The test scores of Kendra Salvador’s students suggest she’s doing an excellent job teaching math at her inner-city charter school, but state education officials keep telling her principal she has to go back to college or lose her job. “It just doesn’t make sense,” Jeff House, the principal of Achievement First Middle School, said while […]
Bill would waive certification for charter school teachers
Posted inHealth
The start of a medical home boom?
Two large medical groups have become officially recognized patient-centered medical homes, significantly increasing the number of Connecticut health care providers with the designation. The patient-centered medical home concept is becoming increasingly popular in health care. It emphasizes care coordination, with health care providers taking responsibility for all of their patients’ health care needs, including arranging […]
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut’s school funding fix
Connecticut’s public schools face a daunting challenge: How do we deliver a dramatic improvement in achievement without an increase in spending? With each passing day, we read about entrepreneurs and engineers from the far reaches of the world who are realizing the innovations that will shape our lives for the next hundred years. Will our […]
Posted inEducation
Connecticut’s school funding fix
Connecticut’s public schools face a daunting challenge: How do we deliver a dramatic improvement in achievement without an increase in spending? With each passing day, we read about entrepreneurs and engineers from the far reaches of the world who are realizing the innovations that will shape our lives for the next hundred years. Will our […]
Posted inNews
A victory for a rookie governor running against the tide
A new political reality at the state Capitol was affirmed Thursday as the legislature’s money committees endorsed tax and spending plans outlined two months ago by the rookie governor who barely squeaked into office, Dannel P. Malloy. With surprisingly few defections, Democratic majorities on the Appropriations and Finance committees approved and sent to the floor […]
Posted inNews
Budget deal restores some social services cuts, leaves others
The budget agreed to by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democratic legislators restores funding to several health and social services programs that the governor initially proposed trimming. But it also leaves in place other cuts that advocates have decried and relies on higher assumed Medicaid savings than the governor’s original proposal. Out are plans to […]
Posted inNews
Ex-CSU Chancellor Carter pays ethics fine over hiring of wife
After stepping down following a tumultuous year, former Connecticut State University System Chancellor David Carter this week paid a $2,000 fine for an ethics violation involving the hiring of his wife for a $26,903 part-time job during a hiring freeze. A stipulation and consent order says Carter failed to disclose his financial interest in the […]
Posted inNews
Rhetoric heating up as vote to increase debt ceiling nears
WASHINGTON–The decibel level in the debate over raising the nation’s debt limit got a lot higher this week, after Standard & Poor’s rating agency lowered America’s credit outlook and the markets rippled in reaction. Connecticut lawmakers, with one exception, say that Congress should vote to hike the debt ceiling, with no strings attached. They’re not […]
Posted inHealth
Controversial Obama appointee coming to CT to discuss health reform
One of the Obama’s Administration’s most controversial appointees will be in Hartford Monday to talk about one of its most divisive achievements-health care reform. Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will be meeting with Gov. Dannel Malloy, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, and Rep. John Larson, to discuss health reform. […]
Posted inHealth
State officials going on the road to talk about federal health reform
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s town hall meeting tour is finished, but other state officials will go back on the road for five public forums to explain and get feedback on a key part of federal health reform. The 90-minute meetings will address the health insurance exchange, a marketplace for health insurance that will offer a […]
Posted inNews
Even in an era of budget cuts, some programs won’t die
Even as Congress slices $38 billion from the current year’s budget and gears up to slash hundreds of billions more from the next, some programs seem impervious to cuts, David A. Fahrenthold says at the Washington Post. He cites four: One spends federal money to store cotton bales. Another offers scholars a chance to study […]
Posted inNews
Blumenthal finally moves into official Senate digs
For the first three months of the 112th Congress, freshman Sen. Richard Blumenthal and his staff have had to work out of a dim, no-frills temporary office in the basement of the Senate’s Dirksen Building. But today, the Democratic lawmaker moved up-literally. Blumenthal’s staff spent Wednesday moving and today settling in to spacious new digs […]
Posted inNews
Malloy, legislative Democrats close ranks on budget deal
A revised budget unveiled Wednesday by Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy restores an array of popular middle-class sales tax exemptions, while increasing inheritance taxes and a levy on expensive cars, boats and jewelry. The revisions, which would trim Malloy’s $1.5 billion tax increase by $116 million and make modest shifts in spending, […]
Posted inNews
SustiNet deal reached, but without a ‘public option’
The Malloy administration and Democratic legislative leaders have reached an agreement on the proposed SustiNet state-run health plan, with a deal that calls for opening the state employee health plan to municipalities and some nonprofits, but not for offering insurance to the public. The agreement would also establish a “SustiNet cabinet” advisory panel within the […]
Posted inNews
Legislature may approve budget before concessions finalized
With a budget agreement in hand, legislative leaders are considering having the General Assembly vote on the tax-and-spending plan without waiting to see if Gov. Dannel P. Malloy succeeds in obtaining the $1 billion in labor savings he is seeking from state employees. A quick vote would leave Malloy with the responsibility for obtaining sufficient […]