Education

State legislators have sent a bill to the governor’s desk that delays the package of school reforms passed last year in the state’s bid to capture federal Race to the Top money. The legislature’s budget office estimates the increased graduation requirements alone would cost up to $29 million to hire the additional teachers needed for the additional required courses […]

A relatively new reform movement known as PreK-3 is aiming to help children sustain educational gains made in pre-kindergarten as they enter their elementary school years, Sarah Garland writes at The Hechinger Report. Although the movement is only about 5 years old, it is rooted in research going back to the 60s showing that while […]

The House has voted to send two bills aimed at helping the state land new federal Race to the Top money for early childhood education to the governor’s desk. The bills provide funding for preschool teachers to earn degrees, begin testing kindergarten students on their reading and education development and require principals to report to the […]

State Representatives have voted to wait for three school years to raise the age to 18 that students must be to dropout of high school. The dropout age for the upcoming school year will be 17, but legislators had been considering increasing that to 18. A bill passed in the House Monday will increase the […]

After pushing back the application deadline because of a less-then-appealing pool of candidates for the state’s top education job, State Board of Education Chairman Allan Taylor said they have since received several more applications. “There are some encouraging signs,” he said Monday, declining to name individual applicants that have him so encouraged. “There is definitely more […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has signed a bill that requires substitute teachers to just have a high school diploma to be hired, scrapping the requirement that every teacher have a bachelor’s degree. “We’ve heard from a lot of districts [the requirement is] causing a burden on them,” Rep. Andy Fleischmann, D-West Hartford and co-chairman of […]

The Connecticut Mirror last week reported Higher Education Commissioner Michael Meotti’s belief, seconded by Gov. Dannel Malloy, that Connecticut’s community colleges might need to turn away people who, as Meotti put it, “have no ability to be successful in a college classroom.”  Our campuses are crowded, Commissioner Meotti said, and there is little funding expansion. […]

Legislators in both chambers have approved a bill waiving the certification requirements for many of the teachers and administrators in the state’s charter schools. Charter schools, like regular public schools, are allowed to hire teachers who lack state certification, but the teachers must get certified within two years. Meeting the certification requirement has been a problem at […]

The Senate has sent a bill to the governor’s desk that allows some towns to cut education funding when enrollment declines, reduces the state’s share of the cost of building new schools, merges several of the state’s public colleges and universities into one system and increases funding for urban students to attend surburban schools. The measure reflects most of […]

The State House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted on a bill that delays the package of school reforms passed last year in the state’s bid to capture federal Race to the Top money. The legislature’s budget office estimates the increased graduation requirements alone would cost up to $29 million to hire the additional teachers needed for […]

While most of the sound and fury during this legislative session has centered on the state’s budget deficit, there are crucial education issues that cry out for attention. For example, Connecticut’s current statutes related to teacher employment and evaluation policies are out of date. They are unfair to students and our best teachers and give […]

As the academic standing of American students among their international peers has declined, one reaction has been to expand testing to the point where many students take state and federal exams at every grade level. But many countries whose education systems consistently outperform the United States’ test far less frequently, Stephen Sawchuk reports at Education […]

The state Senate has approved a bill that waives the certification requirements for many of the teachers and administrators in the state’s charter schools. “This is a new age,” said Sen. Andrea Stillman, co-chairwoman of the Education Committee, adding that just because a teacher isn’t certified, “It doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t know how to […]

Outgoing Hartford School Superintendent Steven Adamowski says he’s not a candidate to become the state’s next education commissioner. “I am not an applicant,” he said Wednesday at the State Capitol. The state’s top education job has been vacant since former Commissioner Mark McQuillan unexpectedly resigned in January. Adamowski has been one of the people talked […]

Since its creation in the mid-1960s, the federal Head Start program has traditionally relied on non-profit operators to run the early childhood program for low-income children. Now, Sarah Garland says at The Hechinger Report, a for-profit firm has entered the field and is expanding rapidly. New York-based Acelero opened its first Head Start center in […]