ConnCAN News Release

State Budget Funds Key Programs for Closing Achievement Gap

Three key provisions of ConnCAN’s “Great Schools for All” plan for closing Connecticut’s achievement gap—expanding high-quality preschool, creating innovative new public schools, and ensuring greater accountability for results—received a significant boost with $123 million in new funding over two years in the State Budget.

News Articles

Schools Must Ignore Race in Placing Pupils, Justices Say
Associated Press, New York Times, June 28, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school assignment plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts. The decisions could imperil similar plans nationwide.

The rulings in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle leave public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he said race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity.



Union to Help Charter Firm Start School in the Bronx
By Jennifer Medina, New York Times, June 28, 2007

Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operator from Los Angeles, is seeking to expand into New York with the cooperation of the teachers' union.

Under the proposal, Green Dot, which is heavily financed by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, would open a high school in the South Bronx. The school, which must be approved by the state, would become one of only a handful of charter schools in the city to use a union contract.

The cooperation of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, is unusual. It has been lukewarm toward charter schools, many of which actively oppose unions. The schools are publicly financed but are largely free from the control of local school districts.

Students improve computer skills
By Andrew Shaw, Greenwich Time, June 26, 2007

Greenwich Public Schools students are getting better at using technology, and classroom performance should improve with the addition of more technological tools, school administrators say. Fifth- and eighth-graders were tested several times this year to gauge their computer skills, and the results showed that when teaching methods were adjusted to address their weak spots, the students improved, John Curtin, assistant superintendent of curriculum, research and evaluation, and Fran Kompar, director of library and media, told the Board of Education at a recent meeting

The increase in skills was noticeable for all elementary and middle schools, but it was most marked from those schools on the western side of Greenwich, especially New Lebanon School.

"This is a definite closing of the achievement gap," Kompar said.

Opinions & Editorials

A Rank Exercise—Jay Mathews' method for ranking America's best high schools is so narrow it may actually be misleading.

By Andrew J. Rotherham and Sara Mead, Washington Post, June 22, 2007

But in 1998 Newsweek, which is owned by the Washington Post, began publishing a list of "The 100 Best High Schools in America." The ranking is based on "The Challenge Index," a measure developed by Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews. The list, published annually the past few years, has become increasingly influential. Other media outlets now cover it like a horserace, and high schools all over the country are reacting to the scrutiny.

Our research shows that the Challenge Index's methodology is far too focused on a single, narrow indicator. While education policy is increasingly focused on closing achievement gaps, the Challenge Index pays no attention to differences in achievement or AP- and IB-test-taking rates for students from different racial and economic groups, nor does it ask whether high schools are achieving their most fundamental goal: enabling students to earn a diploma.

A successful high school should show high levels of student achievement, graduate almost all of its students and not let any demographic subgroup lag far behind. National education policies, and increasingly state policies, reflect these values. To be sure, graduation rates and student achievement are hardly the only indicators of a school's quality. They are, however, reasonable minimums.

Accepting the Challenge—My ranking system may not be perfect, but it helps parents choose the best schools for their children.

By Jay Mathews, Washington Post, June 22, 2007

Most of the Newsweek and Post readers who follow our education coverage carefully are parents, not think-tank researchers or college professors or Education Department staffers. They are far less interested in Rotherham's and Mead's concern over which assessment has the most value for policy makers and are far more interested in which schools are best for their kids.

As Americans, we are accustomed to measuring schools by average test scores and drop-out rates. Rotherham and Mead want us to continue to use those factors, as well as ethnic achievement gaps, when rating schools. That is fine for scholars but for real people who have to make real decisions about public schools, it is not very helpful. Except in a tiny handful of cases, which I will get to in a moment, the schools with the highest test scores, the narrowest achievement gaps and the lowest drop-out rates are the schools with the wealthiest parents, living in the most expensive communities.

So what are parents to do if they cannot afford to buy a house in Scarsdale or Winnetka or Bethesda or Beverly Hills, where that great wealth creates what Rotherham and Mead tell us are the best schools?

Bush Can Declare Victory On Education Battlefield
By Laurence Cohen (Editorial), Hartford Courant, June 22, 2007

President Bush will be remembered for the two wars that he fought - one foreign, one domestic.

His strategy has been similar for both: Shout real loud; move full speed ahead, without nuance or perceptible mulling of options; and remain stubborn in the face of widespread opposition.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be best judged by historians and foreign policy gurus in the decades ahead. But on the domestic front, Bush can already declare victory - even though most of the enemy is still alive and well. It was "No Child Left Behind" that unleashed the Bush administration dogs against all manner of teacher unions and PTA moms and educational bureaucrats and do-nothing school boards. It was the war cry, "No Child Left Behind," that Bush wouldn't stop chanting, wouldn't give up on, wouldn't be distracted from.




News Articles


His Charge: Find a Key to Students' Success
By Jennifer Medina, New York Times, June 21, 2007

Roland G. Fryer, who was hired by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein to advise him on how to narrow the racial gap in achievement in the city's schools, made his professional name in economics by applying complex algorithms to document how black students fall behind their white peers. But his life story challenges his own calculations.

In some sense, I am an anomaly," said Dr. Fryer, who grew up poor and rose to become an assistant professor of economics at Harvard before he was 30. But he quickly corrected himself and added, "I am not sure."

The way he sees it, there are thousands of students in New York's schools who have the potential to be as successful as he is. His job as the system's "chief equality officer," he said, is to find, in his research, the keys to motivating them.



Colleges Expect Pool To Shrink
By Michael Regan, Hartford Courant, June 24, 2007

As members of Connecticut's Class of 2008 tour prospective colleges this summer, they have more than their senior status to distinguish them: They are the crest of a high school graduate wave that began rising more than a decade ago and will fall for at least a decade to come.

In Connecticut and the rest of New England, colleges - particularly those with primarily regional enrollments - are preparing for a decline in high school graduates of as much as 13 percent.

"This definitely is something that enrollment managers across the Northeast have had their eye on for some time," said Kathy Kurz, a principal in the Rochester, N.Y.-based consulting firm Scannell & Kurz.

The two studies cited most often by educators extend to 2016 and 2018 respectively, but other population projections suggest that the trend could continue into the 2020s in New England.

And although it doesn't directly project the number of high school graduates, the Census Bureau says the region's population of 18-year-olds - the age at which most students finish high school and begin college - will continue dropping through 2023.

Opinions & Editorials

Young Teachers Hold Promise

Editorial, Hartford Courant, June 21 2007

Hartford's decision to hire 25 new teachers from the Teach for America program furthers the city's goal of closing the achievement gap between low-income nonwhite students and middle-class suburban students.

In Connecticut, Teach for America graduates got a good share of the credit for the gains made at the Elm City College Preparatory School, a New Haven charter school where low-income students far surpassed the state average in all categories of the Connecticut Mastery Test.

Hartford can't lose by trying the same approach. There is something to be said for young, cocky idealists who enter teaching through an unconventional path and aren't afraid to be held accountable for the success or failure of their students.

News Articles

Budget Negotiators Give To Get Deal

By Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant, June 21, 2007

While nonpartisan "number crunchers" are still finalizing the totals, House Speaker James Amann of Milford said the budget would increase by about 8.8 percent in the first year and about 4 percent in the second year. Education cost-sharing funds, which are the largest grant to cities and towns, would increase by about $180 million in the first year and $80 million in the second year.

Amann and Williams said they hope to wrap up the special session on Friday, although some veteran Capitol insiders said they would not be surprised if the voting spills over into Saturday."The Republicans said the debate would be short," Amann said. "That sounds promising."

School board attracted to magnet idea

By Andrew Brophy, Connecticut Post, June 20, 2007

The mandatory reassignment of McKinley School students to other elementary schools in town appears to be off the table as a solution to McKinley's "racial imbalance."

"Nobody wants to do anything forcing somebody to go to a school they don't want to," Board of Education member Helen Dodson said Tuesday night.

Ed Linehan, an educational consultant who spoke to the school board Tuesday night, said solving McKinley's racial imbalance by giving parents more choices was the way to go.

"I think that the moment you make things compulsory, you define an opposition. We certainly value having options and having choices," Linehan said. "I would not support a system of any kind where movement of kids is compulsory."

H.S. Diploma? Not Enough.

By Janice Podsada, Hartford Courant, June 19, 2007

When Malcolm Harrison graduated from Hartford's Weaver High School in 2005, he had a plan: Get a full-time job, buy a car, rent a place of his own. The high school diploma that Harrison believed would land him a job with a big, well-known company such as RadioShack, Wal-Mart, AutoZone, Home Depot or UPS hasn't proved to be the entry ticket he had hoped for. He said he filled out applications but never got a call back.

Even 20 years ago, a high school degree was credential enough to obtain an entry-level clerical or manufacturing job with one of the nation's large regional or national firms. But in the intervening years, both corporate America and the kind of jobs available have become more selective and sophisticated.

Mayo Gets New Contract -- & A Grilling
By Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, June 19, 2007

The Board of Ed unanimously renewed Superintendent Reggie Mayo's contract -- then proceeded to grill him and his team on "Five Bold Goals" they promised to meet by next year. The board heaped praise on Mayo, who has led the system since 1992, at its Monday night meeting. Mayo will receive a 4 percent increase to $184,000 in a new three-year contract, and its approval at the BOE meeting was relatively pro forma.

ConnCAN in the News

School Basics: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Real Estate
By C. J. Hughes, New York Times, June 17, 2007

In fact, every 12-percentage-point difference in scores on the Connecticut Mastery Tests, the standardized exams that students in Grades 3 through 8 take every year, is worth $5,065 to those buying or selling a home, according to the study, called “School Choice in Suburbia: Public School Testing and Private Real Estate Markets.”

“The information is in the marketplace on one side of the transaction or the other,” said Alex Johnston, the executive director of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a two-year-old group whose mission is to close the academic achievement gap in Connecticut.

Making it worse is that top-ranked school districts are often available only to those students who can afford to live there. “Geography,” Mr. Johnston said, “shouldn’t be the driver of access to a quality public education.”


Report: Graduation rates lower than reported in state
Chris Gosier, Stamford Advocate, June 16, 2007

Connecticut's high school graduation rates overstate the percentage of students who get diplomas, a new report says.

The report by ConnCAN, a nonprofit advocacy group, gives new graduation rates purporting to show how likely students are to finish high school in four years.

The report says Stamford's rate was 77 percent in 2004, compared to 90 percent reported by the state, and Norwalk's rate was 70 percent vs. the state figure of 88 percent, according to the May 30 report.

ConnCAN in the News

Graduation rates overstated by 16 percent
By Randy James, Republican-American, June 10, 2007

It's difficult to overstate the importance of a high school diploma. An 18-year-old dropout will earn an average $260,000 less over a lifetime than a high school graduate, according to a Princeton University study. Dropouts are also more likely to become single parents and unemployed.

Education officials claim their figures are more thorough than the study's numbers. But for many observers, the report confirms what they already suspected.

"Previous studies show Connecticut's official graduation rates probably overstate the actual rate by 10 percentage points," said Marc Porter Magee, research director at ConnCAN, an education research group. "The state numbers are awfully high."

Education Dept. slow to upgrade reporting standards
By Amanda Falcone, Record-Journal, June 8, 2007

Changes in the way the state Department of Education collects and reports data are coming soon. While the department says establishing new systems and formulas takes time, an education advocacy group, Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, is critical of the state for not moving fast enough.

"It's past time we developed a comprehensive and publicly accessible system for tracking the progress of every public school student in our state," said Alex Johnston, the organization's executive director, in a prepared statement. It also is time to modify the formula Connecticut uses to determine its graduation rate, he said.

Murphy does not disagree, but says the department is working to make that happen.

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=18452732&BRD=2755&PAG=461&dept_id=592754&rfi=8

News Articles

Test Scores Decline Slightly
By Robert A. Frahm, Hartford Courant, June 8, 2007

While students in most states made gains in reading and mathematics tests following the enactment of the federal No Child Left Behind Act five years ago, schoolchildren in Connecticut did not.

"We have to heighten our expectations and really bear down to see what the potential reasons are," said Mark K. McQuillan, Connecticut's new education commissioner.

Of particular concern is the poor performance of many low-income and minority children, especially in the state's big cities, where the gap between them and middle-class white children is among the largest in the nation.

Schools discipline on agenda
By Ed Stannard , New Haven Register, June 11, 2007

Carroll E. Brown, president of the black coalition, said the program will discuss alternatives to school suspensions and expulsions, which she believes especially hurt the minority students in West Haven.

Groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union have focused on the increase in "zero tolerance" disciplinary policies, which result in harsh penalties for lesser offenses.

According to Youth Rights Media, in 2001-02, 19 percent of suspensions in New Haven schools were for fighting, bullying, weapons or drugs, while 60 percent were for violating school policies such as dress codes or hall pass rules.

Discussion focuses on graduation requisites
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, June 7, 2007

The annual epidemic of "senioritis" in high school may be eradicated if Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan succeeds in making high school exit exams a graduation requirement.

McQuillan said tougher graduation requirements could help close the achievement gap.

At McQuillan's invitation, a group of school superintendents, principals and union officials shared their thoughts directly to the state Board of Education at its monthly meeting Wednesday.

"You don't make a pig fatter by weighing it," joked David Larson, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, saying teaching, not testing, gives students more knowledge and skills.

State Skills Test Waived For City Schools Chief
By Robert A. Frahm, Hartford Courant, June 7, 2007

Hartford's school superintendent, hired last fall to bolster the school system's lagging performance in reading and mathematics, won a reprieve this week from an exam that would have tested his own basic skills.

"Dr. Adamowski has spent most of his adult life leading school systems," said state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, who introduced an amendment authorizing the waiver. "It seems evident he's well qualified to be superintendent in the city of Hartford."

Fleischmann, co-chairman of the legislature's education committee, said he would prefer that Adamowski "focus on reforming Hartford's schools rather than taking another exam."

ConnCAN in the News

Graduation rates inflated, study says
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, June 4, 2007

A national education research group has issued a report claiming graduation rates in Connecticut and the nation have been grossly inflated by under-counting dropouts. The report was issued by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, an arm of Education Week, a national publication that covers the education sector.

Educators protested any charges of grade inflation.
Education advocates say educators need to rethink the way they calculate graduation rates.

Marc Porter Magee, research director for ConnCan, said the state method for calculating dropouts fails to capture many students who drop out in ninth and 10th grades. He said more accurate data collection on graduation rates would give educators better tools.

News Articles

Blunt, Gruff And On A Mission—New Britain School Chief Offers No Apologies For Her Overbearing Style
By Matt Burgard, Hartford Courant, June 4, 2007

Kurtz, now 60 and entering her seventh year as the district's first black school superintendent, said her parents never let their race get in the way of
their dreams, despite regular run-ins with bias and ignorance.

"If you don't see eye to eye with my mission, Idon't have time to try to convince you," Kurtz said matter-of-factly during a recent conversation in her office in the downtown education building. "People like that are obstacles, frankly. I don't need them around."

"Am I a strong presence? Absolutely," she said. "But that doesn't mean I'm not accountable. I can talk all I want, but if I'm not getting the job done, the board is going to let me know about it, and I realize that."

Forum Looks At Black Community –Stresses Need For Churches, Families To Help Bridge The Achievement Gap
By Larry Smith, Hartford Courant, June 3, 2007

The black community needs to look to its church and families to help close achievement and education gaps, panelists in a forum said Saturday.

Stanley F. Battle, recently appointed chancellor of North Carolina A&T University, who moderated the discussion, said the achievement gap across the country is enormous, particularly in the African American community.

The forum, "The Role of the Black Church in Bridging the Achievement Gap in the Black Community," was sponsored by the lay organization and steward board of Bethel AME Church in Bloomfield.

He also said that members of the community should "agitate, agitate, agitate" for improvement and change in education.