Greenwich businessman Steven J. Simmons will head a new state commission to tackle the problem of poor academic performance among low-income and minority children, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced today. The Commission on Educational Achievement, consisting of 11 business leaders and other professionals, will conduct hearings, visit public schools and review research to address the […]

Hoping for a second chance at millions of dollars in federal stimulus money for school reform, state lawmakers enlisted the help Thursday of education groups whose views are often at odds. In a hastily called press conference, the co-chairmen of the legislature’s Education Committee assembled the unusual coalition to help the state rewrite a school […]

Connecticut education officials will rewrite a massive school reform plan in a second attempt to win federal stimulus funds after failing to make a list of finalists Thursday in a state-by-state competition for the money. The U.S. Department of Education listed 15 other states and the District of Columbia as finalists for their reform proposals […]

Magnet schools, charter schools and technical schools all have become popular options for many Connecticut families, but those schools rely on a financial structure that is “broken, unfair, and inadequately funded,” says the state’s top education official. State Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan will ask the State Board of Education today to find ways to fix […]

Connecticut has joined 16 other states in a national alliance to reverse a discouraging downward trend in the percentage of young people earning college degrees, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced today. The states have joined Complete College America, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that will assist states in setting goals for graduation rates, monitoring progress, […]

As enrollment hit record lows at Stamford’s state-operated Wright Technical High School last year, and per-student costs soared to $27,000, state education officials decided they had run out of options. Facing a deep recession and intense pressure to slash budgets, they shut down the troubled school. But the closing unleashed a wave of anger, including […]

Southern Connecticut State University President Cheryl J. Norton has requested a sabbatical leave starting in June and will retire next year, she announced today. “After much thought and deliberation, I have come to the decision that for both personal and professional reasons it is time for me to move on,” Norton said in a message […]

At Jumoke Academy, a nearly all-black charter school in one of Hartford’s poorest neighborhoods, Monique Griffin, the mother of four students, scoffs at the idea the school would be considered a failure. “Jumoke has been great,” says Griffin, citing its family-like atmosphere, after-school programs and encouraging academic record. Nevertheless, a controversial new report takes direct […]

A Superior Court judge has rejected a claim that the state failed to meet its quotas under a school desegregation court order in the long-running Sheff vs. O’Neill case. Plaintiffs argued that the state fell short of its goals to enroll sufficient numbers of Hartford schoolchildren in racially integrated schools, but Hartford Superior Court Judge […]

In the University of Connecticut student newspaper last week, columnist Jason Ortiz struck an increasingly familiar note of skepticism about higher education as he decried the growing burden of tuition hikes. UConn should not “balance bloated budgets on the backs of working young people . . . ,” Ortiz wrote as university trustees were about […]

At $5.65 an hour plus tips, the restaurant job Klajd Kovaci works nights and weekends doesn’t do much to ease the pain of the $530 tuition and fee increase the University of Connecticut approved Thursday. “When I’m looking at paying $5,000 each semester . . . and hearing that it’s only going to go up […]

Just 16, and off to college? That could become an option for high school sophomores in Connecticut, one of eight states named Wednesday to pilot test a rigorous new system, including board examinations, that would mark a dramatic shift in the traditional notion of high school education. By fall of 2011, those states will begin […]

University of Connecticut undergraduates will face a 5.4 percent increase in tuition and fees next fall, university trustees decided Thursday after hearing a mixed message from students and faculty. The $530 increase, which brings total tuition and fees to $10,416, is slightly less than the 5.8 percent hike UConn officials had proposed a week ago. […]

Connecticut is among eight states that will pilot test a rigorous examination that could dramatically alter the notion of traditional high school education and allow students to graduate after their sophomore year, officials announced today. Each state will select 10 to 20 schools by fall of 2011 to begin testing a system of coursework and […]

The state’s top education official said Tuesday he opposes the creation of more magnet schools as a means of meeting a court order to desegregate Hartford’s predominantly black and Hispanic public schools. Instead, Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan urged legislators to expand a longstanding school choice program that allows Hartford parents to enroll their children in […]