experience.

At a time when districts are stressed by tight municipal and district budgets, and the ever-increasing burden of state education mandates, it’s discouraging that the Commissioner has appointed leaders and consultants whose lack of experience will only make it more difficult for districts to get the job done.

I know it is not the intent of the State Department of Education to do damage to successful public school districts, or to successful schools, but my observations of school reform indicate some unintended consequences.  

While striving to help struggling schools, the reforms pushed by the state Department of Education, and passed by the legislature, have hobbled districts already being squeezed by budgetary constraints and mandates.

I respectfully make two requests.

To the Comprehensive Education Plan Advisory Committee, please appoint a working primary and secondary (non-charter or magnet) public school teacher and principal, a local public school superintendent from a district without a magnet or charter school in its borders, and a curriculum expert and local Board of Education member from the same kind of district.

Also, please make it a priority to hire staff, at leadership levels, in the “Turnaround Office” (and all offices) who are experienced educators and who represent the needs of all districts.

Ed McKeon, Middletown, Middletown Board of Education member; parent, Macdonough Elementary School

(The opinions expressed in this letter do not necessarily reflect those of my Board of Ed colleagues or Middletown’s school administrators.  The opinions are mine, and are not an official declaration of Middletown BOE policy or opinion.)