“Let’s speak bluntly: many parts of our system of public education are broken.”
“Let’s be honest with ourselves, and let’s speak bluntly: many parts of our system of public education are broken.”
– Gov. Malloy introduces the topic of education in his State of the State Address
The 2012 Legislative Session is now underway. For those of us who insist time and again that the only way to bring lasting changes to Connecticut is to introduce a portfolio of reforms that link issues of policy, funding and action to the needs and experiences of the students (rather than the adults) – our time is now.
In the past few weeks, Governor Malloy and Commissioner Pryor have unfolded a bold and impressive proposal for education reform that is highly aligned with the recommendations put forth by the Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement, CCER’s precursor organization, in its 2010 Report. From intensive school turnaround strategies to forward-thinking models of educator preparation, certification, evaluation, compensation, retention, and professional development – we believe the Governor is on the right track. What follows is a discussion of a few of the areas of alignment between CCER’s recommendations and Governor Malloy’s education proposals:
Commissioner’s Role in Turnaround, Part 2: New Authority Needed
Recently, the Connecticut Council for Education Reform (CCER) highlighted Massachusetts’ five-tiered Framework for District and School Accountability, and explained why it might be a useful model for Connecticut. Given the importance of a clearly defined and effective intervention framework for Connecticut, we’ve asked Jesse Dixon, the Director of the Office of District and School Turnaround in Massachusetts, to share three main takeaways from Massachusetts’ process and success with their school-turnaround plan and intervention framework.
In 2010, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education began a partnership with nine districts to turn around the Commonwealth’s lowest performing 34 schools. A new law was passed in January that gave flexibilities to superintendents to turn around the schools, but required each school to turn around in three years or face state takeover.
Lowest-Achieving Schools, Part 2: Lessons from Other States
Not long ago, we discussed the need for a framework for intervention in Connecticut. However, as the expression goes, “the Devil is in the details.” Working through the nitty-gritty issues can make building an intervention system for school turnaround appear to be a daunting task. That’s why it’s helpful to look at some of the exciting frameworks and approaches that other states have successfully embraced and to think about how we can learn from their efforts.
Lowest Achieving Schools, Part 1: What is a Low-Achieving School?
What is a low-achieving school and what are the lowest-achieving schools in Connecticut? It’s a common question that we hear at CCER. Unfortunately, there is not a simple answer to that seemingly simple question.
The CT State Department of Education currently uses two different metrics to categorize schools by academic performance.
Powers of the SBE, Part 2: Framework for Intervention
In our last post, we discussed the State Board of Education’s authority to create a new 5-year plan for the state of Connecticut.
Another power that the Board should be using is the authority to build a system that monitors the performance of all of Connecticut’s districts and schools based on pre-determined academic indicators, identifies which schools and districts are consistently low-achieving, and requires state intervention for those schools and districts. We call this much-needed system a “framework for intervention.”
Update on the Achievement Gap Task Force
The CT Achievement Gap Task Force had its first meeting on November 14th at the Legislative Office Building. The eleven-member group is responsible for developing a master plan that will identify the academic achievement gaps that exist across various groups, focus efforts to close those gaps, and establish annual benchmarks while implementing their recommendations. The legislation establishing this task force set a goal to close Connecticut’s achievement gap by January 1, 2020.
This is the “second chapter” of the original task force that met over several months in 2010 and issued its report in January of 2011. Recent legislation requires the establishment of an Interagency Task Force, representing the government’s key stakeholders, to develop and, more importantly, implement the plan.