On Eve Of Malloy Visit,
2 Takes On His Reforms

He sees an attack on tenure. She sees the potential for money to support New Haven reforms.

New Haven teacher union President Dave Cicarella (left) and Susan Weisselberg (right), the school district’s wraparound services czar and a former Capitol staffer, gave those two takes on Senate Bill 24, Gov. Dannel Malloy’s main vehicle for sweeping education reforms. The bill sits before the legislature’s Education Committee, which must take a vote before the end of the month.

Cicarella and Weisselberg gave the analyses at Monday’s school board meeting, on the eve of what promises to be a lively local debate on the subject. Malloy plans to visit Wilbur Cross High School Tuesday night, making the fourth stop on a lively tour to hear feedback on his school reform ideas. (Click here to read the state’s glossy handout recapping the bill.)

Organizers expect a healthy turnout from two main constituencies in New Haven: teachers rallied by their union and charter school proponents summoned by Achievement First and New Haven-based education watchdog ConnCAN. Doors open at 6:15; the event starts at 7.

Cicarella said he expects local teachers to focus on objections to two of Malloy’s reforms. His plans to overhaul tenure and teacher certification, both based on new job evaluations.

Evaluations in most districts today yield simply a ​“satisfactory” or ​“unsatisfactory” rating; Malloy proposes expanding that to a four-tiered scale: ​“below standard,” ​“developing,” ​“proficient” and ​“exemplary,” based in part on student performance. The new way of grading teachers stemmed from a breakthrough agreement from the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council, a group that included the heads of the state’s two teacher unions and representatives of school administrators and school boards.

Unlike in other towns, Cicarella said he doesn’t expect New Haven teachers to resist the new evaluations, because local teachers already overwhelmingly ratified their own form of teacher evaluations in 2009, also based in part on student performance.

New Haven’s new system is similar enough to the state’s proposal that local officials expect the state to grant them a waiver to continue with the current way of grading teachers, instead of starting over.

Malloy would go even further than New Haven by using those new evaluations to dramatically change teacher tenure, making it easier to fire teachers who score poorly on the exams. In the current system, teachers statewide earn tenure after four years. Malloy proposes allowing teachers to earn tenure in three to five years, based on high marks on the evaluations. (Public school ​“tenure” doesn’t mean guaranteed employment like in high education. It means having due-process rights kick in for teachers under consideration for termination.)

Malloy would extend the initial period in which a teacher serves ​“at will” from 90 days to one year, making it easier to fire teachers in their first year on the job.

And Malloy calls for teachers to be removed for ​“ineffectiveness” based on one flunking mark on the job evaluations. Current law calls for removing teachers based on ​“incompetence.” Under Malloy’s proposal, teachers would have to earn and re-earn tenure by keeping up good grades on their annual evaluations.

Cicarella Tuesday said the proposal goes too far.

“Our feeling on tenure,” he said, ​“is that it doesn’t need to be changed.”

He said there’s already a due process for removing teachers who aren’t a good fit. He called it ​“un-American” to ​“talk about eliminating due process.”

He said the term ​“tenure” is widely misunderstood as a lifetime job guarantee—click here to read his thoughts on the subject.

Malloy proposes using the job evaluations to create three new classifications of teaching certification: initial, professional and master educator. Based on how teachers score on the job evaluations, teachers could gain ​“master” status — or fall back down to a beginner’s certification.

Cicarella said if he and other union leaders get the mic Tuesday, they plan to propose changes to that part of the bill.

He applauded Malloy’s promise to invest $5 million in professional development for teachers.

He took issue with Malloy’s plan to increase charter funding from $9,400 to $11,000 per student, with districts pitching in $1,000. Charter proponents who’ve been fighting for equal funding for 13 years heralded the news in a recent rally at the state Capitol. Cicarella said Monday he’s not opposed to charters, but ​“they said they would do what we do for less.”

Cicarella has joined over 400 people in signing a petition, written by teacher Matt Presser and union Vice-President David Low, calling into question the main premises behind Malloy’s bill.

The petition scores Malloy for throwing teachers into a ​“misguided race” to get high scores on standardized tests ​“of questionable value,” at the cost of a broad school curriculum that fosters innovation and critical thinking.

The prelude to the petition reads: ​“Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in the country and needs to make real changes to improve the state’s education system. With that said, Governor Malloy’s proposals — linking teacher tenure to certification, improving teacher evaluation systems, raising standards for future teachers, increasing the ​“rigor” in classrooms, increasing seat time, lengthening the school day and year, and turning around schools — aren’t the types of changes that will bring about improvement in our schools. We suggest that any change in education policy ought to proceed from a consideration of how any given change might bring to students a more positive daily learning experience full of opportunities to engage in meaningful, authentic, intellectual work. We believe SB 24, in its current form, won’t provide those opportunities. Because we all share the same hopeful and aspirational goals for the future of the children of Connecticut, we sign this petition to propose some alterations to SB 24 as it currently stands in order to provide Connecticut’s students with opportunities for success.”

Click here to read the petition and comments from some of the teachers who signed it.

Low and Presser’s objections include a proposal to allow the state to take control of a select number of low-performing schools in a so-called Commissioner’s Network. The network would consist of 25 schools over two years. The state would take over hiring staff in the schools, oversee management of the schools and offer a ​“support plan.”

Weisselberg (pictured) said Monday that New Haven still doesn’t know if any of its schools will be part of that list of 25.

She offered some highlights of the bill.

The bill offers some new money, including an expected boost of $2 million in magnet school funding, Weisselberg said. That’s on top of $3.8 million in extra Education Cost Sharing money, about half of which would go to charter schools.

Weisselberg said the district has its eyes on a new pot of $4.5 million in competitive grant money for ​“districts with the most innovative and promising plans to make dramatic improvements to student outcomes.” Preference will be given to the lowest-performing 30 districts in the state, the so-called Alliance Districts, which include New Haven.

Schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo said he believes New Haven is well-poised to get that money because it is ahead of other districts in making the types of reforms encouraged by the state.

The state is offering grants of at least $500,000, but Mayo said Monday he’s ​“hoping there’s money money for those districts” that have already implemented reforms.

Some other highlights:

• Add 500 pre‑K seats, with preference for Alliance Districts like New Haven.
• $3 million to improve quality of pre‑K programs.
• $22.9 million for 25 low-performing schools in the Commissioner’s Network (which may or may not include New Haven).
• $2.5 million to encourage new charters, CommPACT and other school models.
• Increase charter funding from $9,400 to $11,000, with districts pitching in $1,000 per kid.
• A $500,000 start-up grant for new charter schools.
• $5,000 grants, and loan forgiveness, to attract bright students to commit to work in low-achieving schools.
• $3 million for teacher preparation and recruitment.

Weisselberg didn’t take a stance on most of the bill. Testimony Superintendent Mayo submitted to the Education Committee focused on continued funding for New Haven’s existing reforms, rather than taking sides on specific components of the state’s proposed reforms.

Weisselberg said the district has one main concern: a year and a half into a school reform effort that has gained national traction, ​“we want to make sure our efforts can continue” — and have the resources to do so.