Thomas MacMillan Photo
School reform has to start focusing on attracting top-notch new teachers and training them better, the state’s education chief declared before hundreds of reform-minded New Haveners.
The education chief, Stefan Pryor (pictured), delivered that message to 400 people Wednesday night for the annual meeting of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
A panel of local journalists — including the Register’s Angie Carter, Norma Rodriguez-Reyes of La Voz Hispana, and Coop High student and Independent reporter Ariela Martin — live-blogged the event. Readers joined in. Scroll down to the bottom of this story and click on the box to read that discussion.
Pryor was the event’s keynote speaker. He stressed the urgency of closing the state’s achievement gap: Connecticut now has the highest achievement gap of all 50 states in 7 out of 12 categories of math and reading standardized test scores broken down by income and ethnicity. Pryor ran down some of the reforms New Haven and the state of Connecticut have begun to address that gap, including launching experiments in low-performing “turnaround” schools and use test-score and classroom performance evaluations in setting teacher pay and easing out some teachers.
Then he got to his new point: Hardly any attention has been paid to getting great teachers in the classroom in the first place.
He partly blamed a perception gap. In Finland, 100 percent of schoolteachers came from the top third of their graduating class, he said. In the U.S. only 23 percent do. In low-income U.S. communities, the percentage is only 14 percent.
Top students graduating college have the mistaken idea that teachers don’t make much money. A majority believe they make the same as custodians, Pryor said.
“I think sanitation workers should be paid more,” Pryor said. But the fact is that teachers in general make double the average $30,000 custodial salary, he noted.
Pryor, the son of public-school teachers, also blamed the country’s attitude toward teachers. In places like South Korea and Finland, people revere teachers. In the U.S. they’re valued less.
He said the Malloy administration is taking first steps: A new advisory council will study the quality of current teacher preparation programs and recommend changes.
“Does this make any difference whatsoever?” Co-op student Martin asked in the live-blog when Pryor dealt with teacher pay. “It’s about the passion and skills of the teachers that make the difference, not what their graduating rank was.”
“Anonymous teacher,” a skeptic of school reform who posted on the live blog, responded: “He brings up Finland for ONE point and ignores everything else that they are doing. … In Finland there are no high stakes tests [for students in 4th and 10th grades, on which schools and teachers are ranked] … Teachers in Finland do NOT go into teaching for the pay. Teachers in America do not go into education for the pay.”
The live blog appears below. It’s closed now, but you can comment in the regular comments section.
Will Ginsburg, president of the Community Foundation.
Members of Center Stage Theatre’s teen musical theater workshop opened the evening with a performance.
Promise scholar Niasia Mercado.
Promise scholar Jordy Padilla.