The state’s community colleges and regional Connecticut state universities plan to shed dozens of teachers, tutors and other staff to close the $34.5 million deficit they are anticipating for the next fiscal year. “We will not be the same institutions this September that we were last September,” says Connecticut State Colleges and Universities President Gregory Gray said. Find the planned cuts for each school.
What cuts loom at each CSCU campus?
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Of politics, doing the right thing, and Connecticut jellyfish
This week’s debate over Gov. Dannel Malloy’s plan to reform an outdated drug law with clear racial implications shines a spotlight on discouraging dysfunction within the Connecticut General Assembly. What is surprising, and a bit embarrassing, is the ease with which our legislators apparently can be intimidated from doing the right thing — and their willingness to admit it.
Posted inMoney, Politics
A symbolic victory for casino expansion
The state Senate approved the consolation prize late Wednesday for those hoping to see a new casino authorized to combat growing competition from gambling facilities in neighboring states — particularly one to open in Springfield in 2017. The bill, which now heads to the House of Representatives, instead establishes a search process for a potential host community for a new casino — and requires the legislature to revisit the matter one year from now.
Posted inEducation
Union calls problems with Smarter Balanced exams ‘pervasive’
The state says administration of the new Smarter Balanced Assessment tests is going well, but the state’s largest teachers union says its members report “pervasive” problems.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Time is short, but budget talks are going long
With just two weeks left in the 2015 General Assembly session, the principals in final state budget negotiations acknowledged Wednesday that little progress has been made as the June 3 deadline looms large.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Text: Obama speech on climate change at Coast Guard Academy
President Obama used his commencement speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London Wednesday to define climate change as a serious threat to global and national security. Here is the text of his speech, provided by the White House press office.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Senate votes to ban variable electric-rate contracts
The state Senate passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday night that a sponsor says could make Connecticut the first state to ban variable electric- rate contracts that consumer advocates say are routinely used to exploit residential customers.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
In Connecticut, there is no ‘achievement gap’
Before students of all colors can succeed equally in Connecticut’s public schools, we must be bluntly honest about why disparities exist. An achievement gap would exist if we gave every student equal opportunities and some children still failed to achieve. In a myriad ways, we do not give all our children the same opportunities. Nowhere is this more apparent than in school discipline policies that exclude children from the classroom.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Test data matters for Connecticut. Education is a science
Until recent developments, we haven’t had sufficient high-quality data about public education. Is it any surprise that our education system is less than optimal? In Connecticut, we have the widest achievement gap in the nation. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test is an advanced, computer-based assessment that will provide us with the opportunity to collect the most refined student achievement data we’ve ever seen.
Posted inHealth, Politics
The doctor is online, and lawmakers are prescribing some rules
Joanna Leach didn’t have time to get to the doctor to check out her lingering cold. So she flipped open her laptop, signed up for a service and was soon face-to-face — or screen-to-screen — with a doctor in another state, who diagnosed her and prescribed medication. That form of health care — known as telemedicine — is expected to become more common, and an attempt by legislators to regulate it has brought forward a debate on the shape it should take.
Posted inEducation
Senate sets affirmative-consent standard for campus sex assaults
The Senate voted overwhelmingly late Tuesday to establish an affirmative-consent threshold in cases of sexual assault on all college and university campuses in Connecticut.
Posted inPolitics
Jepsen declined to help tribes lobby feds on casino
The state attorney general’s office declined Tuesday to help the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes ask the U.S. Department of the Interior for a statement supporting their bid for casino expansion in Connecticut.
Posted inPolitics
3 CT lawmakers buck tide, vote ‘no’ on short-term federal highway bill
WASHINGTON – Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Joe Courtney and John Larson were among the minority of House members to vote against a bill Tuesday that would allow federal highway money to continue to flow to the states – but only for another two months.
Posted inPolitics
Murphy pushes ‘Buy American’ in Pacific trade bill
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chris Murphy is trying to make it harder for the Pentagon to shop overseas by attaching a “Buy American” amendment to a bill that would help President Obama negotiate new free trade agreements.
Posted inEducation
Legislators advance in-state tuition, financial aid for undocumented students
The state House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to expand the number of undocumented immigrants who qualify for much lower in-state tuition rates at Connecticut public colleges. Meanwhile, another bill that would make these students eligible to compete for a $140 million pool of financial aid was approved by the state Senate.