While “Rally Against Accountability” is not the official title, it is certainly a more accurate one.

On Tuesday May 12th the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) and the Connecticut Federation Teachers (AFT-CT) will hold a rally on the north lawn of the state house to promote their plan to “eliminate testing” – or so they say.

CEA spent $250,000 on TV ads claiming their plan would result in “less testing and more learning,” but the actual proposal adds three tests throughout the year for grades 3 through 8.

Unlike the SBAC, which is being taken by students in 18 states across the country and is aligned with tests taken in almost every state, these new tests would not be comparable. If this proposal becomes law, we’d be back to square one. We’d be back to not knowing how Connecticut students stack up to their peers in other states.

Even more concerning, according to the union’s proposal, these new tests will be determined every other year by a panel stacked with union members. As reported in an earlier Education Bridgeport! article, this would give the union the power to change the test, basically invalidating the results and therefore, eliminating any methodologically sound way to evaluate teachers.

Which bring us to the real reason the two largest teachers unions are spending hundreds of thousands on campaigns and rallies – they’re not fighting testing, they’re fighting accountability.

To comment on this and other stories, please check out the Education Bridgeport! Facebook