Similar to his four-month tour of employers last year to ready a jobs package, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is readying workshops beginning Jan. 5 to pull together an education legislative package in time for the Connecticut General Assembly session that convenes Feb. 8 and runs through May 9.
“Addressing these challenges will require Connecticut to embrace a real sense of urgency and a willingness to deploy bold strategies,” Malloy wrote legislative leaders in mid-December.
“We must create a system that focuses at every level on preparing our students for success in college and careers. We must enable our educators by providing the support they need. We must embrace performance-based accountability as a lever for continuous improvement. And we must reduce bureaucratic barriers to excellence ”“ if a district is producing fantastic results, the (state) Department of Education should be getting out of its way.”
While Malloy did not ignore education in his first year in office, he made cutting the state”™s deficit and creating jobs his main areas of focus. Among other moves, he created an early childhood office and signed a law to establish a coordinated system for early childhood care and education. He also pledged to open 1,000 new, high-quality early childhood spaces for high-needs children.
As reported by the Fairfield County Business Journal in the Dec. 26 edition, the Connecticut Business and Industry Association is backing the governor in making education CBIA”™s top legislative priority. Malloy published his education platform after the newspaper went to press.
Among other measures, Malloy said any new bill must:
- enhance families”™ access to high-quality, early-childhood education;
- authorize interventions to turn around Connecticut”™s worst schools and districts;
- expand availability of high-quality school models, including traditional schools, magnets, charters and others;
- unleash innovation by removing red tape and other barriers to success, especially in high-performing schools and districts;
- ensure schools emphasize the skill and effectiveness in retaining teachers and administrators, ahead of seniority and tenure; and
- deliver more resources targeted to districts with the greatest need ”“ provided that they embrace key reforms.
The push comes after the U.S. Department of Education denied Connecticut”™s bid for more than $50 million in early childhood education, under the Obama administration”™s “Race to the Top” competition rewarding innovative school programs.
On Dec. 23, New Jersey and Pennsylvania each received $200 million in Race to the Top funding. They joined 20 other states that have received money under the program, including New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
It amounts to a stinging rebuke for Connecticut, which despite having a number of troubled school districts like Bridgeport also has some of the best in the nation, several of those in wealthy Fairfield County. In Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now”™s (ConnCAN) most recent report card on state schools, Fairfield County was home to five of just six schools statewide to secure “A minus” grades.
At a December meeting of the Connecticut State Board of Education, board chairman and Day Pitney partner Allan Taylor suggested officials consider radical changes adopted in some other states, including a baccalaureate-style approach in which students receive diplomas based on what they actually know, and not on what classes they have taken ”“ even if it adds to the amount of time they spend in high school.
“New Hampshire, a couple years ago, changed its high-school graduation requirements ”“ they no longer base graduation on credits,” Taylor said. “They (now) base graduation on measured capacities, so it”™s a change away from the Carnegie unit system. I think we obviously are going to want to look at that.”
Elementary schools fared far better in the ConnCAN rankings, with nearly 70 schools receiving “A” or “A minus” grades, more than 40 of them in Fairfield County.
To new education Commissioner Stefan Pryor falls the task of securing top grades for Connecticut schools on the national bell curve, with his own “listening tour” having taken him through Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk and Fairfield, among other school districts.
“All of this is feeding into a process in which we are looking toward the first quarter of this year for a series of significant moves and significant changes,” Pryor said. “I truly believe we have the potential to enter a new era in education.”
