Everybody writes “year in review” stories. But rather than dwell on the past, I’ve got the guts to predict the future! Here’s what will happen in 2016 in the transportation world on issues like Metro North performance, Uber, eminent domain for transportation, state highways and others.
Opinion
Posted inCT Viewpoints
You can help reduce food insecurity in Connecticut
The Bartletts are a family of four with two children, aged 8 and 4. Mr. Bartlett recently lost his job and Mrs. Bartlett works part-time for a retailer at just above minimum wage. Even with their limited income and some benefits including help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food-stamps), it is still extremely difficult for them to regularly put nutritious food on the table. With Thanksgiving just behind us, and the rest of the holiday season ahead, food insecure households like the Bartletts will face additional challenges as they continue to struggle to make ends meet and still observe their holiday traditions.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
It’s time to address inequity in Connecticut’s schools
As Connecticut emerges from this latest budget negotiation, it’s time for us to address a long-standing inequity in our public schools. Thanks to Connecticut’s outdated and unequal system of funding public education, thousands of our highest-need kids are being valued less by the state, given less money simply because of the type of public school they attend. Charter school students are given just 74 cents on the dollar compared to their peers in traditional public schools.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CT hospital mergers, purchases, need strict scrutiny
It is hard to turn on your computer or to check out your evening news without hearing highly paid hospital executives saying that the sky is falling and arguing that they are on the side of consumers. In reviewing the recent filings with state regulators, it appears that this may just be an effort to create a distraction as they go about radically changing the health care landscape in Connecticut. If unchecked it is likely to have a very harmful impact on cost and access.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Malloy gun proposal NOT about terrorism
No one wants terrorists to have guns. However, Gov. Dan Malloy’s recent proposal to ban gun purchases from those who appear on a nebulous terrorist “watch list” is a step too far. There is no doubt that Gov. Malloy is not a big fan of the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, this plan also guts the 14th Amendment due process clause by suspending the right to purchase and potentially confiscating legally owned property without providing ANY evidence to do so.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CT’s last legislative session: Hidden motives, veiled truths
As a caucus, my fellow Republican legislators knew that the budget could not remain sustainable for long. That’s why we fought keenly through the night to achieve a better financial plan back in June. When our attempts to amend the unbalanced budget failed that night, we had no choice but to vote against it if we wanted something better for Connecticut.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut’s charter schools stronger than ever
2015 was a landmark year for public charter schools in Connecticut. A record 9,000 children are now enrolled in charters and two new schools opened in Bridgeport and Stamford, bringing the state’s total to 24. And a new study shows that accountability measures recently signed into law make Connecticut’s charter law stronger than ever. Moving forward, we must pay close attention to how public charter school students are treated compared to their peers. State leaders should read NACSA’s study on national charter laws and look to other states on how to bring approval process up to par. And they should also applaud themselves for the accountability measures passed this June.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Post NCLB: Connecticut must reject the Common Core
With the end of No Child Left Behind, states will have the flexibility to continue with the controversial Common Core State Standards or not. This is Connecticut’s opportunity to put a good education in place for our students by rejecting the Common Core. The whole approach of the Common Core contradicts the philosophically and academically-sound Connecticut State Standards approach.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Newtown parents condemn conspiracy theorist and his university
It’s been three years since we last embraced our precious little boy, Noah. At 6 years old, he was the youngest child murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. ..The passage of time has nowhere near dimmed the vivid memory of that day nor made it any less difficult for us to cope with the pain and anguish of losing our only son. The heartache of burying a child is a sorrow we would not wish upon anyone. Yet to our horror, we have found that there are some in this society who lack empathy for the suffering of others. Among them are the conspiracy theorists that deny our tragedy was real. They seek us out and accuse us of being government agents who are faking our grief and lying about our loss.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut students don’t drink as much as you — or they — think
Local town and gown committees might be interested to know that Connecticut college students don’t drink as much as people think they do — or even as much as they, themselves, think they do. Both the community at large and the students themselves have misconceptions about how much students drink.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
Transportation affects nearly everything in Connecticut
While this column often is a rant about failing commuter rail service or an occasional rave for overdue investment in our highways, when you think about it, transportation is really an issue that affects many aspects of our lives: where we live, shop and go to work.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut’s disabled need not fight the aid-in-dying idea
Disabilities rights advocates have successfully (and rightly) fought many battles on behalf of disabled and handicapped people, who too often encounter obstacles and attitudes that are antagonistic to their success and well-being. Understandably, they have a victimhood mindset, which is the lens through which they view any societal issues that can be imagined to constitute another threat to their existence. Predictably, disabilities rights advocates have reacted with alarm to aid-in-dying initiatives. I believe this is a battle that they need not fight.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
No lock on Connecticut’s transportation lock box
Yesterday, the legislature voted to implement a “transportation lock box” to presumably protect funding to repair and replace our state’s crumbling roads, rails and bridges that we travel daily. While this sounds like a noble idea, we of the Southeastern Connecticut delegation – and many of our colleagues – saw the serious flaws in this bill that compelled us to vote against it.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
CSCU president could have addressed protest instead of breezing by
Last Thursday, this year’s President of the Connecticut’s Board of Regents for Higher Education, Mark Ojakian, hurried past a large group of AAUP protesters outside of his scheduled Board of Regents meeting at the old Phoenix Insurance building on Woodland Street in Hartford. It probably never occurred to this right-hand man of the governor that he was presented with a rare opportunity. In Ojakian’s defense, his boss probably would not have seized the opportunity either.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Need to save money? Cut Connecticut’s SBAC testing
As the state of Connecticut wrangles with the budget in the coming weeks, one area of the budget the legislature has not yet considered for cuts is the state’s SBAC testing program. The state estimates it will spend $17 million developing and administering standardized tests during the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years. Standardized testing has come under increasing scrutiny across the nation, particularly in its use for high-stakes decisions such as student promotion, in teacher evaluations, and other school personnel decisions.