By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut’s new education reform law reminds us of those “miracle” products that sell over TV for “the low, low price of $19.95 … plus shipping and handling.”

The real product never lives up to the hype, and the shipping and handling charges always jack up the price well past the $19.95 mark. (Don’t ask us how we know).

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Connecticut lawmakers appear to have used the same sleight-of-hand technique when they sold their “bold” and “sweeping” new education reform law to parents and taxpayers earlier this year.

First instance, families were told the new law took the revolutionary step of linking teacher evaluations to student achievement.

That sounds good, except when one reads the fine print of the evaluation policy.

“The State Board of Education Wednesday approved teacher evaluation requirements that pave the way for up to a third of a teacher’s grade to be linked to how his or her students perform on standardized tests,” reports the CT Mirror.

Did you catch the words “up to a third”?

It turns out the new law only requires that standardized tests count for 22.5 percent of a teacher’s overall evaluation, Test scores may account for as much as 33 percent of an evaluation, but only if teachers and principals “mutually agree,” the Mirror reports.

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Does anyone seriously believe a union will actually agree to the maximum 33 percent?

The remaining portion of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on classroom observations and anonymous parent or student surveys “if their local school board decides to use surveys to fulfill the feedback requirement,” the paper reports.

Now the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents and the state’s teacher unions are whining that there’s not enough money to pay for all these new requirements.

“We don’t have enough administrative personnel to carry this out [statewide],” moaned Joe Cirasuolo, executive director of the superintendents association. “We are going to be laying off teachers to carry out these evaluations.”

What a ridiculous argument. Teacher evaluations are simply a form of quality control. If school administrators don’t have the time or money to monitor quality, then taxpayers should wonder exactly what they’re paid six figures to do.

The teacher unions claim that using test scores to assess a teacher’s quality is a waste of time, unless the state spends more money on teacher development programs.

The reforms in this new law are not only quite underwhelming, but they’re potentially very expensive.

Anyone who has ever been bamboozled by a late night TV offer knows exactly how the people of Connecticut must feel.