One of the state's biggest teachers unions announced Monday that its board believes Gov. Dan Malloy deserves another four years.
"It wasn't a close vote" said Mark Waxenberg, executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, a group that touts a membership of more than 40,000.
The group cited its history with the governor, as well Malloy's priorities of improving public education as its rationale for throwing its support behind the Democrat in the race.
“We examined the facts associated with both candidates based on the interests that were expressed to us by our members, and an examination of those facts shows clearly that the governor is the better candidate for teachers, students and the betterment of public education," Waxenberg added.
Malloy said the endorsement didn't come as a surprise, given the topics that are important to him.
“We know what works," Malloy said following an event in Middletown on Monday. "Good summer programs, more intensive teacher involvement, team teaching, allowing teachers to have time to work together to turn around a school is important.”
Both the CEA and the governor used the platform of the endorsement to slam Republican Tom Foley's education plans that he rolled out last week.
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Waxenberg and Malloy called Foley's framework for improving schools a "disaster."
“Up until the last few weeks he had no plan for public education" Waxenberg said. "We did the research on his plan and what we found is that plan is a recipe for disaster.”
Foley's education priorities included creating a new system to allow students in failing schools to transfer into better public schools and allowing the money to follow the child.
Foley also proposed establishing an A-F grading system for all public schools to allow parents to see the quality of school that their child attends.
In a statement, a Foley campaign spokesman responded to the CEA support for Foley saying, "Tom Foley remains committed to real education reform, including addressing the needs of the 100,000 children who are in under-performing schools and closing Connecticut's achievement gap which remains the worst in the nation."
Malloy, in full campaign mode while talking to reporters in Middletown, said Foley's "education plan was horrendous, quite frankly.”
