Easy Targets

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to the most pretentious state in the union: Connecticut. We have the largest achievement gap in the country; teachers are paid in the top three in the country; and we are in the top three for smartest state. So, what does our Education Commissioner want to do? Yep, add more classes to teacher certification. Mark McQuillan, with his extenisive resume outside of public education classrooms, thinks we'd be better off if only we had taken a class on teaching English language learners.
Listen, I don't know him. I've never met him. But I have a feeling that he wouldn't last a year in some of the classrooms that exist in our state. I'm sure he'll never read this blog because it is beneath him to do so, but please, sir, please, take a class in which you "...undergo extensive training that includes lessons on working with children who speak little English, have learning disabilities or exhibit behavioral problems..." and then step into my classroom and teach for a year.
It is easy to tout your ideas from behind a mahogany desk in downtown Hartford when nobody really knows who you are are or cares much for who you are. It is easy to point fingers at the certification process, which is easy to target, but much more difficult to challenge the fundamentally unfair process of funding local public schools.
Mark McQuillan, you are a coward.