Connecticut Education Association News Release

May 29, 2012

Teachers Ready to Collaborate on Reform

Teachers look forward to being part of a productive partnership with policymakers, administrators, parents, and community leaders in the wake of U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's announcement that Connecticut has secured a waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

"We are ready to think creatively about how to use federal flexibility to help all students succeed," says CEA President Phil Apruzzese. "NCLB's overreliance on testing and negative labels did not promote the thoughtfulness that is necessary to develop effective strategies for school improvement. It's our expectation that we will be working closely with education stakeholders to develop sound accountability and support systems to replace NCLB mandates."

CEA Executive Director Mary Loftus Levine says, "With this waiver program, the federal government has acknowledged that NCLB took schools in the wrong direction from teaching to the test to imposing requirements that had little basis in research. The best ideas don't come from Washington or outside consultants or bureaucrats; they are ground-up reforms that embrace collaboration and proven ideas that work."

Provisions of Connecticut's new school reform law, signed by the governor on May 15, were predicated on getting the federal waiver. Loftus Levine continued, "There is great potential in our new law, since it recognizes how misguided the NCLB focus on testing truly was. As the new law is implemented, Connecticut has to be careful about the choices it makes. We need to keep one thing at the forefront of our thinking: Teachers, students, and schools should be judged on multiple indicators with the support and resources to get reform done right."

The Connecticut Education Association represents 43,000 teachers in Connecticut.

For more information contact Kathy Frega at 860-725-6315, kathyf@cea.org, or Nancy Andrews at 860-725-6317, nancya@cea.org