Almost two dozen candidates have applied to become Connecticut’s next education commissioner. Members of the State Board of Education and the governor’s staff plan to interview six people over the next couple of weeks. “I thought we got a very strong field,” said Allan B. Taylor, chair of the State Board of Education. “It would […]
Jacqueline Rabe Thomas
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Municipal leaders upset with Malloy’s distribution of state aid
Municipal leaders say Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget will reduce non-education state grants for about a third of Connecticut’s cities and towns in the next fiscal year, and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities is calling on the administration to make sure all municipalities are “held harmless” in the budget.
Posted inEducation, Politics
CT school funding overpays wealthy towns, underpays needier, critics say
It seems like a reasonable standard: No town shall receive less state money to help run its schools than it did in the previous year. But in practice this means several Connecticut school districts in the wealthiest towns — towns that have fewer high-need students — are receiving more money from the state than they would otherwise be entitled to while needier districts get less.
Posted inEducation
Now, measure your child’s school on more than just test scores
Grading schools based on test scores is all the rage these days. But today, with the release of Your School, The Connecticut Mirror is providing a broad collection of other measures parents can use to judge their child’s school.
Posted inEducation, Politics
UConn president says cuts could mean layoffs, eliminating programs
University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst told state legislators Tuesday that she could be forced to lay off staff, seek concessions from her unionized workforce and make drastic cuts in programs if state funding is cut by $10.6 million, as the governor recommends.
Posted inEducation
$20M agreement will expand school choice to desegregate Hartford schools
State officials agreed Monday to offer 1,325 more children living in Hartford seats in existing magnet or suburban public schools next school year. The agreement is the latest result of an 18-year-old Connecticut Supreme Court decision that ordered the state to eliminate the educational inequities caused by the capital city’s segregated schools.
Posted inEducation
State teachers’ union: Eliminate Common Core standardized tests
The state’s largest teachers’ union is calling on Connecticut lawmakers to end the requirement that students take a statewide standardized test each spring.
Posted inEducation
UConn asserts contracting watchdog has only limited power over it
The University of Connecticut has told the watchdog agency that oversees state contracting that it has only limited authority to investigate allegations made against the school. “The constituent units [of higher education] are not ‘state contracting agencies’” under the law, UConn’s Office of the General Counsel wrote to the state Contracting Standards Board in an email earlier this month.
Posted inEducation
CT colleges: Proposed cuts would probably reduce staff and raise tuition
Potentially facing painful cuts in funding from the state, leaders of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system on Thursday projected what it would take to close their deficits purely with tuition hikes or staff reductions. Most likely, some combination of both would be necessary, they said.
Posted inEducation
Higher education cut, local school aid flat in Malloy budget
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget proposal cuts support for the state’s public colleges and universities, provides level funding for state aid to school districts, offers financial aid to undocumented students, and would fund four new charter schools.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Sandy Hook panel: Further tighten gun laws, improve mental health care
The commission Gov. Dannel P. Malloy created after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School will consider a draft report Friday recommending a further tightening of Connecticut’s gun laws, a prospect unlikely to find support in the General Assembly. The draft also describes a need for better integrating mental and physical health care and for reducing the stigma that many people with mental illness face.
Posted inEducation
Challenges for Katz at confirmation, then an endorsement
The sweeping changes made over the last four years by Joette Katz, the leader of the Department of Children and Families, drew mixed reviews Wednesday at a hearing that nonetheless ended with a unanimous vote in favor of her confirmation.
Posted inEducation
State aiming to hobble school funding lawsuit
Attorneys defending the state against a class-action school-funding lawsuit believe the coalition suing the state should be removed as a plaintiff, effectively diminishing the significance of the case.
Posted inEducation, Money
Panel: Empower towns to raise revenue, control special ed costs
Expanding municipal taxation options, encouraging communities to share costs regionally and reforming special education topped House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey’s new plan Thursday to bolster local and state budgets.
Posted inEducation
Watchdog troubled by restraint, seclusion of special ed students
Utility and storage closets and “cell-like spaces” are some of the places students with autism and other special education needs are inappropriately put when they misbehave, according to an investigative report released Wednesday by the Office of the Child Advocate.