Schools/Child Welfare

Our greatest asset in the City of Bridgeport is our young students. These students need – and deserve – the best that the city has to offer. Our students must come first. With this in mind, Bridgeport’s Board of Education has called for a state takeover of the school system. The decision to request the […]

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. […]

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 For example, Connecticut’s current statutes related to teacher employment and evaluation policies are out of date.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 […]

There’s a new tax being proposed in the legislature right now.  Not a tax being levied on owners of luxury yachts, or fancy new cars, but a tax that would hit working families across the economic spectrum, and would cost them, in total, millions of dollars a year. The bill doesn’t call it a tax, […]

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 […]

Speaking from the vantage point of 12 years as a full-time faculty member inside the community college system of Connecticut, I support Gov. Dannel Malloy’s proposal to “flatten” the currently bloated layers of higher ed administration.  This will save money, and it is also a golden opportunity to improve our college completion rates and serve […]

Some people think that teacher tenure is a guarantee of a job for life. It isn’t, and it shouldn’t be. The American Federation of Teachers in Connecticut has worked closely with the chairs of the General Assembly’s Education Committee to draft legislation (Senate Bill 1160) that will redesign teacher evaluation systems and align them to […]

Connecticut’s grown ups have an unprecedented opportunity this year to make decisions that will put our students’ needs first. Tightened budgets at the state and district levels have us all thinking: how can we be doing things better? Is there a way to approach these painful cuts that allows us to weigh potential reductions against […]

How well we educate our youth is a true measure of how well we are, or are not, investing in the future of our state and country. That is why during these difficult economic times, we must not simply cry foul about the things that are wrong with our system, but instead look to what […]

(Margie Gillis is president of Literacy How Inc.) The recent series of articles on Connecticut’s achievement gap are timely and do a good job of describing the problem at hand.  While the series points to the need for early intervention, it neglects two critical aspects of addressing this issue-the need to recognize and respond to […]

(Sen. Beth Bye is co-chair of the legislature’s Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. She represents Bloomfield, Burlington, Farmington, West Hartford) For the last two months, as the public and legislators have debated Gov. Malloy’s proposed overhaul of our state university and community college system, I have been meeting with students, residents, business leaders and […]

(Alex Johnston is chief executive officer of the school reform organization ConnCAN.) Gov. Malloy reassured many folks by promising not to cut state education funding, but many districts will still have to cut spending. Over the past couple of years, a number of districts have plugged budget holes with special funds, received directly from the […]

Connecticut, we have a problem. We’re no longer leading our nation in educational achievement, and the source of this problem begins early. Too many of our children arrive at the kindergarten door unprepared. In 2009, 67.7% of kindergarteners from poor school districts had a preschool experience, compared with 95.9% from wealthier districts. Is it any […]

Governor Malloy showed significant leadership during his budget address yesterday by calling for change in two critical areas where Connecticut desperately needs it: giving districts flexibility to ensure that only the best teachers remain in classrooms and overhauling the school finance system. Governor Malloy signaled his commitment to public education as the key not only […]