Connecticut teachers and students are in big trouble if House Bill (HB) 6388 passes.
From a letter today from John Yrchik, CEA Executive Director:
An Act Providing Mandate Relief to Municipalities, presented by Governor Rell in her budget message this month, sets fire to decades of accomplishment for Connecticut teachers.
Perhaps she can tell everybody how this will coordinate with the Special Education students who have been placed in regular education with little or no support?
What would it do?
- It suspends teacher negotiations for two years.
- It allows cities and towns to freeze teacher's salaries, insurance, and working conditions for up to three years.
- It prevents teachers from negotiating about hours and other fundamental conditions of employment, such as class size.
What would happen if the bill passes?
Your right to bargain for pay and working conditions would go up in smoke. Your voice won't be heard in critical decisions affecting your classroom and your students. Good teachers could be driven out of our schools. Teachers who remain will face larger class sizes, with fewer resources and more demands on their attention and time. Students will get less individual attention and instruction time. More students will fall through the cracks.
Until now, Governor Rell has appeared to be a friend of teachers. But HB 6388 effectively turns back the clock to a time before collective bargaining, before binding arbitration, and before teachers were paid as professionals. Connecticut didn't get into this deep recession because teachers were underpaid or pampered. Teachers recognize that temporary sacrifice may be necessary in difficult economic times; however, Governor Rell's proposal will have a lasting effect. The governor's proposal uses the present crisis to make changes that will hurt teachers long after the economic crisis has passed. Making teachers the problem isn't leadership. It's demagoguery.
Picture your child in a classroom of 35-40 or whatever she decides. Who knows?
What can you do?
Contact these people and ask them to visit a classroom:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/...
http://www.cga.ct.gov/...
http://www.cga.ct.gov/...