Public school education in the USA in at its nadir. Nowhere in the US is that point more evident than in Connecticut. Many attempts in the form of gimmicky “new programs” have been attempted as “silver bullets”; magnet schools, charter schools, schools with special emphasis, i.e., technology, science, sports, etc. In Connecticut, what are the laudable results? Very few in my opinion.
In New Britain, our students that have attended magnet schools in other communities have contributed to raising test scores in those schools. Those same students may have received high test scores in their own NB schools. But, the magnet schools are praised while the local schools do no better. Has something changed in our students ? Maybe. What has changed? The environment? Yes. The teaching ? Yes, but the instruction process is colored by the city or town’s approach to attitude toward supervision of instruction and supportive polices for teachers re discipline/ trouble making students. All “special” schools, private schools, parochial schools, etc. have zero tolerance policies toward disruptive students. They also have well thought out programs for teacher evaluation.
May I suggest for NB and for every other system that is not performing; stop taking teacher supervisors out of the schools for inconsequential meetings once /week. Leave them in the schools to help teachers improve instruction and to help with discipline problems. Stop spending thousands of dollars on out of town experts coming in with more gimmick type programs. Help teachers improve instruction. Of course, that means hiring principals, vice principals, departments heads and central office administrators that know how to improve instruction. Stop allowing kids/students to dictate the tone of the schools.
Connecticut public schools have changed. They no longer lead the field in offering and providing a fair, honest and good education. My opinion is that CT leads the states in offering gimmicks instead of quality education – same thing all over the country. Look at it, the gimmicks have done nothing but offer high consultant fees to out of state “experts.” Hire quality people that have a record of improving instruction; teachers, supervisors. Stop with the inconsequential baloney, it’s not working.
Lou Salvio
103 Russwin Rd.
New Britain
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
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This is an excellent, well thought out letter from Lou Salvio. He failed to mention one point. As long as the Democratic and Republican Town Committees continue to nominate candidates who do not understand the importance of his message, we are doomed.
We have gone down hill during the last ten years of an inferior superintendent. Most members of the BOE did not recognize her failures and were quick to criticize those who did. They should be held accountable for the downfall of the system.
Forget about the "politically correct" thing to do. Find the brightest, most dedicated and yes, the most courageous individuals to serve from both sides of the aisle.
Lou Salvio raises several important issues. As the Board of Education begins to look for the next superintendent of schools they should heavily consider the following three criteria.
1. The superintendent must understand the importance of granting a teacher tenure.
Under Connecticut State Law school districts have two to four years in which to evaluate a teacher. During this time the school district should conduct an exhaustive evaluation to ensure that only the highest quality teachers are granted tenure. Far too often are teachers merely allowed to glide into a tenures position.
2. The superintendent must be dedicated to meaningful teacher development.
Once a teacher is hired and granted tenure the district must ensure that teacher is given all the tools needed to succeed. Curriculum changes should come with extensive professional development and be implemented in a manner in which the teachers feel confident in what they are teaching and how they are teaching it. Teachers are the primary resource of any school district, to neglect their professional development is crippling to the school district as a whole.
3. The new superintendent must have a comprehensive long term plan for the shape of the school district.
This plan must be developed in coordination with the school board and with teachers and administrators. But without a vision for improving the school district we are doomed to drift aimlessly from initative to initative with no consistency and no solid framework upon which to build a strong educational system.
It is my sincere hope that while the Board of Education prepares for the next chapter for New Britain's public school system that they consider these fundamental issues. As with all moments of importance, this decision will affect our schools for decades.
Why should any teacher have tenure? If you do not like your attorney, physician, dentist, or funeral director, you can simply change to another one. If your child gets a lousy teacher, your child and all of the other children are stuck in that classroom for the whole year.
Complaints to administrators fall on deaf ears. They do not want to hear it. It is too much work and trouble.
The best gimmick you can try is school vouchers--allowing parents the freedom to choose what school their children attends.
This program has proven so successful everywhere it has been tried, that Democrats come unhinged simply at the mention of this term. By doing so, these Democrats are demonstrating that labor unions own them through the huge donations to their campaigns and that they are willing to throw the children under the bus to guarantee that the union gravy train keeps flowing right into their campaigns.
Isn't it simply shameful for these elected officials to screw the children by denying them opportunities simply to line their own pockets?
One thing that is not touched on here is how a student comes to school, respectfully, willing and prepared to learn. Good parenting is an area we simply cannot teach or mandate. We can suggest, we can feed, we can encourage but at the end of the day, we cannot parent another's child. Poor test scores have little to do with our teachers or the amount of money we pour into the educational system and everything to do with the cycle of low performing parents.
The truth is difficult in this area because it focuses on certain classes and thus putting this issue right out there can be deemed, politically incorrect. So we keep looking at per pupil spending, teachers and social services and different specialty school types.... the list goes on and on and the test scores remain
the same, bad.
The only specialty school that is needed in New Britain is a mandated pre-school for manners and continued instruction in manner-management. Then maybe these wonderful young people could take these lessons home and we will all be better for it, test scores included.
This was another excellent letter, probably from one in the arena. of course it is the parenting. It is, undoubtedly, generational.
My eight year old grandchild in the third grade of the Chicago Public school system just finished three Harry Potter books. For Christmas, she will get the rest of the books.
It is the parenting, homelife, the enviroment!
Late last month, I returned to Washington after attending a conference in Stockholm. In both national capitals, thousands of children and their parents were in full back-to-school planning mode.
But there was one big difference.
In the capital city of socialist Sweden, as in the rest of the country, schoolchildren and their parents were finalizing their choice of public or private school - using the school-voucher program available to all Swedish children.
Back here in the capital of free-market America, Congress was phasing out Washington, D.C.'s modest voucher program. Some 216 low-income families, who thought they were newly eligible for a voucher, were told that they could rip up their private-school acceptances and go back to their failing public schools.
No, I don't make these things up. All children throughout Sweden get education vouchers. It seems that the citadel of socialism can teach our Congress and teachers unions quite a bit about education choice.
Sweden introduced school vouchers throughout the country in 1992 to deal with exactly the same quality problems we face in our public schools.
Under the program, enacted by a center-right coalition government, children can use a voucher to go to either public schools or one of the growing number of private schools.
Private schools include religious schools and even for-profit schools. One of the largest for-profits - Kunskapsskolan (or "Knowledge School") - runs 32 schools with about 10,000 students ages 12-18.
These independent schools, like the public schools, get a voucher payment for each child. They compete vigorously with one other because the money follows the child to the school of his or her choice. Schools must satisfy their customers ... or lose them.
SALVIO FOR SCHOOL BOARD!
What I don't understand from the post about "Socialist" Sweden is this, If vouchers provide a choice between public or private are both options FREE, or do parents who are more well off choose the private option and kick in towards their child's education. If this is the case then can we assume that the children using the public option are all the low income kids whose parents can't afford the better option? If Sweden was struggling with poor performing public schools can we then assume that the rest and remainder are the
kids that nobody else wants to attend school with.
I don't agree with socialism or this system. It further seperates and divides the classes.
I think the point of the story is that in the most socialist nation in the world, the parents, and not a government bureaucrat who is beholden to unions and their crooked political donations, are all guaranteed the right to choose which school their child attends.
Here in the US, and Connecticut more than just about anywhere else, hypocrite Democrats proclaim to be the defenders of the people and especially the poor, while all the time screwing the children for the sake of all that money they can line their pockets with from those sleazy unions.
Since Democrats love socialism so much, maybe they should pay attention to the freedoms even the most socialist nation in the world affords the parents of their school children instead of enslaving the poor children for the sake of their own personal greed.
This post is correct, Democrats are hypocrites that proclaim to defend and help the people. Their social programs do nothing more than help themselves with government subsidized jobs. This also suppresses the very people they are lying about helping. It keeps the poor in their place and out of their neighborhoods.
Ronald Reagan knew this and took bold steps to reduce the size of government and to let the people of this nation from all walks of life, believe in themselves. You truly can be all that you want to be in this country if you want to work for it. The Democrats can't stand thay idea because they ride the government, where would they find work?
Bill Clinton understood this too when even he declared the end of welfare as we then knew it.
The Democrats' so-called helping programs are purposely designed to keep these people dependent on the government and voting for Democrats in order to keep their gravy train running.
Democrats will never stand for helping anyone from getting out from under their dependent control, and that is precisely why Democrats oppose voucher systems that would actually help these mostly minority and poor children better themselves and escape the ghettos.
In summary, Democrats stand for keeping these poor people prisoners in the slums that the Democratic party helped to create.
Bill Clinton vetoed the bill which would end welfare as we knew it. In fact, he vetoed it twice. The third time he did some polling and decided it was in HIS best interests to sign the bill into law. After that, he took all the credit for the bill which belonged to the Republican congress.
Why not let the people vote on whether they want school vouchers, instead of letting Democrats force children to attend inferior schools against theirs and their parents' will simply to support corrupt labor unions?
Anonymous said...
SALVIO FOR SCHOOL BOARD!
Nov. 25, 2010 10:28 AM
With Lou Salvio being a retired school teacher, this is an excellent choice....go for it Lou!!
We can't afford to lose Lou from the city council, otherwise this would be a good choice. Lou Salvio is performing an important job right where he is?
The evidence is in: If your goal is efficiency and saving tax dollars, K-12 education voucher programs are an astounding success.
Florida’s voucher program, for example, costs $3,950 per student, compared with a public school system that spends $7,000 per pupil. Surely even the efficiency of the free market can’t make up for a 44 percent funding deficit, right? Wrong: A Northwestern University study found no difference between achievement in students attending schools through voucher programs and those attending public schools.
Similarly, the U.S. Department of Education reports that students in Washington, DC’s high-profile Opportunity Scholarship Program kept up with their peers in public schools despite the voucher programs receiving only 56 percent as much per-pupil funding.
This should scarcely surprise us, as monopolies rarely produce good results. Institutions that don’t have to worry about going out of business tend to become lax and grow bloated, sucking up increasing amounts of cash while delivering substandard products. With numerous states in dire budgetary straits, monopoly prices are the last thing they can afford to pay.
Unfortunately, state governments seem reluctant to reform one of the most widespread and inefficient monopolies since the days of the robber barons: the public schools. Instead they have overwhelmingly sided with entrenched interests within the public school system over parents and citizen advocacy groups who want the biggest bang for their tax buck.
The top spending item in nearly every state is education. California, for example, spends 55 percent of its state budget for that purpose. If California adopted a universal voucher program with funding similar to Washington, DC’s limited program, it could lop off nearly a quarter of its state budget.
In a time of exploding state budget deficits, it makes sense to consider measures proven to cut costs and retain quality. Creating and extending voucher programs can be invaluable in getting state budgets out of crisis while providing children with the best education possible.
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