The CT Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/category/education/)
The Connecticut Mirror provides comprehensive coverage of the state’s K-12 school system, institutions of higher education and child welfare issues. Find all of our stories on those topics here.
For a deeper look at inequality in Connecticut’s public schools, read Jacqueline Rabe Thomas’ acclaimed seven-part series, “Troubled Schools on Trial.”
Democratic and Republican legislators offered competing visions for the next state budget Friday, but both effectively dipped into this spring’s unexpectedly high income-tax revenues to salvage key programs for towns and social services, drawing a sharp rebuke from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Continue Reading →
Legislation that would make some undocumented immigrants eligible for college financial aid will win enough votes to pass the General Assembly after years of unsuccessful attempts, legislative leaders predicted Wednesday. The state Senate passed the bill Wednesday on a vote of 30 to 5, and it now heads to the House. Continue Reading →
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Education has come to the aid of hundreds of Ridley-Lowell Business & Technical Institute students whose education came to an abrupt end last week when the school shut down without warning. The help includes allowing students file claims to have their student loans discharged. Continue Reading →
Updated at 3:05 p.m.
The state legislature voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to take a year off from penalizing municipalities that reduce school spending in reaction to cuts in state aid, a change the governor says would affect only two communities. Continue Reading →
Connecticut’s performance this year on the so-called ‘Nation’s Report Card,’ the country’s most comprehensive assessment of what students know, was remarkably the same as it was the last time the test was given two years ago. The average student’s performance and the gaping gaps in achievement between different groups of students were largely unchanged. Continue Reading →
Neither of the state legislature’s budget-writing panels put forth plans last week that help to eliminate significant deficits in the current fiscal year, or for the budget that begins July 1. Continue Reading →
NEW HAVEN — A lack of political will is preventing spending money on approaches that research shows work to improve outcomes for students, particularly desegregating schools, former education Secretary John B. King said in New Haven Friday.
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Statewide, there has been little progress in stemming aggressive student behavior as student suspension and expulsion rates steadily decline. For this Sunday Conversation, we sat down with Tod Couture, a special education teacher from Enfield, to talk about school safety in a district that is focusing its resources on another safety issue: student assaults on teachers. Continue Reading →
Congress hasn’t changed its mind, but at the urging of advocates, the Department of Education under former President Barack Obama greenlit a pilot program in 2015 that extended Pell grants to thousands of prison inmates. The program is set to expire at the end of 2018. Its future is now uncertain. Continue Reading →
With last year’s failure to recommend a new budget still fresh in their minds, the leaders of the legislature’s Appropriations Committee were uncertain this week whether they could avoid a repeat. Continue Reading →
Progressive Democrats in the General Assembly pushed back Friday against the state’s new fiscal stability panel, charging its recommendations shortchange key priorities, like poor cities, education and social services. Continue Reading →
New federal funding will help Connecticut’s Care4Kids child care subsidy program, in which enrollment has been down sharply because of budget constraints. Continue Reading →
Two progressive policy groups have charged the state’s fiscal stability commission with failing to disclose documents — including those tied to a nonprofit that funded key budgetary consultants for the panel. They are asking the legislature to put off acting on the panel’s recommendations until their request for the documents is resolved. Continue Reading →
Shortly after the governor imposed $58 million in midyear cuts to state education aid for 130 communities last November, the state informed superintendents their districts would lose even more state funding if they coped by cutting their own budgets by more than the administration has determined the law allows. Continue Reading →
WASHINGTON — Connecticut Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell on Tuesday helped congressional Democrats push back against President Donald Trump’s school safety initiatives, including proposals to arm teachers and review Obama-era policies that encouraged educators to consider alternatives to detention and expulsion. Continue Reading →