Memorial Day weekend invariably signals the denouement of the school year. In good years the feeling is good for both students and teachers. This year has been, by most accounts, anything but good and the prospects for short-term improvement recently became dimmer. Congress adjourned for its Memorial Day recess without considering measures which would provide…
DetailsCEA leaders were among invited officials at a signing ceremony today at Hockanum School in East Hartford. Governor M. Jodi Rell signed into law a comprehensive education reform policy bill passed in the final days of the 2010 legislative session. The legislation, Senate Bill 438, An Act Concerning Education Reform in Connecticut, covers an array…
DetailsWaterbury teacher Eric Feeney and Bloomfield teacher Howard Dashefsky are urging you to join them and call your Connecticut senators and representative today. Jobs are on the line and every extra phone call makes a difference. Congress needs to pass a pending $23 billion education and jobs bill to help save teaching jobs in Connecticut…
DetailsThe Chronicle of Higher Education had a great opinion piece recently by Teresa Ghilarducci titled Teacher-Union Bashing Is Simple-Minded. Let’s say you’re advising a business with varying quality and you want to improve performance. Would you ridicule the workers publicly, cut their pay and benefits, and say that they are the sole cause of the…
DetailsThe town of Norwich, like too many around the state, is facing a budget crisis. The Norwich City Council wants a zero-percent increase, $62.5 million school budget. The town is already planning to close two elementary schools and eliminate non-mandated programs, but the school board will have to make an additional $1.5 million in cuts…
DetailsA group of education stakeholders met with U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney and State Representative Tom Reynolds Tuesday morning in Hartford to discuss the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Courtney sits on the House Education and Labor Committee and Reynolds is Assistant Majority Leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives. The Obama…
DetailsToday we have a guest post from Marne Usher, Connecticut PTSA President. May 2 to May 8 is PTA Teacher Appreciation Week and May 4 is Teacher Appreciation Day – a time when we all take a moment to thank those individuals who make a difference, every day, in the lives of our children. I’m…
DetailsOver 400 teachers attended CEA’s 162nd Representative Assembly this weekend in Cromwell. The Representative Assembly is CEA’s highest policymaking body and is attended by elected teacher delegates from CEA’s local affiliates. At this year’s Representative Assembly, delegates elected leaders to the positions of treasurer, secretary, and ethnic minority directors at-large. Jeff Leake Re-Elected Treasurer Jeff…
DetailsHaving spent four decades in education, there is a tendency to feel like I’ve seen it all – and trust me, I have seen a lot. In spite of that, I agree with John Yrchik, who was recently quoted in the Hartford Courant as saying he has never seen it this bad. We have a…
DetailsConnecticut’s twice-delayed in-school suspension law and the State Department of Education’s (SDE) proposed secondary school reform plan are both important links to the state’s success in its second Race to the Top (RTTT) federal grant application due June 1. Addressing members of the General Assembly’s Education Committee during an information forum on the state’s RTTT…
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