ConnCAN's Education News Roundup

Opinions and Editorials

For real integration, try charter schools
By Liam Julian, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky

In 1975, a federal court ordered Jefferson County Public Schools to integrate classrooms. Now the Supreme Court has mandated the opposite: Jefferson County may no longer use race in deciding where students attend school.

In fact, Louisville hasn't actually had to racially integrate its schools for seven years. In 1991, the Supreme Court ruled that places like Jefferson County could return to their old systems of neighborhood-based school assignments, once the districts had taken "practicable" steps to eliminate the legacy of segregation. But Louisville, which was freed in 2000 from federal desegregation oversight, evidently liked its integrated schools and was willing to fight for them.

OK College Expansion Funds
Hartford Courant, Editorial July 9, 2007

Five years have passed since the state began spending about $800,000 a year to lease two empty floors in Hartford's G. Fox building that were intended to house the state Banking Department.

The department has not moved in, and the rent tab is now up to $4.4 million of taxpayer money.

Three years have passed since the General Assembly, having satisfied itself that the Banking Department move was not happening, approved $6 million to renovate the vacant floors for classroom use by Capital Community College, located in the same building.

An Irresponsible, Spendthrift Budget
By Matthew M. Daly, Hartford Courant, July 9, 2007

The state budget process has come to an end, and with it comes a big slap in the face to fiscal conservatives.

Most thinking taxpayers who have read about, listened to and watched our elected leaders discuss this budget must be asking themselves a simple question. Where do we get these leaders? Could it be they are from Mars or Jupiter? (I would have said some place closer, like Sweden, but even the socialist Swedes have universal school choice.)

The Republicans' newly elected Senate minority leader, John McKinney, a self-described fiscal conservative and social moderate, recently stated, "It's not a Republican budget, it's not a Democratic budget, it's a compromise."

Really - let's see.

Connecticut ranks: per capita as the highest taxed state in the country, No.2 in the amount of property taxes paid, near the top in bonded debt, and has a near net zero job growth increase in the private sector over the past 16 years.

News Articles

The ABCs of learning online
By Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com, July 9, 2007

Like many 7- and 8-year-old girls online, Emily and Kayla Strickland are regulars to Barbie.com and the virtual world Webkinz.

But much to their mom's delight, the sisters also have been longtime fans of Starfall, an educational Web site whose star is quickly rising among parents, teachers and kids as young as 2 years old.

Like a Sesame Street program, the free Web site teaches kids their ABCs and the basics of reading through the use of audio and visual phonetics, games and animations. Exercises on Starfall include sounding out vowels ("ah"), reading books like The Little Hen and decorating a virtual character.

"We read a lot at home, but for them, it seems 'more fun' online," said Tressa Strickland, Emily and Kayla's stay-at-home mom and a former preschool teacher living in Waco, Texas. "I like the fact that they are advancing their reading skills and not even knowing it."

Beyond its child-friendly simplicity, Starfall signifies a small but growing force of change in an education field that's long been dominated by textbook publishers and software makers. Like other industries disrupted by the Internet or new technology, Starfall opens access to learning exercises for free online. It does so in a noncommercial way that entertains its audience much the way PBS has for previous generations.

Education funding for record books Towns benefit from more aid, distribution changes
By Paul Hughes, Waterbury Republican American, July 9, 2007

HARTFORD The upscale, Republican-leaning suburb of Southbury is getting a whopping 53 percent increase in state aid under the new state budget.

The increase translates into more than $1 million in additional funding for the new fiscal year that started July 1. Only Westport saw a larger proportional increase.

Southbury is benefiting from a record increase in state education spending and changes made to how the state distributes that money.

Other suburbs are also reaping financial benefits. Overall, 15 towns are receiving increases of 30 percent or higher, including seven of the state's 10 wealthiest communities.

Sheff Case Returns To Court: School Desegregation Issue Had Been Stuck In The State Legislature
By Robert A. Frahm, Hartford Courant, July 6, 2007

The struggle to desegregate Hartford's public schools is back in court.

Plaintiffs in the Sheff v. O'Neill case filed a legal motion Thursday, saying they will wait no longer for the legislature to approve a tentative agreement that would require the state to take aggressive new measures to reduce racial isolation in Hartford's public schools.

A 4-year-old settlement in the long-running case failed to reach its goals and expired last week. The state and the Sheff plaintiffs reached a tentative agreement in late May that would establish new goals and extend the settlement, but the legislature so far has not approved the extension.

Schools Move Toward Following Students’ Yearly Progress on Tests
By Winnie Hu, New York Times, July 6, 2007

The Cohoes city school district, outside Albany, is considering a gifted program for elementary students and adding college-level courses after discovering that its top students improved less on standardized tests in the past two years than everyone else in the district.

In Ardsley, N.Y., a Westchester County suburb, administrators intend to place more special education students in regular classes after seeing their standardized test scores rise in the last year.

And as the New York City Department of Education begins grading each public school A to F for the first time this fall, more than half the evaluation will be based on how individual students progress on standardized tests.