    
Great Schools for All: A Plan Big Enough to Close America's Largest Achievement Gap “ConnCAN, in my opinion, has all the right emphases: high quality preschool, innovative schools, recruiting top teachers and top principals to be teaching in schools with greatest need, school improvement teams that are disseminating best practices—it's just so logical that it’s a little painful to realize that we don’t have it already.” Preface by Alex Johnston
Since then we have worked with parents and community leaders throughout the state to understand the challenges facing Connecticut’s public schools. We have also worked with innovative public school leaders to better understand the elements of their success and what these lessons teach us about the effort to raise student achievement more broadly in their districts and across the state. Along the way there has been much to learn, but one constant throughout has been our commitment to the mission of closing Connecticut’s achievement gap, the largest gap of any public school system in the nation—a gap that falls along all the fault lines of our society, including race, ethnicity, class and geography. Drawing on the lessons learned from great public schools across Connecticut, the insights and experiences of parents and community leaders tackling this challenge, and the latest research on proven policies for raising student achievement from around the country, ConnCAN presents five big ideas for closing the nation’s largest achievement gap in this report:
Together, these ideas form the basis for a comprehensive $1.3 billion, six year plan to move Connecticut from 50th to 1st in educational equality in the United States. On behalf of ConnCAN’s board of directors, advisory board, professional staff, and growing network of volunteer members, I hope you find this policy report useful and informative, and I invite you to share your thoughts and lend your voice to this effort in the Action Center section of our website. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Inspired by the breakthrough success of a number of Connecticut’s urban public schools in dramatically raising student achievement, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) was established two years ago with the ambitious goal of ensuring that every child in our state has access to a great public school.