Fix Subpar Education in Five Easy Steps
By Betsy Yagla, New Haven Advocate, February 1, 2007

Finally there is a comprehensive plan to chip away at Connecticut’s education achievement gap, one of the worst in the nation.

Parents, educators, members of the business community, other non-profits and legislators were all at the Legislative Office Building last week lauding the plan designed by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now.

The plan, which ConnCAN suggests be implemented over six years, would cost $1.3 billion, money that would come from the state.

ConnCAN, a two year old New Haven-based non profit, is garnering a lot of support and excitement for its new plan. Why? The plan probably doesn’t outline anything you didn’t already suspect about the state’s public schools. But no one else has taken it upon themselves to address the problem as a whole, rather than just one aspect of it.

“When we were approaching other groups interested in the achievement gap, we had so many people say, ‘Oh thank God you’re doing this’,” said Marc Porter Magee, the group’s research director. “Everyone’s working on pre-(Kindergarten); no one wanted to take on the whole system.”

Their system-wide five-point plan includes expanding access to pre-Kindergarten; creating more magnet and charter schools; recruiting teacher and principal “all-stars” in needy, urban districts; using proven improvement models; and tracking student progress.

It’s hard to be against those things. But that’s no guarantee the plan will more forward intact. Pre-K has gotten a lot of attention since last year’s governor’s race when Gov. Jodi Rell and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano tussled over Head Start funding, and after that when Rell created the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems to look into improving pre-K access.

Policymakers and parents alike are gung-ho about pre-K. A recent parent survey by Connecticut Parent Power showed access to affordable, quality, early education programs to be a priority.

The pre-K part of the plan, certainly the most popular, will probably be implemented. The governor will present her budget soon, and Democratic House Speaker James Amann promised we’ll “start seeing some movement on this.”

The push for pre-K funding begs the question: What about the kids who are already in the school system? Is the state willing to forget about them?

Sharon Patterson-Stallings, chair of Connecticut Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), says her fourth grade grandson in public school reads at a second grade level and her third grader, in private school, reads at a fifth grade level. Patterson-Stallings said ACORN has decided to make education a priority issue this year.

“I see the gap in my own family,” she says. “I’m worried about their education.”

Amann, who has championed charter and magnet schools in the past, said those schools have broken the myth that urban kids cannot compete with their suburban counterparts. “It’s about access,” he said.

Both Amann and House Rep. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, mentioned that these kids are the future of Connecticut, and the future workforce. “Do you know any businesses that are looking to hire a high school dropout?” asked McCrory.