February 26, 2014

Zupkus, House GOP Force Public Hearing on Common Core and Evaluations

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HARTFORD — State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus and House Republican lawmakers today filed a petition to force the Education Committee to hold a public hearing on bills related to teacher evaluations and the Common Core standards.

Democrats who control the legislature’s education panel have refused to consider House Republican proposals that would call for the creation of a subcommittee of classroom teachers to discuss the evaluation program and another that would delay the implementation of Common Core. Zupkus and House Republicans, through a legislative petition process, forced a public hearing.

“Considering the concern expressed by parents, educators and administrators, these are concepts that should be evaluated by committee members,” Zupkus said. “If we hadn’t pursued the petition, people concerned about these issues weren’t going to get to share their thoughts on the record.”

The simultaneous implementation of Common Core and the teacher evaluation program has proven to be a potent storm for school districts throughout the state. Paperwork, data collection, and assessments have unfortunately pushed educators farther away the fundamentals of teaching.

Education Committee leaders, despite growing concern from educators and parents, organized an informational forum on the topics that would give only invited speakers the opportunity to participate.

“Students and teachers are being graded using methods that are unproven,” Zupkus said. “A forum without all of the stakeholders would offer an incomplete view of what’s happening.”

The legislature’s petition process required 51 House legislators to sign petitions for each of the two bills.

Aside from creating a subcommittee of teachers, proposed Bill No. 5331, “An Act Concerning the Implementation of the Revisions to the PEAC Guidelines,” would reduce the number of formal classroom evaluations to one per year, streamline data management and, perhaps most important, enable the exclusion of student scores on statewide mastery tests from factoring into a teacher’s evaluation.

Proposed Bill No. 5078, “An Act Imposing a Moratorium on the Implementation of the Common Core State Standards,” would also require the state’s Department of Education to investigate the impact of implementing the standards and prevent the department from spending appropriated money on putting the curriculum in place pending the investigation’s results.