Jack Miller, the president of Central Connecticut State University, came to the defense on Wednesday of Transform CSCU 2020 — the embattled reform initiatives being considered by the 17-college system. Miller’s email comes just two days after the 10 of the 11 “CSU Professors” — the highest designation faculty at Central, Eastern, Southern and Western Connecticut state universities can receive — co-signed a three-page letter in which they complain the system’s president is taking the schools down the wrong path.
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 inEducation
What high school students want…
The statewide advisory panel of high schools students told members of the State Board of Education Wednesday what they want — including later school opening times, fewer tests, and a mandatory community service requirement.
Posted inEducation
State education officials anticipate more school districts will merge
With enrollment declining in many schools across the state, several members of the State Board of Education predict they will soon see more requests from local districts to combine into a regional school district. On Wednesday, the board got just such a request.
Posted inEducation
Magnet schools increasing burden on municipalities
Faced with deficits and stagnant per-student funding from the state, magnet school leaders have increasingly been forced to turn to local districts to fill the shortfall. But it is not a remedy that can continue indefinitely, they warn. They want the state to increase its support for magnet school students by $1,000 each.
Posted inEducation
CSCU after merger: Fewer faculty, higher central office costs
Despite promises four years ago that merging the state’s community colleges and regional four-year universities into one system would save millions in administrative costs so more faculty could be hired, the budget for the central office has grown by $5.5 million and the regional universities employ 67 fewer full-time faculty.
Posted inEducation
Top faculty tell legislators: No confidence in CSCU president
A group of distinguished professors notified legislators Monday they have lost confidence in Gregory Gray, the president of the state’s largest public college system.
Posted inEducation
Help wanted: CT commissioner with education background
The panel searching for the state’s next education commissioner wants someone who has a long background and an advanced degree in education – qualifications the last commissioner did not have and which one of the state’s teachers’ unions called for during the campaign.
Posted inEducation, Health, Money, Politics
Malloy’s budget cuts again hit social services, universities, courts
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy unveiled more than $31.5 million in spending cuts Friday in his second round of emergency budget reductions, with social services, public colleges and universities and state court system again taking the heaviest hits. A shortfall of at least $89 million remains to be addressed.
Posted inPolitics
A goodbye note from Linda Yelmini
Linda Yelmini, the state’s longtime director of labor relations who was pushed out by the Malloy administration, sent a goodbye email to state employees Thursday thanking them for ducking the “slings and arrows hurled at you from all sources, especially when a state employee has been identified as having done something wrong.”
Posted inPolitics
Black and Latino Caucus names leader
Rep. Bruce Morris will lead the legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus, whose members makeup 10 percent of the General Assembly.
Posted inEducation
Connecticut’s education system ranked
First the good news: A higher rate of 3- and 4-year-olds in Connecticut were enrolled in preschool than in any other state between 2011 and 2013. Now the bad news: Connecticut has the largest achievement gap in math and nearly the worst gap in reading between students from low-income families and their peers.
Posted inPolitics
Scribner resigns from House for state liquor control job
Rep. David Scribner has resigned from the state House of Representatives to become a state liquor control commissioner. Scribner, a Republican, has represented Bethel, Brookfield and Danbury for the last 15 years. He has been the ranking Republican on the legislature’s Transportation Committee since 2003.
Posted inEducation
School choice: Future of new magnet schools uncertain
When state legislators placed a moratorium on building new magnet schools outside the capital region five years ago, they wanted to know if these schools were worth the large investment before boosting enrollment further. So they ordered the state education commissioner to assess magnet school performance and submit a plan for their future. That plan is now four years late, magnet schools approved before the moratorium will probably be full by the start of the next school year, research is incomplete on their impact and many legislators are reluctant to open new schools.
Posted inNews
Dianna Wentzell expected to be interim education commissioner
Dianna Wentzell is expected to be tapped Wednesday to lead the Connecticut Department of Education while the State Board of Education searches for a replacement of outgoing commissioner Stefan Pryor.
Posted inEducation
Legislators concerned by UConn president’s raise
Leaders of the legislature’s Higher Education Committee have concerns with the sizable pay boost the president of the state’s flagship public university will receive over the next four years.