Governor Dannel Malloy responded to concerns about his plan to revise the system of teacher tenure on WNPR's Where We Live. His education proposals have been the subject of hearings at the Legislative Office Building this week.
Malloy has made education reform a key part of his agenda for this legislative session - thus a 163 page plan that includes changes to state funding models, pushes consolidation of small districts and invests more in charter schools. But the largest chunk of his state of the state address was devoted to the issue he knows is the most controversial. Firing teachers who don't make the grade.
But, as he told Where We Live, he thinks the state can't get to a better education system without an "honest discussion of tenure."
At this week's public hearing, that discussion resulted in teachers unions rejecting his bill that would tie tenure to a teacher evaluation system. Malloy says he hears the concerns - but points to an agreement that unions recently made to link student scores and teacher job security.
Malloy: "Y'know, I think they're in a very difficult position. They agreed to an evaluation system that was student performance based. They agreed to it. Now was that agreement supposed to have any meaning at all? When they made those agreements, were they actually looking toward better teaching, or was this a game being played. And, I don't believe it was a game. I believe that they honestly want to see teacher improvement."
But, he said that some people will try to "incite other people to oppose anything happening with tenure."
Callers to the show asked the Governor to consider broader definitions of teacher success than just student test scores. One asked Malloy: "What does a good teacher look like to you?"
Malloy: "A good teacher is a teacher of a classroom where the children are accomplishing the goals that we set out for them. So, most of our teachers are good teachers. I said that in my speech. The vast majority of our teachers are good teachers. But we have a system that makes it very difficult if not impossible to get rid of teachers that are not performing."
During a panel discussion Wednesday on education reform in front of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns, union leader Mary Loftus-Levine called for more oversight of school district administrators, and guarded against "demonizing all teachers."