Prove demographics don’t
have to be destiny
We can’t remake our public schools without you.
We can’t remake our public schools without you.
ConnCAN needs your support right now to make sure that every child in Connecticut, regardless of race, ethnicity, or class, has access to a great public school.
By Rick Green
Maybe you saw what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did last week after he learned about the bungling behind his administration's failure to win $400 million in the federal Race to the Top competition that rewards states that adopt aggressive education reforms.
Christie fired his education commissioner.
Bravo. At least we know what matters to Gov. Christie, a Republican making waves across the country. That's more than I can say for Connecticut, land of timid leadership.
By Donald Eng
By Abbe Smith
In the most recent round of federal Race to the Top awards, Connecticut scored lower than every state it borders.
The state learned last month that it did not make the list of finalists, but didn’t get details about why it missed out on the $175 million it was seeking until final scores and reviewer comments were released this week.
By Robert Frahm
The weakness of a plan to link teacher evaluations to student performance was a key factor in Connecticut's failure to qualify for millions of dollars in federal school aid, according to a government report released Wednesday.
The proposed evaluation system lacks detail, won't be ready for years, and fails to include adequate provisions for rewarding successful teachers or removing ineffective ones, said reviewers for the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top school reform competition.
By Melissa Nicefaro
In every Connecticut city and town, public education is by far the largest budget item. Yet the schools’ stewards don’t always treat those dollars as their own
When terms such as “layoffs,” “closures” and “belt-tightening” are tossed around, the education industry may not be the first that comes to mind. That was true until this year, anyway.

By Elizabeth Benton
The state Board of Education will convene a new committee this year to examine a comprehensive overhaul of state education funding, including money for magnet, charter and traditional public schools.
The ad-hoc committee will be asked to draft recommendations by September, in time to make formal recommendations to the state legislature for the 2011 session.
The board acted Wednesday to authorize Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan to draft an official charge for the group.
The board did not discuss potential members Wednesday, but suggested the panel should include state Education Committee co-Chairmen Sen. Thomas P. Gaffey, D- Meriden, and Rep. Andrew M. Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, as well as representatives from the multitude of groups that testified before the board recently on changes to charter school funding.
Fleischmann said Wednesday he had not been contacted regarding the committee, but said the school funding system must be revamped.
“It’s a bit of a crazy quilt that we have right now, and we should have a better designed system,” he said. “What makes sense is having dollars follow students so the state doesn’t end up with too many situations where it is paying more than once for the education of one child,” he said.
Public schools in Connecticut are paid for through a patchwork of state, federal and local funds, which vary significantly across the array of public schools, from charters to magnets to traditional public schools. Even within the sphere of magnet schools, funding differs based on the region of the state and type of magnet school.
Charter school advocates had pushed for reform this year, claiming immediate action was needed for the state to be eligible for millions of dollars in federal school reform grants.
The state board last week reviewed a proposal from charter advocates Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now that would have transferred state money from local districts to charters based on student enrollment. The board did not adopt the “money follows the child” proposal, and instead has recommended increasing per pupil grants to charter schools. That recommendation, which would cost the state an estimated $5 million in the upcoming fiscal year, will now go to the legislature for review.
School board member Theresa Hopkins-Staten said the ad-hoc committee will be asked to recommend a “balanced and coherent system” for education funding. She advocated particularly for a reduced role of local property taxes in education funding.
“It’s ineffective, inefficient and it hasn’t worked for many years,” she said.