Right now in Connecticut, more than 70,000 children – a group equivalent to the entire population of New Britain – attend schools where less than one in four students is reading at grade level, and some of these schools have been failing for five years or more.

I know it doesn’t have to be this way. As governor, I will create new, high-quality public schools, introduce a specific set of reforms to fix low-performing schools, and close schools that continue to fail. My plan includes the following core elements:

Create new, high-quality public schools.

As your next governor, I will promote high-performing alternatives to traditional public schools by creating a “New School Start-up Fund” to help support new charter, magnet and technical schools. This fund will provide schools between $250,000 and $1 million over three years to cover some of the costs of creating a new school, with the goal of supporting five to 10 new schools a year in districts with the largest number of failing schools. We know that there are schools doing great things even for our most at-risk students; there just aren’t enough of these schools, and the majority of students cannot access them.
Give failing schools greater flexibility and close those that fail to improve.

I will create a “RED ZONE” – a voluntary initiative in which low-performing schools or districts are granted added flexibility and funding in exchange for implementing a set of bold reforms and for increased accountability for results.

Districts that place schools in the Red Zone can operate the schools as charter schools or district-run schools, having flexibility over per-pupil spending decisions without policy and contractual constraints. Districts will have the ability to:

• Make staffing decisions that meet the school’s specific needs
• Develop customized compensation structures that sufficiently attract, retain, and induce strong performance from teachers and school leaders
• Use time as needed (e.g., adding student learning time across the school day and year, extended staff collaboration and planning time)
• Reallocate school resources (including curricula and related social services) to best meet student needs and raise achievement

To be eligible for Red Zone participation, districts must commit to (and prove that they are): 

• Undertaking dramatic change, either by closing and reopening the school under new leadership and staff, or by pursuing a “classic turn- around” in which a highly capable new leader receives a clear mandate from the top to engage in bold reforms.
• Fully extending the funding and flexibility offered by the Red Zone to the schools in the Zone. Schools in the Zone will need full control of staffing decisions, use of time, program, and funding allocations. Districts will be required to demonstrate that they have established the necessary policies and infrastructure to support this flexibility within Zone schools.
• Meeting ambitious targets for improving student achievement over a short period of time (e.g., two- or three-year performance goals with annual benchmarks).

As governor, I will assemble a new team of highly skilled managers who will be responsible for the Red Zone. READ MORE ABOUT MY PLAN HERE.  

No parent should ever have to send their child to a school to which I would not send my own child – but today, far too many do. As governor, I refuse to allow continued failure that compromises the future success of far too many Connecticut children.