HARTFORD - For the first time, students’ academic progress will soon be a substantial factor in evaluating the skills of Connecticut’s 50,000-plus public school teachers and principals.
The state Board of Education unanimously endorsed guidelines yesterday for those performance evaluations, a key step in its request for a waiver from some No Child Left Behind law mandates and also in Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s proposal to reform tenure to make it easier for districts to dismiss inept teachers.
The framework was the result of an advisory council’s work, and will go to another advisory group to work out details on how the specifics would be put into practice. That includes recommending whether teachers labeled as substandard could keep teaching while trying to improve, and the point at which districts may want to start dismissal proceedings....
Although leaders of the teachers’ unions have endorsed the framework, some of their members are worried about how it will work in practice.
--more--"
Time to try a new career:
"Woman in Conn. is charged in bomb threats to banks; Tried to hide job loss, police say" September 30, 2011|By Dave Collins, Associated Press
HARTFORD - A Connecticut woman who hid unemployment and money troubles from her husband for nearly a year phoned in bomb threats to banks and an insurance company to prevent him from asking questions, police said. She was arrested when an officer recognized her from a surveillance video he viewed while tracking one of the threats.
Nicolina McLean, 45, of Coventry, Conn., was charged this week with threatening two First Niagara Bank branches in Coventry, about 20 miles east of Hartford, and a third in neighboring Mansfield.
Police say McLean confessed that she lost her job a year ago and had let the couple’s bills pile up but did not tell her husband. He began realizing what was happening last week and planned to go to the bank.
“McLean said that she decided to do something to keep the banks closed,’’ the police report said. “She said that bomb scares were the only things she could think of to force the banks to close.’’
McLean was arraigned Tuesday and is set to return to court Oct. 24; she has not been able to post $45,000 bail. A clerk at Rockville Superior Court said records do not list a lawyer for her, and her husband, Mark McLean, did not return a phone message yesterday.
The events began Sept. 22....
--more--"
Also see: Backlash to barber crackdown in Conn.
Time for me to clip and cut some Globes.
