Videos and Interviews

What's Going On? A Look at Education in Hartford

In the Summer of 2008, two students set out to explore how Hartford residents felt about the state of education in their city. Here is what they discovered.

Part 1: What Are the Challenges Facing Hartford Public Schools?

Watch all four parts

The ConnCAN Interview: Elena Silva (Summer Compass, 2008)

"Teachers are open to education reform, but they are also demanding more information, more support, and more security. Given those things, they will push for the changes needed to improve their profession—maybe even in some pretty bold ways that will surprise people."

First Person Interview: The New Teacher Project's Ariela Rozman
"Removing Barriers to Teaching"

"Teachers are a critical element to student achievement.  You could change everything in the school, if you do not have good teachers there, you are not going to be able to make the needle move in the way you want it to move."

First Person Interview: New York Times Magazine's Paul Tough
"Taking Solutions to Scale"

"I don't think it's asking to much to get kids to high levels of achievement.  No, in fact, I think it's necessary.  It's a fantastic national goal to say lets get all kids to a level playing field.  But I think it's easy to underestimate how hard that's going to be."

First Person Interview: Green Dot's Steve Barr
"Charters, unions, and choice"

“It's a basic thing. Small, safe, schools, with high expectations, where all dollars see the school site, and the parents are partners. That plays well in poor areas of New Haven, Hartford, in Boil Heights, and also Beverly Hills. And in Beverly Hills they pay twenty-five grand for that."

First Person Interview: AEI's Frederick Hess
"It's not just the achievement gap"

“One of the things these really effective schools have done is brought in effective management and created an environment where teachers feel their voices are heard, that their input is valued, and their performance is recognized. Everyone is pulling together, in the same direction."

The ConnCAN Interview:  Tom Vander Ark (Winter Compass, 2008)

"In addition to new school development and thoughtful school improvement efforts, investing in policy advocacy is one of the highest-leverage philanthropic activities that you can support because changing state policy can have a very large and long lasting impact for students."

The ConnCAN Interview:  Steven Adamowski (Summer Compass, 2007)

“Fifty years after Brown, we cannot maintain a dual system of schools. The path open to us is to have an all-choice system of schools in which every parent has a choice of a good school.”