Hundreds of Yale graduate teachers union members and supporters rallied Wednesday afternoon demanding the university now negotiate a first contract.
Education
Stories about schooling in Connecticut: Pre-Kindergarten through grade 12, higher education, education spending and child welfare.
Posted inEducation
State to run school desegregation lottery but tight-lipped on seat count
The state Department of Education declined to say whether the lottery will include more seats for students in desegregated magnet and suburban schools or whether the state will continue a present cap on the number of seats it will pay for.
Posted inEducation
State auditors looking into vo-tech system contracts
Connecticut’s state auditors have joined other state and federal officials in investigating contracts between the state’s vocational-technical school system and two Rocky Hill-based marking and consulting firms.
Posted inEducation, Money
Two legislative leaders proposing sweeping school funding changes
A plan backed by two Democratic legislative leaders to boost state spending for public schools by $53 million next year and shake up how the state funds charter and magnet schools is causing disagreements among members of their own party and with the leader of the state’s largest teachers union.
Posted inEducation
School funding on trial: High court rejects speeding up appeal
The Connecticut Supreme Court has denied the state’s unusual request that they speed up hearing arguments against a lower court’s controversial ruling that the state’s way of distributing school aid is irrational and unconstitutional.
Posted inEducation
Growing wait list for child care subsidies taking its toll
Thousands of low-income families hoping to receive child care subsidies are stuck in limbo as a wait list for the program swells. The number could grow to 5,000 families by this summer, advocates say.
Posted inEducation
See the graduation rate at your local high school
Of the state’s 180 high schools, 107 have increased their graduation rates by more than 1 percent, and 16 high schools saw increases above 10 percent. However, 33 showed decreases of more than 1 percent.
Posted inEducation
Faculty balk at Ojakian’s ‘clandestine’ plan for CSCU’s future
“In the biggest decision that has ever come before the Board of Regents, the [Faculty Advisory Committee] is shocked at the lack of specificity in President Ojakian’s ‘Students First’ proposal, and the lack of transparent deliberation that went into passing it,” says a resolution adopted by the system’s Faculty Advisory Committee.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Malloy plan hands poorest municipalities a life preserver and an anchor
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants to help Hartford and Connecticut’s poorest communities stabilize their local budgets. But he also wants all municipalities — including the poorest — to begin paying one-third of teacher pension costs set to explode over the next 15 years. Those goals may not be politically compatible.
Posted inEducation
State watchdog launches investigation into vo-tech contracts
The watchdog board that oversees state contracts will investigate whether Connecticut’s vocational-technical school system improperly spent millions of dollars over the past three years on marketing and consulting contracts with two Rocky Hill-based firms.
Posted inEducation
CSCU regents adopt tuition hikes, consolidation framework
Updated at 8:13 p.m.
The Board of Regents for Higher Education adopted tuition increases that will eliminate more than half the $35-million budget deficit the state’s largest public college system is facing in the next fiscal year. The board also adopted the framework of a plan to dramatically consolidate the administrative and operational structures of many of the system’s colleges.
Posted inEducation
CT scraps using state test scores to compute teacher ratings
State education board Chairman Allan B. Taylor and Education Commissioner Dianna Wentzell both praised the action as an important clarification of the role state tests should play: a goal-setting tool for teachers, not part of a formula for rating an individual teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom. State teacher unions had fought using the state tests as part of teacher evaluations for years.
Posted inEducation
Ojakian pitches sweeping consolidations to keep CSCU ‘viable’
The Board of Regents for Higher Education will be asked Thursday to endorse a framework for saving at least $41 million annually through the administrative and operational consolidations of institutions that have remained autonomous since the merger in 2011 of the state’s 12 community colleges, four regional state universities and the online college, Charter Oak. The system’s president, Mark Ojakian, said the present structure no longer is viable.
Posted inEducation
DeVos says American schools can’t get much worse
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos isn’t concerned that a push for more school choice could inadvertently harm America’s schools, she said Wednesday — because she believes the nation’s achievement is already too abysmal for that to be possible.
Posted inEducation
Tuition hikes blunt CSCU budget gap
The president of the state’s largest public college system said tuition increases spread over the next two years are necessary to help close a budget gap of at least $70 million over that time while still giving students the ability to handle and plan for future costs.