By Moina Noor

I've had the opportunity to hear Alex Johnston of ConnCAN, a statewide educational reform advocacy group, speak a couple of times. He is a very powerful speaker and always makes me realize that state and national legislation have a big impact on our children's classroom. Mr. Nast, our interim superintendent, sits on the New Haven Board of Education with Alex and suggested at Tuesday night's board meeting that parents and teaching staff attend this event.

This presentation is being organized by a local chapter of a non-profit, National Executive Service Corps. Similar presentation were held in Westport and Wilton recently.

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Connecticut's Race to the Top--Ensuring a Quality Education for All Children
Tuesday, March 9th, 7:30 pm
Community Room, Norwalk Town Hall
125 East Avenue, Norwalk

Would you be surprised to learn that Connecticut is dead last in the country...50th out of 50...in terms of the results we achieve for our low-income students, while our spending per student is among the highest
Join us as we learn from Alex Johnston, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), about:

• The state of public education in Connecticut, and where we rank,
• The exciting new opportunity offered by the Federal "Race to the Top" funding program -- $200 million at stake -- and how it could affect Norwalk’s schools.
• What we can do together to improve public education for ALL children.
• This is urgent: Our State Legislature will be voting on Race to Top exactly one week after meeting (March 15th)

Our children get one chance at an education; what can we do to give them the best shot?
Turn Out and Make Your Voice Heard

Alex Johnston is Chief Executive Officer of ConnCAN. As ConnCAN’s first employee, Alex launched what is now regarded as one of the nation’s leading state-level education reform organizations. In the five years since, he has led ConnCAN’s effort to advocate for state policies that will ensure every Connecticut child has access to a great public school. In 2009, ConnCAN achieved three major legislative victories through its ‘Mind the Gaps’ campaign: overhauling the state’s teacher certification rules, opening up stores of longitudinal student achievement data to the public and securing $8 million of funding for the expansion of high-performing public charter schools in the midst of an $8 billion state budget deficit.

Before helping to found ConnCAN, Alex Johnston directed operations at the New Haven Housing Authority, working as a member of the management team tasked with turning the agency around from the brink of receivership. A graduate of Harvard University, Alex received a D. Phil. in politics from Oxford’s Lincoln College on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he studied the impact of government funding on nonprofit service providers. Alex serves on the state commission charged with developing Connecticut’s P-20 data system, is a member of the National Charter School Resource Center Advisory Board and sits on the New Haven Board of Education.