Gov. Malloy's Education Commish Threatens Superintendents......
A number of public school superintendents were recently instructed to join an emergency conference call with Governor Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor.
According to numerous sources, Stefan Pryor used the call to threaten public school superintendents by telling them that if they testified at the Education Committee’s Common Core public hearing their school districts could lose the Alliance District funds contained that are part of Governor Malloy’s approved state budget.
The threat was aimed at stopping school administrators from speaking at the public hearing about the Common Core and the Common Core Smarter Balanced Field Test of a test that Republican legislators were able to schedule over the opposition of Democratic legislative leaders.
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The public hearing on the proposed bill is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, March 12, 2014.
Pryor’s threat is beyond absurd for many reasons.
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First, the Republicans were only able to force a public hearing on proposed House Bill 5078. Under the General Assembly’s rules, a public hearing does not lead to an automatic vote on the bill. In order to force an actual vote on the Republican proposal to place a temporary moratorium on implementation of the Common Core, Republicans would have to go through another petition process, this time getting a majority of legislators to sign it. To achieve a sufficient number of signatures, Republicans would need a significant number of Democratic legislators to cross their leadership and demand a vote on the bill.
Second, there is absolutely nothing in Connecticut law that requires the Commissioner of Education to stop funding Alliance Districts if there is a temporary moratorium on implementation of the Common Core. Even if a temporary moratorium was in place, the Malloy administration could provide Connecticut’s thirty poorest districts with the funds they need, deserve and were promised.
Finally, the public hearing process is a historic, time-honored, and vital part of the legislative process. It allows members of the General Assembly to hear from people about proposed legislation.
The Democrats held an informal “hearing” on the Common Core at which Commissioner Pryor and out-of-state proponents were allowed to speak in favor of the Common Core and its associated testing fiasco.
For a sitting Commissioner of Education to threaten public school superintendents that they better not provide legislators with information about the Common Core is beyond reprehensible.
If this confirmed allegation is really true, Governor Malloy should demand Pryor’s resignation immediately and send correspondance to all superintendents and school administrators urging them to come forward and provide legislators with an honest assessment of the issues surrounding the implementation of the Common Core.
The Malloy administration is already considered the least transparent and most secretive gubernatorial administration in decades. If Stefan Pryor has actually instructed or threatened public servants not to serve the public he must be removed.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2014/03/11/news-flash-pryor-threatens-public-school-superintendents/
