Robert A. Frahm

Despite the high stakes attached to its multimillion-dollar statewide school testing program, new allegations of cheating show that Connecticut–like many other states–relies almost entirely on local districts to spot and report fraud. An apparent cheating scandal at a Waterbury elementary school on the Connecticut Mastery Test came to light only after Waterbury officials alerted that […]

Educators who cheat to improve their schools’ test scores should be subject to financial penalties, the state’s top education official said Wednesday as the state began an investigation of alleged cheating at a Waterbury school. State Education Commissioner George Coleman said he plans to propose toughening the state’s anti-cheating laws by making teachers or principals […]

NEW HAVEN–On a sunny Saturday morning, dozens of black and Latino teenage boys, dressed sharply in business suits, crowd into a college classroom, confident they are on a path to success that eludes many of their high school classmates. For nearly five hours, they undergo drills on test-taking skills, public speaking, critical thinking – and even […]

Low-income and minority students continued to lag on statewide achievement test results released this week, but financially-strapped public schools may have less help to attack the problem this year. Many of the state’s public schools expect to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and scale back academic programs as they struggle with rising costs and […]

NEW HAVEN–Sometime next month, Rob Glassman, like other teachers throughout this city’s public school system, will get his own report card. He will be rated on a variety of factors–including the progress of his sixth-grade students–under a complex new system that is being watched closely by educators and policymakers from Hartford to Washington, D.C. New […]

Exposure to lead even at low levels resulted in poor academic performance among Connecticut schoolchildren and may be a factor in the state’s large achievement gap among black children, a new Duke University study shows. Lead exposure during early childhood had a negative effect on statewide fourth-grade achievement test scores even when exposure was at […]

A three-year-old experiment to reshape teaching strategies and bolster achievement in the state’s neediest and lowest-performing school districts has produced promising early results, state officials said Wednesday. The Connecticut Accountability Learning Initiative (CALI) led to significant gains for minority students, low-income children and other groups that have lagged behind white and more affluent groups on […]

As history professor Matt Warshauer brought his sixth-grade daughter to Hartford this week to see an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, he lamented that students often know little about their government. A national study released today suggests that Warshauer is right. A U.S. government study on civics education reported only modest gains by […]

Hartford school officials refused Monday to end an advertising campaign that has spurred protests from civil rights groups who contend it undermines a key strategy for desegregating the city’s schools. A coalition of groups supporting a court order in the Sheff vs. O’Neill desegregation case asked the school system to cease a campaign that discourages […]

Hartford educators say an ad campaign discouraging parents from sending their children to suburban schools reflects success of the city’s education reforms, but a lawyer for plaintiffs in the Sheff vs. O’Neill desegregation case says it threatens to undermine a court-ordered plan to reduce the racial isolation of city students. Hartford Public School officials launched […]

Whether 9-year-old Nejaughn Ware Jr. ever gets to enroll in a suburban school or continues to attend Hartford’s public schools could depend on more than just the annual school choice lottery. The fourth-grader’s future also could hinge on a bill pending before the state legislature. Lawmakers appear poised to substantially bolster financial incentives to expand […]

As a boy growing up in Connecticut, Jamie Merisotis absorbed his parents’ message about the value of higher education–a message he brought back to his home state Wednesday, along with a warning. In building an educated workforce, Connecticut is slipping, said Merisotis, one of the nation’s leading voices on higher education. “Today, other states are […]

NEW BRITAIN–Sometime this spring, teachers in this cash-strapped school system will begin negotiating their next labor contract, and, once again, they will face an unpleasant choice: Give up pay raises or give up jobs. Here and in other beleaguered school systems across the state, many teachers and other union employees are foregoing raises and making […]

Days after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he wants to provide school districts with the opportunity to retain new and talented teachers over more senior staff, an arbitration panel rejected Hartford Public School officials request to do just that. Hartford Public Schools, like many districts across the state, is facing potential layoffs under a deepening […]