State Rep. John Frey, R-Ridgefield, joined with 50 of his House Republican colleagues on Wednesday in signing a petition forcing the legislature’s Education Committee to hold public hearings on the Common Core standards and teacher evaluations.
The 51 Republican legislators utilized a rarely-used rule that forces committees to raise a bill if a 51-signature petition is received by a certain deadline, which in this case was Wednesday at 5:00pm.
“Ridgefield’s schools already have an established record of excellence,” Rep. Frey added. “The Common Core and teacher evaluations have been implemented through a top-down process with no input from any of the real stakeholders. We need to make sure that these new initiatives do not hurt our established educational processes that have been working perfectly thus far.”
The implementation of the Common Core State Standards for students and the new evaluation measures for teachers has caused significant anxiety for a large number of people across Connecticut. Common Core has never been voted upon by the legislature; rather, it was adopted by the State Department of Education by regulation.