Superintendents: State Ed Dept. Needs Work

Does the state Department of Education (DOE) do enough to help local districts improve education?

Not according to a recent survey of school superintendents, who gave the DOE a failing grade on how well it helps them close the achievement gap or find qualified teachers and administrators.

The survey results were made public at about the same time as the department to retool itself in an effort to implement education reform measures promoted by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Local school superintendents agreed, at least in part, that the state DOE could do a better job, although in some areas they said it wasn’t the department’s fault.

The survey was reported at a conference on Jan. 5 at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, which was called by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to seek input from experts on educational reform that might be introduced to the Legislature in February.

According to an article in the Hartford Courant, more than half of the superintendents said the state doesn’t give them enough help to close the achievement gap between poor and wealthy students.

Almost 90 percent said state policies hinder them from removing ineffective staff, and most of the superintendents felt the state didn’t help them attract, retain and develop talented teachers and administrators to fill vacancies in their districts.

Local school administrators said if the state DOE had any shortcomings on how much help it provided, it was because of staff cutbacks over the past six or seven years and the change in focus toward reports and accountability.

Stratford School Superintendent Irene Cornish said she doesn’t agree that state policies hinder removing poor teachers, or that the state doesn’t do enough to close the achievement gap.

“If you do what you need to do, there’s no reason you can’t get rid of ineffective staff,” she said.

What hinders, Cornish said, is when administrators don’t devote enough time to teacher evaluations. Instead, they move the teachers around the district instead of working to improve them or ease them out.

But Cornish said she has found the DOE helpful on closing the achievement gap. “I can’t fault the state,” she said. “The professional development help was available.”

Milford Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Feser doesn’t blame the state for the achievement gap, which is caused by social conditions, not just by school deficiencies.

“The achievement gap is something that there has to be ownership by the whole state,” by the Legislature and businesses, not just by schools, Feser said.

Cornish noted that Connecticut has the widest achievement gap of all the states. “I don’t expect the state to do it all,” she said.

But the administrators said there are things the state could do. For example, the DOE could get university education departments to train new teachers on some of the newest instructional assessment techniques, said Chris Brown, Student Support Services Coordinator for Hamden Public Schools.

He said few new teachers arrived knowing anything about data-driven assessment, which uses computers to analyze student performance week-by-week based on their test and quiz scores.

The computer assessment software is now used by most districts, but still not taught in most colleges and universities, according to Brown, who attended the conference in New Britain (Cornish and Feser did not).

Brown said the DOE could provide leadership in improving communication between school districts and university education departments so teacher training better matches districts’ needs.

One area of deficiency identified in the report was the degree to which the state helps districts find qualified teachers and administrators to fill vacancies. The administrators said part of the problem was that Connecticut, which has the toughest certification standards in the country, doesn’t offer reciprocity for teachers and administrators already certified in other states.

Cornish and Feser noted that Massachusetts automatically gives certification to Connecticut-certified teachers and even gives them a signing bonus, but Connecticut demands Massachusetts teachers get additional training to fill positions here.

They also believe Connecticut doesn’t give sufficient weight to non-education experience, which keeps districts from recruiting administrators from private industry.