2006-07 Annual Report

Raising Awareness, Empowering Parents, and Building Consensus for Change to Close America’s Largest Achievement Gap

 Download the complete annual report

A Message from the Chair  A Message from the Executive Director  I. Raising Awareness  II. Empowering Parents  III. Building Consensus for Change

III. Building consensus for change that has an immediate impact in expanding access to great schools and moves us closer to the day when every child has the opportunity to attend a great public school.

THE “GREAT SCHOOLS FOR ALL” PLAN

Launched the “Great Schools for All” plan with a 44-page policy report at a January 2007 news conference with the Speaker of the House and the co-chair of the Education Committee.

Support for the ideas put forth in the plan came from a “who’s who” of Connecticut organizations focused on closing the achievement gap, including Connecticut ACORN, Connecticut Appleseed, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, Connecticut Parent Power, the Early Childhood Alliance, and the Greater Hartford Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice.

More than 2,000 print versions of the plan have been distributed, the PDF has been downloaded more than 800 times, and over 2,000 people have signed the “Great Schools for All” petition.

ISSUE BRIEFS

Created a suite of six issue briefs on key education topics, which have resulted in 3,000 distributed print copies, more than 2,000 online viewings, and over 1,500 PDF downloads.

The briefs put forward a concise overview of the key information needed to help raise the performance of our schools and created a reference library for more in-depth investigations.

SPEECHES, PANELS, AND EXPERT TESTIMONY

Conducted more than 450 one-on-one meetings on the need for education reform, led over 30 presentations to community organizations, and provided expert testimony and speeches for more than a dozen forums.

ConnCAN’s work is informed by an in-depth and ongoing outreach campaign to learn from the diverse experiences of Connecticut’s 169 school districts and to bring the message of “Great Schools for All” into every community in the state.

ELEMENTS OF THE “GREAT SCHOOLS FOR ALL” AGENDA IMPLEMENTED TO DATE

• High-Quality Preschool. $36 million over two years to expand high-quality preschool and $5.5 million over two years to develop a preschool quality rating system to help parents make informed choices.
• New Schools. Cap lifted on charter school enrollment, charter school per pupil funding increased by 27 percent, and the number of students in charter schools increased by 65 percent (from 2,600 to 4,300). $750,000 to create 12 “Pilot Schools” in 2009, which will have autonomy over budget, staffing, governance, curriculum and the school calendar. $53 million to increase the magnet school per pupil subsidy and to increase the number of students in magnet schools.
• Teacher Recruitment. Certification requirements changed to help bring Teach for America to Connecticut, with 50 members serving in the initial 2006-07 class and 125 in 2007-08.
• Data Systems. $6.4 million over two years to establish a longitudinal data system that provides the foundation for a school rating system that measures schools based on the gains they achieve with their students.
• Accountability. $3.8 million to support 10 new personnel at the State Department of Education to implement a new system of oversight and accountability. Increased authority for the Commissioner of Education to take action to raise student performance when schools and school districts fail to make progress by directing the transfer and assignment of teachers and principals, reconstituting schools as charter schools, or providing funding so that students in a failing school or district may attend public school in a neighboring district.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

• "I’m very proud to be standing here supporting ‘Great Schools for All.’ The plan outlines a number of proposals that deserve our consideration as part of an overall approach to achieve excellence in education." –Rep. James A. Amann, Speaker of the House
• "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." –Rep. Andy Fleischmann, Chairman, Education Committee
• "The ideas in this ConnCAN report represent leading edge ideas in school reform today. All the ideas have merit, from ensuring that kids get off to a good start in school to providing parents with more choices within public education and empowering all stakeholders with more information. Collectively, they represent a powerful agenda for change." –Andrew J. Rotherham, Co-Director, Education Sector and author, Eduwonk.com
• "With this report the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) follows in the footsteps of Delaware's Vision 2015 project and outlines a comprehensive statewide school reform strategy—this time for the Nutmeg State. Like Vision 2015, this report was spearheaded by a large, well-credentialed board of directors and advisors and is clearly serious about school reform." –The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 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." –New Haven Advocate, February 1, 2007
• "In a legislative season marked by school-reform notions ranging from worthless to wildly expensive, an advocacy organization called the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) offers a refreshingly reasonable prescription for the state’s ailing public schools." – Republican-American, March 28, 2007