State Rep. Candelora and House GOP Push for Common Core Public Hearings

HARTFORD – State Representative Vincent Candelora (R-86), and House GOP today filed a petition to force the Education Committee to hold a public hearing on bills related to the Common Core curriculum and teacher evaluations.   Rep. Vincent Candelora, along with House Republican legislators, resorted to a seldom used petitioning process; Joint Rule 11, to gather the necessary 51 signatures. The petition will allow two bills relating to the Common Core curriculum and teacher evaluations to be raised that were previously denied by the Chairs of the Education committee.   Proposed Bill No. 5078, written by Rep. Marilyn Giuliano (R-23), would freeze the implementation of the Common Core curriculum for further study until all stakeholders have time to examine its potential effects and reduce classroom evaluations for teachers.   Proposed Bill No. 5331, put forth by the House Republican caucus, calls for the creation of a subcommittee comprised of teachers to discuss and share their issues involving the teacher evaluation program, reduce the number of formal classroom evaluations to one per school year, to reduce the amount of goals to be established by each teacher, streamlines data management, and perhaps most importantly, enable the exclusion of student scores on statewide mastery tests, including the Smarter Balanced assessment test, from being factored into a teacher’s evaluation.   “The apparent flaws within Common Core are not solely an issue of worried parents, but one that is also shared by teachers; many of which believe that adjustments to Common Core are critical to the success of our education system. Therefore, it is an absolute must that we hold a public hearing to consider the opinions of stakeholders in our decision making process” Said Candelora.   A time and date for the public hearings on Common Core have yet to be determined.