Editorials and Opinions
Invest in state's future via higher education
By, Harold C. Wibling, The News-Times, October 14, 2007
Connecticut is poised to make an historic investment in public education as a 10-year capital plan for the state's largest public university system, recently approved by the General Assembly, awaits final action. Unfortunately, it is innocently caught in an unrelated public squabble between the governor and legislature about what should and shouldn't be included on the state's list of bond authorizations.
At a time when the eroding cohort of 20- and 30-year-olds headline virtually every report about Connecticut's population, CSUS graduates are one group that sticks in our state. Thus, improving the education provided by these institutions is clearly an investment in Connecticut's future, the benefits of which will accrue to every resident.
So, just who are these graduates? They are our future teachers (already, two of every three classroom teachers in Connecticut schools graduates from a CSUS university), small business entrepreneurs and bank presidents, directors of nursing and mechanical engineers, chambers of commerce executives and municipal fire chiefs. In the traditional Land of Steady Habits, they are precisely the people who will keep Connecticut steady, our economy growing and our quality of life second to none.
News Articles
Blurring Lines Among Both Students and Subjects
By, Jay Mathews, The Washington Post, October 15, 2007
In three classrooms along a short corridor at Blue Ridge Middle School in Loudoun County, there were several scenes last week of educational convention turned upside down. Lemmert and colleagues Alisa Gladstone and Amy Wood decided last year to experiment with placing honors, regular and special education students in the same rooms, offering a course that unified social studies and English, and encouraging every child to reach higher than before.
Such innovations are uncommon in U.S. public schools, given the old pressure to conform to tradition and the new one to raise standardized test scores. But plenty of teachers still find that if they are seized by an idea, as Lemmert, Wood and Gladstone were, and can convey that passion to supervisors, they have a chance to see what happens when they go in a different direction.
Making Cash a Prize for High Scores on Advanced Placement Tests
By Jennifer Medina, The New York Times, October 15, 2007
The city is expanding the use of cash rewards for students who take standardized tests with a $1 million effort financed by philanthropists who will pay students who do well on Advanced Placement exams.
High school students who get a top score, a five, on the exams will earn $1,000. A score of four will be worth $750, while a three will earn $500.
The A.P. program is intended to increase the number of low-income, black and Latino high school students in New York who take and pass A.P. tests. In city schools, less than 1 percent of black students pass an Advanced Placement exam, according to city data analyzed by the program.
State Lauds Magnet School
By, Jennifer Masi, The Bridgeport News, October 11, 2007
Multicultural Magnet School in Bridgeport has received a Blue Ribbon honor from the federal Department of Education.
The No Child Left Behind Act's Blue Ribbon School designation is considered one of the most prestigious education awards in the country.
Multicultural Magnet was the only Blue Ribbon award recipient in Connecticut and one of only three in New England. Nationwide, 287 schools were honored with a Blue Ribbon.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Editorials and Op-eds
High Stakes Flim Flam
By Bob Herbert, The New York Times, October 9, 2007
Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.
If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising the test scores of students — as opposed to improving student learning, which is not the same thing — there are all kinds of incentives to raise those scores by any means necessary.
One aspect of the No Child Left Behind law that doesn’t get enough attention is that while it requires states to make progress toward student proficiency in reading and math, it leaves it up to the states themselves to define “proficiency” and to create the tests that determine what constitutes progress.
That’s absurd. With no guiding standard, the states’ tests are measurements without meaning.
Dumbing Education Down
By, Chester E. Finn Jr., The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2007
So far, so good. But while NCLB circa 2001 is rigidly prescriptive about the "improvement" part, it's vague about where to set the bar. As a result, a fourth grader living in Hamtramck or Pueblo may be judged "proficient" according to Michigan's or Colorado's low standards, yet fail by a mile to match the attainments of his or her peers in Worcester, Mass., or Columbia, S.C., places with far loftier notions of proficiency.
Yet official Washington seemingly lacks the stomach to take this on. The conventional wisdom is that "national standards and tests" are politically taboo because conservatives don't like "national" and liberals don't like standards and testing. The Gates and Broad foundations are spending tens of millions to overturn that taboo during the upcoming election, but few in the 110th Congress seem to be listening.
Nor is anybody ready to tackle the other part of NCLB's core problem: the quest for universal proficiency. No educator in America believes this can be achieved anytime soon, not with 100% of the kids and by any reasonable standard of proficiency. The truth is that boosting our students' proficiency from today's 35% to 70% or 80% would be a transformative accomplishment. But no politician dares say that, lest he instantly be skewered with "which 20% of the kids don't you care about?"
News Articles
Board member will propose 'achievement gap task force' to address learning disparity
By, Christine McCluskey, Journal Inquirer, October 9, 2007
MANCHESTER - After a recent report on this year's Connecticut Mastery Test scores showed racial achievement gaps persisting in Manchester, Board of Education member Geoffrey R. Luxenberg developed a plan he says he will propose at Wednesday night's board meeting.
Luxenberg wants to create a bipartisan "achievement gap task force" that would meet twice a month for a year, receiving testimony from people from around the state who have been successful in narrowing achievement gaps.
The task force would look for proven ways to address the gaps in all subject areas but with a special emphasis on reading, where the gaps widened at some grade levels
Balancing Act for schools: Stamford to use nonracial factors to ensure diversity
By Chris Gosler, The Stamford Advocate, October 11, 2007
The Board of Education has come up with a new plan for assigning students to schools in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting districts' consideration of race in the process.
Administrators will look at three nonracial factors: Whether a student receives free or reduced-price lunches, lives in income-restricted housing or is learning English.
Racial balance plan OK'd for McKinley
By, Andrew Brophy, The Connecticut Post, October 8, 2007
FAIRFIELD — The state Board of Education has approved a plan designed to reduce the percentage of minority students at McKinley School.
McKinley's minority percentage was 41.25 percent in 2006-07, while the districtwide average for elementary schools was 12.51 percent.
The local Board of Education's plan to reduce McKinley's minority percentage gave parents of all McKinley students the option of sending their children to Stratfield, Dwight or Jennings elementary schools, beginning this school year.
Next fall, the plan allows parents of McKinley students who are not doing well academically to send their children to another elementary school, and it also allows parents of students in other elementary schools who are doing well academically to send their children to McKinley.
Puzzling Racial Gap
By, Robert A. Frahm, The Hartford Courant, October 7, 2007
Most educators agree that poverty is a powerful underlying cause of the achievement gap. But as experts look at places like Bloomfield, some say that race and culture - apart from income - appear to influence achievement in ways that are not always easily understood.
But the achievement gap also occurs among minority students in middle-class and wealthy suburbs.
On a 2005 nationwide reading test, the gap between black and white high school seniors whose parents were college graduates actually was larger than the gap between blacks and whites whose parents had not finished high school.
Why?
High Stakes Flim Flam
By Bob Herbert, The New York Times, October 9, 2007
Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.
If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising the test scores of students — as opposed to improving student learning, which is not the same thing — there are all kinds of incentives to raise those scores by any means necessary.
One aspect of the No Child Left Behind law that doesn’t get enough attention is that while it requires states to make progress toward student proficiency in reading and math, it leaves it up to the states themselves to define “proficiency” and to create the tests that determine what constitutes progress.
That’s absurd. With no guiding standard, the states’ tests are measurements without meaning.
Dumbing Education Down
By, Chester E. Finn Jr., The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2007
So far, so good. But while NCLB circa 2001 is rigidly prescriptive about the "improvement" part, it's vague about where to set the bar. As a result, a fourth grader living in Hamtramck or Pueblo may be judged "proficient" according to Michigan's or Colorado's low standards, yet fail by a mile to match the attainments of his or her peers in Worcester, Mass., or Columbia, S.C., places with far loftier notions of proficiency.
Yet official Washington seemingly lacks the stomach to take this on. The conventional wisdom is that "national standards and tests" are politically taboo because conservatives don't like "national" and liberals don't like standards and testing. The Gates and Broad foundations are spending tens of millions to overturn that taboo during the upcoming election, but few in the 110th Congress seem to be listening.
Nor is anybody ready to tackle the other part of NCLB's core problem: the quest for universal proficiency. No educator in America believes this can be achieved anytime soon, not with 100% of the kids and by any reasonable standard of proficiency. The truth is that boosting our students' proficiency from today's 35% to 70% or 80% would be a transformative accomplishment. But no politician dares say that, lest he instantly be skewered with "which 20% of the kids don't you care about?"
News Articles
Board member will propose 'achievement gap task force' to address learning disparity
By, Christine McCluskey, Journal Inquirer, October 9, 2007
MANCHESTER - After a recent report on this year's Connecticut Mastery Test scores showed racial achievement gaps persisting in Manchester, Board of Education member Geoffrey R. Luxenberg developed a plan he says he will propose at Wednesday night's board meeting.
Luxenberg wants to create a bipartisan "achievement gap task force" that would meet twice a month for a year, receiving testimony from people from around the state who have been successful in narrowing achievement gaps.
The task force would look for proven ways to address the gaps in all subject areas but with a special emphasis on reading, where the gaps widened at some grade levels
Balancing Act for schools: Stamford to use nonracial factors to ensure diversity
By Chris Gosler, The Stamford Advocate, October 11, 2007
The Board of Education has come up with a new plan for assigning students to schools in response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting districts' consideration of race in the process.
Administrators will look at three nonracial factors: Whether a student receives free or reduced-price lunches, lives in income-restricted housing or is learning English.
Racial balance plan OK'd for McKinley
By, Andrew Brophy, The Connecticut Post, October 8, 2007
FAIRFIELD — The state Board of Education has approved a plan designed to reduce the percentage of minority students at McKinley School.
McKinley's minority percentage was 41.25 percent in 2006-07, while the districtwide average for elementary schools was 12.51 percent.
The local Board of Education's plan to reduce McKinley's minority percentage gave parents of all McKinley students the option of sending their children to Stratfield, Dwight or Jennings elementary schools, beginning this school year.
Next fall, the plan allows parents of McKinley students who are not doing well academically to send their children to another elementary school, and it also allows parents of students in other elementary schools who are doing well academically to send their children to McKinley.
Puzzling Racial Gap
By, Robert A. Frahm, The Hartford Courant, October 7, 2007
Most educators agree that poverty is a powerful underlying cause of the achievement gap. But as experts look at places like Bloomfield, some say that race and culture - apart from income - appear to influence achievement in ways that are not always easily understood.
But the achievement gap also occurs among minority students in middle-class and wealthy suburbs.
On a 2005 nationwide reading test, the gap between black and white high school seniors whose parents were college graduates actually was larger than the gap between blacks and whites whose parents had not finished high school.
Why?
ConnCAN in the News
Monitoring Each Student’s Progress Endorsed Over NCLB Strategy
By Audrey M. Marks, The Day, October 5, 2007
Washington — With the No Child Left Behind Act up for reauthorization, New London Superintendent of Schools Christopher Clouet wants Congress to change how education progress is measured without eroding the standards of quality education.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., introduced a bill in April that would assess results by tracking the progress of each student through the school system in addition to calculating how well students do as a whole based on the standardized tests. The number of students in advanced placement courses and the dropout rate also would be considered when judging a school's progress.
The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education advocacy group known as ConnCAN, also is endorsing the idea of assessing student progress over multiple years but cautioned that the change shouldn't create more problems with the program.
“We need to be cautious about how we change standards of accountability,” said Alex Johnston, executive director of ConnCAN, in an interview. “We need to be sure we don't create situations where kids can fall through cracks.”
Learning Gaps Sully Our State
By Stan Simpson, The Hartford Courant, October 3, 2007
By now, Connecticut's distinction as the state with the widest academic achievement gap in the country is pretty much common knowledge.
What's not widely known is that the gap between the state's poor and non-poor students and between its white students and their African American and Latino peers is widening.
"If low income students [in Connecticut] did as well as they did in Massachusetts, we'd have the third-smallest achievement gap in the country, instead of the largest," said Alex Johnston, executive director of Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a statewide organization whose mission is to close the achievement gap.
Magnets: Show Us Results
By, Rick Green, The Hartford Courant, September 28, 2007
Standardized test scores show that magnet schools, however much they make us feel good, aren't altering the overall differences in student performance that leave white children far ahead of minority children in reading, math and writing.
"People have taken their eye off the ball, which is achievement," said Mark Porter McGee, research director for the corporate-funded school reform group ConnCan. "Integrating schools is not by itself a solution to the problem."
Editorials and Op-Eds
The Adomski Gambit
The Hartford Courant, October 8, 2007
Controversial though it may have been, a comment by Hartford Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski at a state Board of Education meeting last week points to an underlying change in the nature of the Sheff v. O'Neill dilemma.
The focus of resolving the Sheff case has been on racial balance. Almost nothing is said of economic integration, yet that seems to be an increasing part of the problem.
Public policy should embrace both challenges. The interdistrict magnet schools should be going after suburban kids, white and minority.
Segregation Has to End
By, Elizabeth Horton Sheff and Eugene Leach, The Hartford Courant, October 7, 2007
Eleven years ago, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated an urgent truth: "It is crucial for a democratic society to provide all of its schoolchildren with fair access to an unsegregated education." Progress has been fragmentary and slow, but a great many parents, educators and other citizens remain dedicated to achieving the goal.
That's why it is so troubling to learn that Hartford's school superintendent, Steven Adamowski, apparently doubts the validity of the court's mandate.
Education: A Shared Responsibility
By, Staff, The New Haven Independent, October 7, 2007
Every year New Haven seeks additional well-qualified teachers, especially in areas such as math and science. Let's attract, develop and retain these colleagues. We all can be ambassadors in this -- and for the cause of improving the foundational skill of reading, among people of all ages.
The Independent's series on parents' involvement in education is welcome. Everyone, parents or not, can reinforce the high expectations our community should have for ourselves and our educators, as well as for students.
Accountability for tax dollars is a universal concern. Achievement gaps are, too -- urgency is the right word with kids' futures at stake. New Haven students on average have both significant needs and immense potential.
The Worry Behind The Numbers
The New York Times, October 7, 2007
Connecticut passed a milestone recently: it added enough jobs so that more than 1.7 million residents are now employed, a record. About 16,600 jobs have been added since August of last year.
A closer look at the types of jobs that the state has gained inspires more caution than celebration. Nearly half of all the new jobs added to the Connecticut economy since 2000 are low-paying service jobs, including casino workers, security guards, nursing aides and food service workers.
It seems clear that education is the key to the state’s future prosperity. Connecticut must improve its literacy rates and its K-12 educational system, especially in the cities, home to many of its least-educated residents and poorest, most struggling schools. The state must also strengthen its four-year and community colleges, which will play an increasingly vital role in providing the advanced education that is the true foundation of high-paying jobs. It is a big challenge, one that the employment numbers don’t convey.
Get Congress Out of Our Classroom
By Diane Ravitch, The New York Times, October 3, 2007
DESPITE the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
No Child Left Behind can, however, be salvaged if policymakers recognize that they need to reverse the roles of the federal government and the states. In our federal system, each level of government should do what it does best. The federal government is good at collecting and disseminating information. The states and school districts, being closer to the schools, teachers and parents than the federal government, are more likely to be flexible and pragmatic about designing reforms to meet the needs of particular schools.
Our Schools Must Do Better
By, Bob Herbert, The New York Times, October 2, 2007
What’s needed is a wholesale transformation of the public school system from the broken-down postwar model of the past 50 or 60 years. The U.S. has not yet faced up to the fact that it needs a school system capable of fulfilling the educational needs of children growing up in an era that will be at least as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 19th.
The first is teacher quality, a topic that gets talked about incessantly. It has been known for decades that some teachers have huge positive effects on student achievement, and that others do poorly. The positive effect of the highest performing teachers on underachieving students is startling.
The second area to be mined for potentially transformative effects is the wide and varied field of alternative school models. We should be rigorously studying those schools that appear to be having the biggest positive effects on student achievement. Are the effects real? If so, what accounts for them?
Education Pitfalls in Standardized Testing
The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2007
Letters in response to Guy Darst’s September 22 article “Mass Testing”
News Articles
Comment Raises Eyebrows
By Rachel Gottlieb Frank, The Hartford Courant, October 4, 2007
Hartford Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski told state officials Wednesday that magnet schools - the cornerstone of ongoing desegregation efforts in the region - are falling short of their goal and that "there is no research to suggest that minority students will do better by sitting next to a white student."
"We're disappointed that it's 2007 and the superintendent wants to debate whether it is a bad thing for Hartford's minority children to be taught in racially segregated schools," said Matthew Collangelo, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who is representing the plaintiffs in the Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation lawsuit.
He said it is the state's job to create both rewards and punishments to encourage what he called suburban "fiefdoms" to engage with Hartford to end racial and economic isolation of city students.
Shake-Up Proposed For Hartford Schools
WFSB, October 3, 2007
HARTFORD, Conn - Superintendent Steven Adamowski offered to the state Board of Education a grim assessment of student achievement, and introduced an ambitious plan for reforms in the school system.
Currently, the Capital City has the greatest achievement gap in the country: Only 30 percent of students make it to their high school graduation.
Adamowski presented the board with two initiatives that would involve change. One option would advocate the state funding a student, not a school, in an all-choice system, meaning that parents can choose where to send their children to school.
A second option Adamowski suggested involves an all-balanced reform that would transform low-performing schools via district intervention, redesign or closure.
College is New Charter School’s Target
By, Linda Conner Lambeck, The Connecticut Post, October, 3, 2007
The city's latest charter school, developed by the creators of Amistad Academy in New Haven, opened Aug. 29.
Principal Debon Lewis said Achievement First Bridgeport Academy has begun to establish a distinctive culture. Students are referred to as scholars.
Grace Mwine, 10, a former Barnum student, said she misses her old school and friends, but is glad she's at the new school. At Barnum, the focus was "on getting us to the next grade. Here, they're focused on getting us to college," she said.
Special Education: When Should Taxes Pay Private Tuition?
By John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2007
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments to resolve the central question of the case: Must parents of special-education students give public schools a chance before having taxpayers reimburse them for private-school tuition? How the justices respond will have broad implications for school budgets and the movement toward "mainstreaming," or educating disabled children in regular classrooms. Mr. Freston, pledging to donate any proceeds, has said the fight is about principle, not money.
Monitoring Each Student’s Progress Endorsed Over NCLB Strategy
By Audrey M. Marks, The Day, October 5, 2007
Washington — With the No Child Left Behind Act up for reauthorization, New London Superintendent of Schools Christopher Clouet wants Congress to change how education progress is measured without eroding the standards of quality education.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., introduced a bill in April that would assess results by tracking the progress of each student through the school system in addition to calculating how well students do as a whole based on the standardized tests. The number of students in advanced placement courses and the dropout rate also would be considered when judging a school's progress.
The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education advocacy group known as ConnCAN, also is endorsing the idea of assessing student progress over multiple years but cautioned that the change shouldn't create more problems with the program.
“We need to be cautious about how we change standards of accountability,” said Alex Johnston, executive director of ConnCAN, in an interview. “We need to be sure we don't create situations where kids can fall through cracks.”
Learning Gaps Sully Our State
By Stan Simpson, The Hartford Courant, October 3, 2007
By now, Connecticut's distinction as the state with the widest academic achievement gap in the country is pretty much common knowledge.
What's not widely known is that the gap between the state's poor and non-poor students and between its white students and their African American and Latino peers is widening.
"If low income students [in Connecticut] did as well as they did in Massachusetts, we'd have the third-smallest achievement gap in the country, instead of the largest," said Alex Johnston, executive director of Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a statewide organization whose mission is to close the achievement gap.
Magnets: Show Us Results
By, Rick Green, The Hartford Courant, September 28, 2007
Standardized test scores show that magnet schools, however much they make us feel good, aren't altering the overall differences in student performance that leave white children far ahead of minority children in reading, math and writing.
"People have taken their eye off the ball, which is achievement," said Mark Porter McGee, research director for the corporate-funded school reform group ConnCan. "Integrating schools is not by itself a solution to the problem."
Editorials and Op-Eds
The Adomski Gambit
The Hartford Courant, October 8, 2007
Controversial though it may have been, a comment by Hartford Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski at a state Board of Education meeting last week points to an underlying change in the nature of the Sheff v. O'Neill dilemma.
The focus of resolving the Sheff case has been on racial balance. Almost nothing is said of economic integration, yet that seems to be an increasing part of the problem.
Public policy should embrace both challenges. The interdistrict magnet schools should be going after suburban kids, white and minority.
Segregation Has to End
By, Elizabeth Horton Sheff and Eugene Leach, The Hartford Courant, October 7, 2007
Eleven years ago, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated an urgent truth: "It is crucial for a democratic society to provide all of its schoolchildren with fair access to an unsegregated education." Progress has been fragmentary and slow, but a great many parents, educators and other citizens remain dedicated to achieving the goal.
That's why it is so troubling to learn that Hartford's school superintendent, Steven Adamowski, apparently doubts the validity of the court's mandate.
Education: A Shared Responsibility
By, Staff, The New Haven Independent, October 7, 2007
Every year New Haven seeks additional well-qualified teachers, especially in areas such as math and science. Let's attract, develop and retain these colleagues. We all can be ambassadors in this -- and for the cause of improving the foundational skill of reading, among people of all ages.
The Independent's series on parents' involvement in education is welcome. Everyone, parents or not, can reinforce the high expectations our community should have for ourselves and our educators, as well as for students.
Accountability for tax dollars is a universal concern. Achievement gaps are, too -- urgency is the right word with kids' futures at stake. New Haven students on average have both significant needs and immense potential.
The Worry Behind The Numbers
The New York Times, October 7, 2007
Connecticut passed a milestone recently: it added enough jobs so that more than 1.7 million residents are now employed, a record. About 16,600 jobs have been added since August of last year.
A closer look at the types of jobs that the state has gained inspires more caution than celebration. Nearly half of all the new jobs added to the Connecticut economy since 2000 are low-paying service jobs, including casino workers, security guards, nursing aides and food service workers.
It seems clear that education is the key to the state’s future prosperity. Connecticut must improve its literacy rates and its K-12 educational system, especially in the cities, home to many of its least-educated residents and poorest, most struggling schools. The state must also strengthen its four-year and community colleges, which will play an increasingly vital role in providing the advanced education that is the true foundation of high-paying jobs. It is a big challenge, one that the employment numbers don’t convey.
Get Congress Out of Our Classroom
By Diane Ravitch, The New York Times, October 3, 2007
DESPITE the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
No Child Left Behind can, however, be salvaged if policymakers recognize that they need to reverse the roles of the federal government and the states. In our federal system, each level of government should do what it does best. The federal government is good at collecting and disseminating information. The states and school districts, being closer to the schools, teachers and parents than the federal government, are more likely to be flexible and pragmatic about designing reforms to meet the needs of particular schools.
Our Schools Must Do Better
By, Bob Herbert, The New York Times, October 2, 2007
What’s needed is a wholesale transformation of the public school system from the broken-down postwar model of the past 50 or 60 years. The U.S. has not yet faced up to the fact that it needs a school system capable of fulfilling the educational needs of children growing up in an era that will be at least as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 19th.
The first is teacher quality, a topic that gets talked about incessantly. It has been known for decades that some teachers have huge positive effects on student achievement, and that others do poorly. The positive effect of the highest performing teachers on underachieving students is startling.
The second area to be mined for potentially transformative effects is the wide and varied field of alternative school models. We should be rigorously studying those schools that appear to be having the biggest positive effects on student achievement. Are the effects real? If so, what accounts for them?
Education Pitfalls in Standardized Testing
The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2007
Letters in response to Guy Darst’s September 22 article “Mass Testing”
News Articles
Comment Raises Eyebrows
By Rachel Gottlieb Frank, The Hartford Courant, October 4, 2007
Hartford Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski told state officials Wednesday that magnet schools - the cornerstone of ongoing desegregation efforts in the region - are falling short of their goal and that "there is no research to suggest that minority students will do better by sitting next to a white student."
"We're disappointed that it's 2007 and the superintendent wants to debate whether it is a bad thing for Hartford's minority children to be taught in racially segregated schools," said Matthew Collangelo, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who is representing the plaintiffs in the Sheff v. O'Neill desegregation lawsuit.
He said it is the state's job to create both rewards and punishments to encourage what he called suburban "fiefdoms" to engage with Hartford to end racial and economic isolation of city students.
Shake-Up Proposed For Hartford Schools
WFSB, October 3, 2007
HARTFORD, Conn - Superintendent Steven Adamowski offered to the state Board of Education a grim assessment of student achievement, and introduced an ambitious plan for reforms in the school system.
Currently, the Capital City has the greatest achievement gap in the country: Only 30 percent of students make it to their high school graduation.
Adamowski presented the board with two initiatives that would involve change. One option would advocate the state funding a student, not a school, in an all-choice system, meaning that parents can choose where to send their children to school.
A second option Adamowski suggested involves an all-balanced reform that would transform low-performing schools via district intervention, redesign or closure.
College is New Charter School’s Target
By, Linda Conner Lambeck, The Connecticut Post, October, 3, 2007
The city's latest charter school, developed by the creators of Amistad Academy in New Haven, opened Aug. 29.
Principal Debon Lewis said Achievement First Bridgeport Academy has begun to establish a distinctive culture. Students are referred to as scholars.
Grace Mwine, 10, a former Barnum student, said she misses her old school and friends, but is glad she's at the new school. At Barnum, the focus was "on getting us to the next grade. Here, they're focused on getting us to college," she said.
Special Education: When Should Taxes Pay Private Tuition?
By John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2007
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments to resolve the central question of the case: Must parents of special-education students give public schools a chance before having taxpayers reimburse them for private-school tuition? How the justices respond will have broad implications for school budgets and the movement toward "mainstreaming," or educating disabled children in regular classrooms. Mr. Freston, pledging to donate any proceeds, has said the fight is about principle, not money.
September Archives
ConnCAN in the News
Special Meeting Requested
By Kevin D. Roberts, The Register Citizen, September 12, 2007
WINSTED – School Board members Cheryl Bartley, Raymond Pavlak and Carmelina Connole signed a letter written by Bartley calling for a special meeting to deal with student achievement. By law, a meeting must be held if three of the board's members sign a request for a special meeting.
Bartley was out of town, so Pavlak read the letter to the board. It cited a report from the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, which stated that Pearson Middle School has been given a performance grade of D- for its 2006 report card. The school ranks 126 out of 134 schools, according to the group's Web site.
The board took a vote about adding Bartley's request to the agenda for discussion, but the motion was defeated unanimously. Molinelli said she will speak at a later date regarding the specifics of the special meeting request.
City SAT scores continue to rise
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, September 6, 2007
"While average reading and math scores on the SAT test went down nationally and statewide, New Haven’s scores went up," said Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo, spokeswoman for New Haven public schools. The combined reading and math SAT scores for New Haven went up 4 points over last year, compared with a 6 point decline for Connecticut and a 4 point decline for the nation, the district reported Wednesday.
Nonetheless, average SAT scores in New Haven Public Schools were drastically lower than those across the nation and state. Connecticut posted an average SAT score of 504 in math, 502 in reading, and 503 in writing. Nationally, 2007 SAT test takers scored an average of 509 in math, 498 in reading, and 488 in writing.
"Certainly compared to the steady declines statewide New Haven looks better than many districts but it also has a lot of ground to close to reach the state average," said Marc Porter Magee, research director for Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a research and advocacy nonprofit agency that focuses on the achievement gap between students at urban and suburban schools. "The gain was 3 points over two years, so the average annual gain since 2007 is 1.5 points in math and reading. At the rate of increase, from 2007 it would take New Haven 129 years to reach the state average, or the high school class of 2136."
"If our goal is to close the achievement gap, we can’t be satisfied with modest increases," Magee added.
New state education czar focused on achievement gap
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, September 2, 2007
State Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan has a bashful smile and a rumpled suit. Don’t let that fool you. McQuillan means business. He means to close Connecticut’s achievement gap, the largest in the country, where low-income urban students often lag several grades behind their more affluent suburban peers.
“At one time Connecticut led the nation,” McQuillan said about why he came to Connecticut. “I did see this as a state in transition. We are building an accountability organization. The department is a vehicle for change.”
“Massachusetts is a state that has really taken seriously the task of raising minority and low income student scores,” said Marc Porter Magee, research director for Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education research and advocacy group.
News Articles
City Tries to Assess Head Start Program
By Maria Garriga, The New Haven Register, September 17, 2007
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. has requested a report on the effectiveness of the city's Head Start program in closing the achievement gap between urban and suburban students. Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo agreed to get the report ready for the mayor, but the request has complications.
Very young children cannot be measured by standardized tests because they may not even understand basic concepts necessary for them to be tested. But educators can and do measure them against child development charts that show how much a child has mastered relative to what should be mastered at his or her age, Tina Mannarino, the city's early childhood education supervisor said.
Critics want changes to No Child Left Behind
By Eileen FitzGerald, The Danbury New Times Live, September 16, 2007
Danbury Associate Superintendent William Glass would like the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind to allow schools the chance to fail in one area of student achievement without being a failure overall and to require improvement but not the absolute increases demanded now.
"It never made sense to have students in special education who have special needs or those who are just learning English to be tested at the same level as their peers,'' Glass said. "Hispanics can be just learning the language. They could be high-achieving in reading and math in their own language but not achieve at proficiency yet in English.''
Connecticut children leading different lives
By Randy James, The Republican American, September 16, 2007
Thanks to strong school performance and high average incomes, a new report ranks Connecticut third in the nation for children's health and well-being.
But away from the state's picturesque towns and wealthier enclaves, the lives of young people are strikingly different. In terms of educational achievement, health, poverty and even plans for the future, the state's 835,000 children live in remarkably different worlds.
Experts give numerous explanations for Connecticut's disparities, including the fact that a small number of residents earn extravagant salaries in finance and other specialized fields requiring high levels of education. Meanwhile, formerly dependable, low-skill jobs continue to dwindle.
Statewide, more than half of urban children live in low-income families — those earning twice the poverty level or less — according to the Connecticut Kids Count project. In the state's suburbs, by contrast, the figure is just 15 percent.
Weston schools reformat reading program
By Terry Castellano, The Weston Forum, September 14, 2007
Weston’s Reading Intervention Program (RIP), available to assist children in grades kindergarten through three, has been reformatted for this school year and utilizes a three-tiered approach.
“The reformatting of the Reading Intervention Program came about after looking at research into ‘best practices’ — what programs and instruction have been shown to provide the best results in education,” said Jerry Belair, assistant superintendent of schools. “Students in need of intervention will now receive more time in reading instruction; they will attend regular classroom reading instruction as well as receive additional instruction during the school day.”
Amistad Plans Schools in Hartford
By Allan Appel, The New Haven Independent, September 12, 2007
Patricia B. Sweet, director of external relations at Achievement First, the umbrella organization that operates Amistad Academy and Elm City Prep, reported that the group has received approval from the state's Department of Education to operate both an elementary and a middle school in Hartford.
"We of course need to line up the funding," Sweet said in a telephone message, "but, yes, Amistad is excited to be part of the revival of the Hartford public school system that is under way through the leadership of the new superintendent Steven Adamoski."
Sweet said that subject to receiving necessary funding from the state and other sources, the new Hartford-based Amistads could be operating as early as next September.
At Weston High School Sophomores 'strong' on CAPT
By Terry Castellano, The Weston Forum, September 12, 2007
Last year’s Weston High School sophomores were described as having a “strong showing” on the 2007 Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) by Jerry Belair, assistant superintendent of schools.
With more than 99% of the class participating in the testing, Weston scored in the top 10 school districts across the state on each of the four sections of the CAPT. Particularly impressive was Weston’s score on the science section, where 84.5% of the sophomores scored at or above goal, the largest percentage of test-takers to do so statewide.
Looking at the numbers, 79% of Weston students scored at or above goal in mathematics, 76.5% at or above goal in reading, and 82% at or above goal in writing.
School board discusses recruiting minority teachers
By:Christine McCluskey, Journal Inquirer, September 11, 2007
MANCHESTER -Interim Human Resources Director William Brindamour told the Board of Education that of the 45 teachers newly hired for this school year, five, or about 11 percent, are members of minority groups.
Almost half of all Manchester students are members of minority groups. Board members have expressed concern that these students need more role models from their own backgrounds in the schools.
And while teachers throughout the school system receive training on how to work effectively with students from different backgrounds, school officials say more diverse staffs would be another step toward the goal of this training - improving education for minority students.
Groton Board Backs NCLB-improvement Bill
By Katie Warchut, The Day, September 11, 2007
A majority of Board of Education members Monday followed hundreds of school districts across the country in supporting proposed legislation to improve the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Ark's proposal has provisions that would make sure students tested in more than one subgroup aren't counted multiple times; change subgroup sizes based on school size; give schools a one-year deferral for not making “progress” if only a small number of students fail to score as proficient; and allow different groups to have different rates of increase to reach 100 percent proficiency.
Groton is one of the state's school districts that has been designated as “in need of improvement,” but is on hold this year because it was able to make the required benchmark of progress.
Gianacoplos said it's unfortunate that the district has lost important preschool programs because NCLB sanctions required Groton to redirect funding for professional development.
Most Ledyard Students Below State Reading Average On CAPT
By Jenna Cho, The Day, September 12, 2007
Ledyard — Students here performed below the statewide average in both reading and writing on the CAPT.
Statewide, 45.6 percent of students on average met the state goal in reading. In writing, 49.5 percent of the students here met the state goal, while 52.9 percent statewide met the goal.
Female students in Ledyard significantly outperformed their male counterparts in reading and writing. In reading, 45.6 percent of girls met the state goal, but just 24 percent of boys met it. In writing, 58.9 percent of the girls met state goal, while only 37.7 percent of boys did..
Ed chief says scores show work needed
Bill McDonald, Connecticut Post, September 10, 2007
MILFORD — "We went up in science and reading and down in writing and mathematics," said Law Principal Janet Garagliano, of CAPT test scores that were made available to the district Aug. 30.
"Overall, I'm happy with the scores, but there is room for improvement," said Foran Principal Michael Cummings. Foran's results showed 90.6 per cent proficient in mathematics, 95.1 in science, 85.4 in reading, and 87.2 in writing. Law's proficiency results were: mathematics, 78.8 percent; science, 89.4; reading, 80.
Merit Pay for Teachers Draws Debate
By Nancy Zuckerbrod, The Associated Press, September 10, 2007
The head of the nation's largest teacher's union and a top House Democrat had a testy exchange Monday over the inclusion of merit pay in an updated version of the No Child Left Behind education law.
California Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, criticized National Education Association President Reg Weaver for rejecting the merit-pay proposal.
The proposal would give bonuses, worth up to $10,000 in most cases, to "outstanding" teachers. The proposal doesn't spell out who would be eligible for the extra money but says raising student test scores must be a factor.
Weaver said that level of detail should be bargained locally, not spelled out by Congress. The NEA has long opposed linking individual student scores to teachers' pay, though many local teachers unions across the country are agreeing to such proposals.
The Greatest Education Lab
By Walter Isaacson, Time Magazine, September 6, 2007
Paul Vallas, the man who took over the troubled school systems of Chicago and then Philadelphia and upended them, stood before a crowd of New Orleans parents in a French Quarter courtyard earlier this summer and offered a promise. "This will be the greatest opportunity for educational entrepreneurs, charter schools, competition and parental choice in America," he said. Call it the silver lining: Hurricane Katrina washed away what was one of the nation's worst school systems and opened the path for energetic reformers who want to make New Orleans a laboratory of new ideas for urban schools .
Mixed Test Results for city’s sophomores
By Chris Gosler, The Stamford Advocate, September 10, 2007
The latest Connecticut Academic Performance Test results show that a quarter to a third of Stamford students met the state goal. In math, 27 percent of students met the goal, and 26 percent in science. In reading, 34 percent of students met the state standard, and 35 percent in writing.
In Stamford, the percentage of students making goal is down at most schools and in most subjects. In one of the biggest drops, students making the writing goal dropped 44 percent to 33 percent at Stamford High School. Stamford fell below the rest of the state in the percentage of students meeting goal this year. Statewide, that figure ranged from 44 percent to 53 percent, depending on the subject, and tended to dip slightly from 2006 to 2007.
Superintendent Joshua Starr said part of the reason is that Stamford is more diverse than other districts. Stamford should be compared to other urban school systems, he said.
State’s Largest Pre-K Gets Underway
By Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, September 10, 2007
Traci Turner-Moore is the education coordinator of the new Pre-K program at the rebuilt Celentano School. New Haven's citywide Pre-K effort -- the state's largest -- begins its first full week Monday. Some 2,100 little people, like three-and-a-quarter year-old Thea and Edmund Bassett, attending 8:30 to 12:30 classes in programs around the city.
The demand for Pre-K slots in general is high throughout the city, particularly in the East Rock area. So the space in the observatory building, which used to be spillover classroom space for the Celentano K-8, was converted to Pre-K use. Turner-Moore said the program has a waiting list.
States Investing More In Pre-K Education
By Julia Silverman, Associated Press, September 5, 2007
Nearly a million children now attend state-funded preschool, up more than a third from five years ago. States are investing $4.2 billion in such programs, an increase of 75 percent since 2005, according to Pre-K Now, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
The movement has been buoyed by research showing that the programs are cost-effective, a lure for businesses, and may lead to higher standardized test scores.
Aging state creates unique problems
By Pam Dawkins, Connecticut Post, September 6, 2007
The state's economic development goals, she said, include sustainable growth, more diverse economic development opportunities, an improved quality of life and expanding the state's presence in the global marketplace. Traditional business concerns of regulatory oversight and the cost of being here must be balanced against other concerns, such as sprawl, high housing costs and clogged transportation systems.
The cost of doing business remains the key concern for 76 percent of respondents. However, the availability of qualified workers and rising payroll costs - a lack of trained workers is creating a tighter labor market, so businesses are paying higher wages and benefits to recruit and retain workers - are also troubling survey respondents.
"That is going to be the number one challenge," said Peter M. Gioia, a CBIA vice president and economist, of the lack of qualified, skilled workers. He spoke during the same session as Rodriguez.
Not only do businesses need skilled workers to keep themselves growing, Gioia said, but a shrinking pool of consumers means businesses who sell products or services here will have smaller customer bases.
Consultant to evaluate city schools
By Linda Conner Lambeck, Connecticut Post, September 5, 2007
HARTFORD — A consulting firm with British roots stands to collect up to $825,000 in state Education Cost Sharing money — earmarked for the state's neediest school districts — to make suggestions officials hope will boost student learning and test scores.
Trevor Yates, a vice president for Cambridge, said the firm's work at Columbus has led to improvement in students' reading test scores.
Supt. of Schools John Ramos said Thursday that the Cambridge work is solid and could offer new insights in addition to validating work the district is doing. "We have a good handle on what the issues are. A lot of it is about being empowered to get the work done in a district that is constantly in a tailspin," he said.
'Soul-Searching' Over Test Results—Bloomfield Jolted By Decline In Students' Scores
By Robert A. Frahm and Steven Goode, Hartford Courant, September 1, 2007
"Every adult working in this school district needs to do some soul-searching, including me," Superintendent of Schools David Title said after reviewing results that found that nearly two-thirds, or 65 percent, of 10th-graders failed to meet the high school's proficiency standard on the math portion of the test, for example. Last year, 43 percent missed the proficiency mark.
Title said the low scores, in part, may reflect a chronic achievement gap that finds many minority students in Connecticut and across the nation lagging behind white students in subjects such as reading and math. Minority students, most of them black, account for more than 90 percent of Bloomfield High School's enrollment.
ConnCAN in the News
Special Meeting Requested
By Kevin D. Roberts, The Register Citizen, September 12, 2007
WINSTED – School Board members Cheryl Bartley, Raymond Pavlak and Carmelina Connole signed a letter written by Bartley calling for a special meeting to deal with student achievement. By law, a meeting must be held if three of the board's members sign a request for a special meeting.
Bartley was out of town, so Pavlak read the letter to the board. It cited a report from the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, which stated that Pearson Middle School has been given a performance grade of D- for its 2006 report card. The school ranks 126 out of 134 schools, according to the group's Web site.
The board took a vote about adding Bartley's request to the agenda for discussion, but the motion was defeated unanimously. Molinelli said she will speak at a later date regarding the specifics of the special meeting request.
City SAT scores continue to rise
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, September 6, 2007
"While average reading and math scores on the SAT test went down nationally and statewide, New Haven’s scores went up," said Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo, spokeswoman for New Haven public schools. The combined reading and math SAT scores for New Haven went up 4 points over last year, compared with a 6 point decline for Connecticut and a 4 point decline for the nation, the district reported Wednesday.
Nonetheless, average SAT scores in New Haven Public Schools were drastically lower than those across the nation and state. Connecticut posted an average SAT score of 504 in math, 502 in reading, and 503 in writing. Nationally, 2007 SAT test takers scored an average of 509 in math, 498 in reading, and 488 in writing.
"Certainly compared to the steady declines statewide New Haven looks better than many districts but it also has a lot of ground to close to reach the state average," said Marc Porter Magee, research director for Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a research and advocacy nonprofit agency that focuses on the achievement gap between students at urban and suburban schools. "The gain was 3 points over two years, so the average annual gain since 2007 is 1.5 points in math and reading. At the rate of increase, from 2007 it would take New Haven 129 years to reach the state average, or the high school class of 2136."
"If our goal is to close the achievement gap, we can’t be satisfied with modest increases," Magee added.
New state education czar focused on achievement gap
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, September 2, 2007
State Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan has a bashful smile and a rumpled suit. Don’t let that fool you. McQuillan means business. He means to close Connecticut’s achievement gap, the largest in the country, where low-income urban students often lag several grades behind their more affluent suburban peers.
“At one time Connecticut led the nation,” McQuillan said about why he came to Connecticut. “I did see this as a state in transition. We are building an accountability organization. The department is a vehicle for change.”
“Massachusetts is a state that has really taken seriously the task of raising minority and low income student scores,” said Marc Porter Magee, research director for Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education research and advocacy group.
News Articles
City Tries to Assess Head Start Program
By Maria Garriga, The New Haven Register, September 17, 2007
Mayor John DeStefano Jr. has requested a report on the effectiveness of the city's Head Start program in closing the achievement gap between urban and suburban students. Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo agreed to get the report ready for the mayor, but the request has complications.
Very young children cannot be measured by standardized tests because they may not even understand basic concepts necessary for them to be tested. But educators can and do measure them against child development charts that show how much a child has mastered relative to what should be mastered at his or her age, Tina Mannarino, the city's early childhood education supervisor said.
Critics want changes to No Child Left Behind
By Eileen FitzGerald, The Danbury New Times Live, September 16, 2007
Danbury Associate Superintendent William Glass would like the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind to allow schools the chance to fail in one area of student achievement without being a failure overall and to require improvement but not the absolute increases demanded now.
"It never made sense to have students in special education who have special needs or those who are just learning English to be tested at the same level as their peers,'' Glass said. "Hispanics can be just learning the language. They could be high-achieving in reading and math in their own language but not achieve at proficiency yet in English.''
Connecticut children leading different lives
By Randy James, The Republican American, September 16, 2007
Thanks to strong school performance and high average incomes, a new report ranks Connecticut third in the nation for children's health and well-being.
But away from the state's picturesque towns and wealthier enclaves, the lives of young people are strikingly different. In terms of educational achievement, health, poverty and even plans for the future, the state's 835,000 children live in remarkably different worlds.
Experts give numerous explanations for Connecticut's disparities, including the fact that a small number of residents earn extravagant salaries in finance and other specialized fields requiring high levels of education. Meanwhile, formerly dependable, low-skill jobs continue to dwindle.
Statewide, more than half of urban children live in low-income families — those earning twice the poverty level or less — according to the Connecticut Kids Count project. In the state's suburbs, by contrast, the figure is just 15 percent.
Weston schools reformat reading program
By Terry Castellano, The Weston Forum, September 14, 2007
Weston’s Reading Intervention Program (RIP), available to assist children in grades kindergarten through three, has been reformatted for this school year and utilizes a three-tiered approach.
“The reformatting of the Reading Intervention Program came about after looking at research into ‘best practices’ — what programs and instruction have been shown to provide the best results in education,” said Jerry Belair, assistant superintendent of schools. “Students in need of intervention will now receive more time in reading instruction; they will attend regular classroom reading instruction as well as receive additional instruction during the school day.”
Amistad Plans Schools in Hartford
By Allan Appel, The New Haven Independent, September 12, 2007
Patricia B. Sweet, director of external relations at Achievement First, the umbrella organization that operates Amistad Academy and Elm City Prep, reported that the group has received approval from the state's Department of Education to operate both an elementary and a middle school in Hartford.
"We of course need to line up the funding," Sweet said in a telephone message, "but, yes, Amistad is excited to be part of the revival of the Hartford public school system that is under way through the leadership of the new superintendent Steven Adamoski."
Sweet said that subject to receiving necessary funding from the state and other sources, the new Hartford-based Amistads could be operating as early as next September.
At Weston High School Sophomores 'strong' on CAPT
By Terry Castellano, The Weston Forum, September 12, 2007
Last year’s Weston High School sophomores were described as having a “strong showing” on the 2007 Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) by Jerry Belair, assistant superintendent of schools.
With more than 99% of the class participating in the testing, Weston scored in the top 10 school districts across the state on each of the four sections of the CAPT. Particularly impressive was Weston’s score on the science section, where 84.5% of the sophomores scored at or above goal, the largest percentage of test-takers to do so statewide.
Looking at the numbers, 79% of Weston students scored at or above goal in mathematics, 76.5% at or above goal in reading, and 82% at or above goal in writing.
School board discusses recruiting minority teachers
By:Christine McCluskey, Journal Inquirer, September 11, 2007
MANCHESTER -Interim Human Resources Director William Brindamour told the Board of Education that of the 45 teachers newly hired for this school year, five, or about 11 percent, are members of minority groups.
Almost half of all Manchester students are members of minority groups. Board members have expressed concern that these students need more role models from their own backgrounds in the schools.
And while teachers throughout the school system receive training on how to work effectively with students from different backgrounds, school officials say more diverse staffs would be another step toward the goal of this training - improving education for minority students.
Groton Board Backs NCLB-improvement Bill
By Katie Warchut, The Day, September 11, 2007
A majority of Board of Education members Monday followed hundreds of school districts across the country in supporting proposed legislation to improve the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Ark's proposal has provisions that would make sure students tested in more than one subgroup aren't counted multiple times; change subgroup sizes based on school size; give schools a one-year deferral for not making “progress” if only a small number of students fail to score as proficient; and allow different groups to have different rates of increase to reach 100 percent proficiency.
Groton is one of the state's school districts that has been designated as “in need of improvement,” but is on hold this year because it was able to make the required benchmark of progress.
Gianacoplos said it's unfortunate that the district has lost important preschool programs because NCLB sanctions required Groton to redirect funding for professional development.
Most Ledyard Students Below State Reading Average On CAPT
By Jenna Cho, The Day, September 12, 2007
Ledyard — Students here performed below the statewide average in both reading and writing on the CAPT.
Statewide, 45.6 percent of students on average met the state goal in reading. In writing, 49.5 percent of the students here met the state goal, while 52.9 percent statewide met the goal.
Female students in Ledyard significantly outperformed their male counterparts in reading and writing. In reading, 45.6 percent of girls met the state goal, but just 24 percent of boys met it. In writing, 58.9 percent of the girls met state goal, while only 37.7 percent of boys did..
Ed chief says scores show work needed
Bill McDonald, Connecticut Post, September 10, 2007
MILFORD — "We went up in science and reading and down in writing and mathematics," said Law Principal Janet Garagliano, of CAPT test scores that were made available to the district Aug. 30.
"Overall, I'm happy with the scores, but there is room for improvement," said Foran Principal Michael Cummings. Foran's results showed 90.6 per cent proficient in mathematics, 95.1 in science, 85.4 in reading, and 87.2 in writing. Law's proficiency results were: mathematics, 78.8 percent; science, 89.4; reading, 80.
Merit Pay for Teachers Draws Debate
By Nancy Zuckerbrod, The Associated Press, September 10, 2007
The head of the nation's largest teacher's union and a top House Democrat had a testy exchange Monday over the inclusion of merit pay in an updated version of the No Child Left Behind education law.
California Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House education committee, criticized National Education Association President Reg Weaver for rejecting the merit-pay proposal.
The proposal would give bonuses, worth up to $10,000 in most cases, to "outstanding" teachers. The proposal doesn't spell out who would be eligible for the extra money but says raising student test scores must be a factor.
Weaver said that level of detail should be bargained locally, not spelled out by Congress. The NEA has long opposed linking individual student scores to teachers' pay, though many local teachers unions across the country are agreeing to such proposals.
The Greatest Education Lab
By Walter Isaacson, Time Magazine, September 6, 2007
Paul Vallas, the man who took over the troubled school systems of Chicago and then Philadelphia and upended them, stood before a crowd of New Orleans parents in a French Quarter courtyard earlier this summer and offered a promise. "This will be the greatest opportunity for educational entrepreneurs, charter schools, competition and parental choice in America," he said. Call it the silver lining: Hurricane Katrina washed away what was one of the nation's worst school systems and opened the path for energetic reformers who want to make New Orleans a laboratory of new ideas for urban schools .
Mixed Test Results for city’s sophomores
By Chris Gosler, The Stamford Advocate, September 10, 2007
The latest Connecticut Academic Performance Test results show that a quarter to a third of Stamford students met the state goal. In math, 27 percent of students met the goal, and 26 percent in science. In reading, 34 percent of students met the state standard, and 35 percent in writing.
In Stamford, the percentage of students making goal is down at most schools and in most subjects. In one of the biggest drops, students making the writing goal dropped 44 percent to 33 percent at Stamford High School. Stamford fell below the rest of the state in the percentage of students meeting goal this year. Statewide, that figure ranged from 44 percent to 53 percent, depending on the subject, and tended to dip slightly from 2006 to 2007.
Superintendent Joshua Starr said part of the reason is that Stamford is more diverse than other districts. Stamford should be compared to other urban school systems, he said.
State’s Largest Pre-K Gets Underway
By Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, September 10, 2007
Traci Turner-Moore is the education coordinator of the new Pre-K program at the rebuilt Celentano School. New Haven's citywide Pre-K effort -- the state's largest -- begins its first full week Monday. Some 2,100 little people, like three-and-a-quarter year-old Thea and Edmund Bassett, attending 8:30 to 12:30 classes in programs around the city.
The demand for Pre-K slots in general is high throughout the city, particularly in the East Rock area. So the space in the observatory building, which used to be spillover classroom space for the Celentano K-8, was converted to Pre-K use. Turner-Moore said the program has a waiting list.
States Investing More In Pre-K Education
By Julia Silverman, Associated Press, September 5, 2007
Nearly a million children now attend state-funded preschool, up more than a third from five years ago. States are investing $4.2 billion in such programs, an increase of 75 percent since 2005, according to Pre-K Now, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
The movement has been buoyed by research showing that the programs are cost-effective, a lure for businesses, and may lead to higher standardized test scores.
Aging state creates unique problems
By Pam Dawkins, Connecticut Post, September 6, 2007
The state's economic development goals, she said, include sustainable growth, more diverse economic development opportunities, an improved quality of life and expanding the state's presence in the global marketplace. Traditional business concerns of regulatory oversight and the cost of being here must be balanced against other concerns, such as sprawl, high housing costs and clogged transportation systems.
The cost of doing business remains the key concern for 76 percent of respondents. However, the availability of qualified workers and rising payroll costs - a lack of trained workers is creating a tighter labor market, so businesses are paying higher wages and benefits to recruit and retain workers - are also troubling survey respondents.
"That is going to be the number one challenge," said Peter M. Gioia, a CBIA vice president and economist, of the lack of qualified, skilled workers. He spoke during the same session as Rodriguez.
Not only do businesses need skilled workers to keep themselves growing, Gioia said, but a shrinking pool of consumers means businesses who sell products or services here will have smaller customer bases.
Consultant to evaluate city schools
By Linda Conner Lambeck, Connecticut Post, September 5, 2007
HARTFORD — A consulting firm with British roots stands to collect up to $825,000 in state Education Cost Sharing money — earmarked for the state's neediest school districts — to make suggestions officials hope will boost student learning and test scores.
Trevor Yates, a vice president for Cambridge, said the firm's work at Columbus has led to improvement in students' reading test scores.
Supt. of Schools John Ramos said Thursday that the Cambridge work is solid and could offer new insights in addition to validating work the district is doing. "We have a good handle on what the issues are. A lot of it is about being empowered to get the work done in a district that is constantly in a tailspin," he said.
'Soul-Searching' Over Test Results—Bloomfield Jolted By Decline In Students' Scores
By Robert A. Frahm and Steven Goode, Hartford Courant, September 1, 2007
"Every adult working in this school district needs to do some soul-searching, including me," Superintendent of Schools David Title said after reviewing results that found that nearly two-thirds, or 65 percent, of 10th-graders failed to meet the high school's proficiency standard on the math portion of the test, for example. Last year, 43 percent missed the proficiency mark.
Title said the low scores, in part, may reflect a chronic achievement gap that finds many minority students in Connecticut and across the nation lagging behind white students in subjects such as reading and math. Minority students, most of them black, account for more than 90 percent of Bloomfield High School's enrollment.
August Archives
ConnCAN in the News
Achievement gap keeps widening
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, August 31, 2007
Half of Connecticut’s 10th-graders reached state goals on the 2007 Connecticut Academic Performance Test, the Department of Education reported Thursday, and the achievement gap dividing Hispanic and black students from their white and Asian peers loomed larger than ever.
“I’m shocked. These are some of the lowest scores I’ve ever seen,” said Marc Porter Magee, research director for the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a research and advocacy group that focuses on the achievement gap in schools.
“In the Connecticut Mastery Tests, usually about 30 percent of African-American and Hispanic students reach goal. Generally speaking, students lose ground over time so that students in elementary grades get higher scores than students in high school,” Magee said.
Magee said that in some of the major cities, barely any black or Hispanic students reached state goals.
News Articles
Teaching To Make A Difference
By Rick Green, Hartford Courant, August 28, 2007
It's no secret the best graduates don't choose teaching. Emily Barton, a 2004 Yale graduate who oversees teachers working in Connecticut, told me Teach for America is beginning to change career choices for young graduates. This alone is reason enough to support Teach for America. "We see people making very different career choices as a result of this," Barton said, noting that two-thirds of Teach for America participants stay in education and 200 have risen to become school principals, including Christopher Leone at Hartford's Pathways to Technology Magnet School.
Schools Fall Short Of Federal Standards
By Robert A. Frahm, Hartford Courant, August 30, 2007
Almost one-third of all public schools in Connecticut landed on a federal government academic warning list today -- a number that is expected to grow even larger as federal standards continue to get tougher, state officials said. Some schools already have made substantial reforms. Among them is Jumoke Academy, a Hartford charter school that met federal goals for the second year in a row and, as a result, was one of only eight schools to be removed from a list of schools targeted for improvement under the federal law. Jumoke saw significant improvement over several years after extending the school day, adding Saturday and summer school classes and hiring more experienced teachers, said Michael Sharpe, the school's chief executive officer.
SAT Achievement Gap Stays Wide
By Robert Frahm, Hartford Courant, August 29, 2007
Record numbers of black and Hispanic high school students in Connecticut and elsewhere are taking the SAT college entrance exam - but some are also looking for colleges that no longer require the test. In part, that is because many continue to lag far behind white and Asian students, according to annual results released Tuesday by the College Board. Both state and national results showed a slight decline this year in most scores, with the achievement gap for black and Hispanic graduates remaining one of the nation's most difficult problems in education.
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
By Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, August 29, 2007
"Welcome to one of the best performing schools in the state of Connecticut," so Amistad Academy director Matt Taylor greeted some of the fifth graders and their parents who reported for their first-day at the award-winning charter school. In smart t-shirts and khakis, some as crisp as the fine 7:15 a.m. air, the kids lined up for what staff calls "Amistadization."
That is, a half day's orientation on how to wear the uniform (shirt always tucked in, belt buckle facing front); how to recognize and respect all teachers and address them (always Mr. or Ms.); how to stand in lines (always straight, never "snakes"); how to address staff and each other (always with direct eye-contact); and, most importantly, to learn what is expected of them during the coming year.
Average SAT Scores Fall in Nation, Connecticut
Staff and Wired Reports, Norwich Bulletin, August 29, 2007
In Connecticut, average scores among the approximately 29,000 public school students who took the SAT declined for the second consecutive year in reading and math, and also dipped in writing.
About 80 percent of Connecticut's public school students took the exam, placing it fourth in participation nationwide.
"While our strong participation rate demonstrates a growing number of students with aspirations for college, we are concerned about the decline in scores," state Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan said.
Congressman Offers Revisions to ‘No Child’
By Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 28, 2007
The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.
The proposal would allow states to use more than annual tests in reading and math to rate schools; give credit to states for students who are projected to reach proficiency within three years; and require states to test certain students with limited English skills in their native language. For some schools that fall only slightly short of academic targets, the proposal would also lift requirements to provide after-school tutoring and let students transfer to better schools.
ConnCAN in the News
Achievement gap keeps widening
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, August 31, 2007
Half of Connecticut’s 10th-graders reached state goals on the 2007 Connecticut Academic Performance Test, the Department of Education reported Thursday, and the achievement gap dividing Hispanic and black students from their white and Asian peers loomed larger than ever.
“I’m shocked. These are some of the lowest scores I’ve ever seen,” said Marc Porter Magee, research director for the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, a research and advocacy group that focuses on the achievement gap in schools.
“In the Connecticut Mastery Tests, usually about 30 percent of African-American and Hispanic students reach goal. Generally speaking, students lose ground over time so that students in elementary grades get higher scores than students in high school,” Magee said.
Magee said that in some of the major cities, barely any black or Hispanic students reached state goals.
News Articles
Teaching To Make A Difference
By Rick Green, Hartford Courant, August 28, 2007
It's no secret the best graduates don't choose teaching. Emily Barton, a 2004 Yale graduate who oversees teachers working in Connecticut, told me Teach for America is beginning to change career choices for young graduates. This alone is reason enough to support Teach for America. "We see people making very different career choices as a result of this," Barton said, noting that two-thirds of Teach for America participants stay in education and 200 have risen to become school principals, including Christopher Leone at Hartford's Pathways to Technology Magnet School.
Schools Fall Short Of Federal Standards
By Robert A. Frahm, Hartford Courant, August 30, 2007
Almost one-third of all public schools in Connecticut landed on a federal government academic warning list today -- a number that is expected to grow even larger as federal standards continue to get tougher, state officials said. Some schools already have made substantial reforms. Among them is Jumoke Academy, a Hartford charter school that met federal goals for the second year in a row and, as a result, was one of only eight schools to be removed from a list of schools targeted for improvement under the federal law. Jumoke saw significant improvement over several years after extending the school day, adding Saturday and summer school classes and hiring more experienced teachers, said Michael Sharpe, the school's chief executive officer.
SAT Achievement Gap Stays Wide
By Robert Frahm, Hartford Courant, August 29, 2007
Record numbers of black and Hispanic high school students in Connecticut and elsewhere are taking the SAT college entrance exam - but some are also looking for colleges that no longer require the test. In part, that is because many continue to lag far behind white and Asian students, according to annual results released Tuesday by the College Board. Both state and national results showed a slight decline this year in most scores, with the achievement gap for black and Hispanic graduates remaining one of the nation's most difficult problems in education.
Fifth-Graders Get “Amistadized”
By Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, August 29, 2007
"Welcome to one of the best performing schools in the state of Connecticut," so Amistad Academy director Matt Taylor greeted some of the fifth graders and their parents who reported for their first-day at the award-winning charter school. In smart t-shirts and khakis, some as crisp as the fine 7:15 a.m. air, the kids lined up for what staff calls "Amistadization."
That is, a half day's orientation on how to wear the uniform (shirt always tucked in, belt buckle facing front); how to recognize and respect all teachers and address them (always Mr. or Ms.); how to stand in lines (always straight, never "snakes"); how to address staff and each other (always with direct eye-contact); and, most importantly, to learn what is expected of them during the coming year.
Average SAT Scores Fall in Nation, Connecticut
Staff and Wired Reports, Norwich Bulletin, August 29, 2007
In Connecticut, average scores among the approximately 29,000 public school students who took the SAT declined for the second consecutive year in reading and math, and also dipped in writing.
About 80 percent of Connecticut's public school students took the exam, placing it fourth in participation nationwide.
"While our strong participation rate demonstrates a growing number of students with aspirations for college, we are concerned about the decline in scores," state Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan said.
Congressman Offers Revisions to ‘No Child’
By Jay Mathews, Washington Post, August 28, 2007
The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.
The proposal would allow states to use more than annual tests in reading and math to rate schools; give credit to states for students who are projected to reach proficiency within three years; and require states to test certain students with limited English skills in their native language. For some schools that fall only slightly short of academic targets, the proposal would also lift requirements to provide after-school tutoring and let students transfer to better schools.
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