The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Lawmakers consider statewide curriculum
HARTFORD — A statewide curriculum model and more efforts to hammer away at what is now being called the “opportunity” rather than “achievement” gap is what the legislature’s Education Committee will focus on in the short session that began last week.
Committee leaders and several educational advocacy groups met at the Legislative Office building on Monday to outline an agenda that they say will build on efforts made last year to diversify the teaching work force, expand preschool efforts and improve reading and financial literacy.
With a short session and a plan already in place to increase education funding steadily over the next decade, State Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, cochair of the committee, said it’s time to find some real solutions to what some consider the largest achievement gap in the nation between students.
“We need to change the trajectory,” McCrory said. That half of the students in the state can’t read and do math at grade level by eighth grade is simply unacceptable, he said.
His co-chair, State Rep. Robert Sanchez, D-New Britain, said he intends to continue to hammer away at efforts to expand early childhood education that were started in the last session.
He wants to expand eligibility to subsidized childcare programs and also make preschool teacher salaries commensurate with the education they are expected to attain.
Shannon Marimón, executive director, of ReadyCT — there to speak on behalf of Fran Rabinowitz of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents — talked to the idea of a voluntary statewide curriculum.
“A statewide curriculum provided to all districts in core content areas will help reduce duplicative efforts,” Marimon said. Connecticut, she added, could even build on models already established in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Connecticut has a statewide achievement test all students are expected to
pass and state standards in core subject areas upon which local curriculum are built, but no statewide curriculum model.
Other initiatives include adding personal financial management instruction into the public schools, reconstitute an achievement gap task force and strengthening social and emotional learning instruction.
While some may advocate for more funding, McCrory said he would push instead for districts to spend what they get in a more effective manner.
“We need to put dollars in the hands of the people who need them,” McCrory said. He called it unacceptable, for instance, for districts to spend more on school police officers than guidance counselors.
Some districts haven’t enough funding for either. Bridgeport Public Schools has cut numerous programs over the past four years, eliminating kindergarten aides, math and reading coaches, home school coordinators and other positions because budget increases have not kept up with cost increases. For the past few years, school resource officers have been funded through a grant.
In 2018, the General Assembly passed a new Education Cost Sharing formula that calls for funding increases through 2027. By fiscal year 2028, municipalities should receive 100 percent of their state education grant as calculated by the formula.
Two areas not brought up by the education committee were charter school expansion or potential school district regionalization. The regionalization idea, pushed last year by Gov. Ned Lamont, was widely panned by suburban districts.
McCrory said there still could be some voluntary regionalization in special education by creating cooperatives to bring costs down.
On charter schools, McCrory said he is in favor expanding the ones that succeed. He singled out the Stamford Charter School of Excellence, which just got a new five-year charter extension. The school wants to add a middle school component. There could be funding for that, McCrory said.
Along with lawmakers, the news conference also included speakers from ConnCAN, a statewide advocacy group, and Educators for Excellence, an advocacy group made up of teachers. Absent were representatives from the state’s two largest teacher unions, the Connecticut Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. An AFT spokesman said they weren’t invited.