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February 6, 2012
Wall Street Journal

 Connecticut would pump more money into charter schools and increase their numbers under a legislative proposal Gov. Dannel Malloy plans to unveil Monday.

February 5, 2012
Hartford Business Journal Online

 Thanks to its strong educational system and manufacturing industry, Connecticut will pace America’s high tech-sector for the next generation.

January 25, 2012
Hartford Courant

 After about two years of wrangling, a group representing teachers, school administrators and school boards agreed Wednesday on a new way to evaluate teachers that places a strong emphasis on student achievement.

Members of the state Performance Evaluation Advisory Council said the breakthrough in their discussions on the contentious issue occurred in the past few months under the leadership of Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor.

January 25, 2012
Connecticut Mirror

Years of disagreement have stalled efforts to grade teachers and dismiss those who are ineffective. That all changed Wednesday when a group of educators -- including teachers' unions, superintendent and school board groups -- agreed on how to properly evaluate teachers so those who are struggling are identified and put on a path to improve or be dismissed.

 

January 24, 2012
Associated Press

 Connecticut's policies to improve the quality of teaching in its public schools are mediocre at best, and particularly fall short in efforts to keep the best teachers and remove those who are ineffective, according to a new nationwide assessment of states' regulations. 

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The ConnCAN Blog

GUEST BLOGGER: Counting ConnCAN's Race to the Top wins

Posted August 26, 2010 at 9:33am
 in

Connecticut may have been sitting on the sidelines during Tuesday’s announcement of Race to the Top winners, but ConnCAN and its supporters have to be congratulated for exerting one of the boldest ‘Race’ campaigns in the country – declaring the state’s initial plan a loser even before the first round winners were announced and putting enormous pressure on state leaders to do better in round two. While the state didn’t take home cash, it won big in many other ways.

First, Connecticut passed stronger measures aimed at improving schools than it otherwise would have in an ordinary legislative session – laws that aren’t going to evaporate just because Washington D.C. didn’t anoint the state’s overall plan. That’s a win worth celebrating in its own right.

Second, the hundreds of people who traveled to Hartford to support ConnCAN’s Race to the Top campaign sent a powerful message of support to the state leaders who have stood up as champions of education reform. That effort will continue to reap dividends in upcoming legislative battles.

Third, Connecticut now has a strong candidate for Governor: Ed U. Cation! (And a quite a handsome one too!) Clearly, he’s the guy to beat and the other candidates for governor know it. All that effort will make education a higher priority in the race than it otherwise would have been without ConnCAN’s campaign.

Finally, ConnCAN and its supporters gave the advocacy sector a big boost by challenging conventional wisdom about the necessary ingredients for policy change. Clearly, there’s no substitute for strong gubernatorial leadership, but too many in education assume that governors are the only ones who can make any real change – and they therefore write off states that lack “true-believer” leaders. ConnCAN demonstrated that when strong advocates do their thing, and work in partnership with the legislative champions they do have, they can do a lot to change the trajectory of state education policy for the better. And that’s a big win for us all.

Suzanne Tacheny Kubach is the executive director of the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network, which supports 25 education advocacy groups (including ConnCAN) in 18 states. You can also read her take on how Connecticut’s reform efforts compared with other states.

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