Achievement Gap Solutions Raise Questions of Cost (CT)

November 1, 2010

New recommendations on how to narrow the state’s gaping achievement gap met with cautious approval among local education leaders, but concerns remain about the cost of implementing reforms.

The governor-appointed Connecticut Commission on Educational Achievement last week released a long list of recommendations for how the state can begin to close the achievement gap between low-income students and the rest of the state. Gov. M. Jodi Rell established the commission in March with a mission of looking at why Connecticut has one of the worst achievement gaps in the country.

The recommendations were discussed at a recent New Haven Board of Education meeting. Leaders acknowledged the reforms will cost money, but noted the city is ahead of the game and is already implementing many of the recommendations through its own School Change Initiative.

"Most of these initiatives they say at the end are going to take additional dollars. I don’t know where those dollars are going to come from," said New Haven Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo.

Local school officials did not provide a cost estimate for the district’s reform plan after several requests throughout the week.

The recommendations include proposals to expand preschool for low-income students, create teacher evaluations that consider student performance and have real consequences, develop a state school turnaround office to "aggressively intervene" in the lowest achieving schools and reform how the state funds education, including having money "follow the child."

They also propose establishing new positions at the state Department of Education, including a secretary of education and a commissioner of early childhood education and care.

New Haven school board member Alex Johnston, who also heads the Connecticut Coalition for Achie vement, said New Haven is already doing a number of the ideas outlined in the report, including teacher evaluations and turnaround schools.

O t h e r b o a r d m e m b e r s expressed concern about cost and other factors. Selase Williams worried that the secretary of education would become a political office because the person answers to the governor. Board member Ferdinand Risco Jr.’s main concern was cost.

Other education leaders in the state had similar reactions to the recommendations, with general approval of the recommendations themselves but serious concerns about affording such reforms in the current economic crisis.

Hamden Superintendent of Schools Frances M. Rabinowitz praised the report for its readability and focus.

" I was pleased to see preschool make it back onto the radar screen," she said.

Rabinowitz said the commission recognized the importance of effective teaching, which she considered the most important element in the success of a child. She also praised the commission’s recommendations for using data to support decisions.

But Rabinowitz, too, has concerns about cost.

Rabinowitz said she fears that new positions such as a state secretary of education would be costly.

West Haven Board of Education Chairman Howard Horvath said the time is right for the state to make hard decisions about funding education reform.

Other recommendations in the report include extending the school day or school year, encouraging new charter and magnet schools, requiring high school students to pass the CAPT in order to graduate, aligning statewide curricula with higher standards and establishing alternate routes to becoming a teacher.

The report advocates strengthening teaching by creating data systems for evaluating, developing and supporting teachers.