Sunday, April 1, 2012

If someone tells you SB 24 was "watered down"...


Please reply by asking:

How could you say the bill was watered down when the original version had significantly weaker certification requirements? Under the original version, teachers could go a whole career with nothing but a bachelor’s degree. Under the revision, teachers must hold a Masters Degree to earn a professional certificate and additional coursework beyond that for a distinguished educator designation.

We are educators, and in this case it is our job to educate the public. We have to do it because the press won’t do it, and because there are businesspeople with profit-seeking reform agendas who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Make no mistake, this is far from over. While the most ridiculous elements of the bill have been delayed a year, pending a study based on the personal selections of our biased commissioner, anything can happen in the meantime. This just gives ConnCAN more time to buy more politicians and it allows legislators to make it through one more election cycle. We have to stay vigilant and we have to keep informing the public as this bill makes its way through the legislative process. A lot can happen before it is passed, and a lot can happen when the study is completed.

The following quote of Pat Riccards, CEO of ConnCAN, was posted by the Hartford Courant yesterday and then quickly taken down:

“What we are really seeing here, is that this is essentially going to be a fight for another day.”

They won’t stop fighting and they won’t stop spending until they get what they want: a cheap, disposable labor force of undereducated teachers with no protections whatsoever. Our efforts have paid off so far. We have to keep demonstrating our strength in numbers to protect our future, and the protect the futures of our students.

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