Allan Appel Photo
“Make no mistake. This is no bake sale. You have lawyers, we have lawyers, you have lobbyists, we have lobbyists. The one with the loudest voice gets heard.”
The president and founder of the year-old Connecticut Parents Union, Gwen Samuel, was speaking softly. But she was making clear that she intends for the voices of parents to become “part of the conversation” during this year of education reform in the state.
She made her remarks in a television interview with longtime broadcast journalist N’Zinga Shani. The program, entitled “The Education Agenda,” is part of Shani’s “21st Century Conversations” series on public-access TV. (Check the One World Progressive Institute website for times and schedule.)
Samuel — she told Shani the name is spelled like the prophet of the Old Testament— is a parent of schoolchildren works as a parent educator with the Gesell Institute, a child development organization in New Haven.
Samuel has created a statewide organization of approximately 1,000 dues-paying members. The parent members are clustered in the state’s cities, where the effects of the achievement gap are most acute.
Samuel said she estimated the group has about 100 members in New Haven.
Samuel was at pains to say that her group is not anti-teacher but pro-kid. That said, she added, “Some of the laws that protect teachers don’t benefit kids.”
Her group’s agenda includes doing away with seniority for teachers. “Seniority cannot trump skill set,” when it comes to who stands before a classroom full of kids, especially those struggling to learn, she said.
Samuel said that she began the organization when as a parent she saw the state teachers union’s strong reaction to a “parent trigger” bill introduced at the last session of the Connecticut legislature.
The Connecticut laws calls for a failing school to undertake a radical make-over including choosing to become a charter if parents collectively choose. The bodies making these decisions are called school governance councils, and parents dominate. Unions didn’t like these laws and, according to Samuel, set to work undermining them, with many districts seeking waivers.
She reported New Haven has sought a waiver.
“The whole state went crazy,” Samuel recalled. She said the state’s American Federation of Teachers union organized trainings to help teachers resist or defuse parents’ efforts to in effect pull the trigger.
“It was just unreal to flex like that when all parents are saying is: Give me some power to help my child. It’s not about teachers, it’s about a system that can’t educate some children,” she said in remarks before the televised interview.
While Samuel has made peace with the AFT, she has also been a good student of it. “We structured ourselves after the AFT.” She recalled that after seeing the AFT in action, she said, “I want to be the AFT when I grow up.”
“Our lawmakers do a terrible job of protecting all our constituents unless you have deep pockets.
Her group has a lawyer who offers representation to parents who feel they have been mis-served, and provides leadership training and professional development. This year she hopes to expand the circle of lawyers and to add a lobbyist to work in parents’ interest in Hartford.
Shani cited the origins of labor unions in response to the profound abuses, often physical, suffered by workers. She asked if Samuel’s group is a labor union in that sense.
“Exactly the same spirit as a labor union [that] collectively protects school children in the system,” she responded.
Among other policy recommendations Samuel’s group is trying to advance: Ending non-therapeutic detention or “time-out/scream” rooms as a practice in the schools; support of Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents’ proposal to replace teacher tenure with five-year renewable contracts. (Click here for a New Haven union leader’s response on the tenure debate.)
Although she at times uses the language of greater urgency, Samuel (pictured) said that in general “our agenda is aligned” with the governor and his new school reform proposals.
Samuel said her group’s next step is a March 14th rally. Samuel said she is “70 percent sure” that former Washington D.C. schools’ chancellor and lightning rod school reformer Michelle Rhee will come, too.
A “Parents University”
Also appearing on Shani’s broadcast was Milly Arciniegas (pictured). The longtime leader of Hartford’s parent teacher organization, she is starting a “university” modeled on the one in Boston in order to help Hartford parents navigate the educational system. It will be largely parent taught, and consist of three core courses on three successive Saturdays plus other monthly offerings.
The effort has the blessing of the superintendent and has courses such as strategies to help your kid learn to read, which are specifically aligned with the Hartford district goals, Arciniegas said. SHE said she has received an anonymous grant of $25,000 to launch and expects to be up and running before the beginning of the next school year.
There are 48 “parent universities” across the country, Shani reported.