Assistant Superintendent Slone on Connecticut's Three Initiatives

The Connecticut State Department of Education is focusing on three new initiatives, the impact of which will be felt by the Brookfield Public Schools.

Connecticut is in the process of completing and is submitting its application for $175 million in federal Race to the Top funding that will fund several statewide programs and local district initiatives over the next four years.

Connecticut has joined forces with four other New England states and a member of New England Secondary School Consortium (NESSC), an ambitious initiative that is promoting high school innovation, best practices and forward-thinking educational policy across the region.

Connecticut will take part in the national Common Core State Standards Initiative, which will raise academic standards and help Connecticut students to successfully compete with students from other states and from other countries.

Connecticut applied for federal Race to the Top money last year, but was unsuccessful in its application.  A new vision for Connecticut was developed which states:

"Every child ready for kindergarten, academically and socially prepared for high school, and upon graduation, able to enter college or the work force with the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed for individual, interpersonal, and economic success."

With this vision as its guide, Connecticut hopes to win $175 million in funds to support cities and towns to accomplish the intent of the vision.  The funds will be used to:

• Adopt new standards and assessments;
• Build data systems to better measure student success;
• Recruit, reward and retain effective teachers and principals;
• Turn around the lowest achieving schools.

The overall goal of Connecticut's Race to the Top will be to:

• Generate substantial gains in student achievement;
• Improve high school graduates and college enrollment;
• Narrow achievement gaps.

The second initiative, the New England Secondary School Consortium (NESSC) including Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont has established as a goal to ensure that by 2016 every public high school student in the partner states will receive an education that will prepare them for college, career, and civic responsibility in the interconnected global community of the 21st Century.  This will be accomplished through rigorous 21st Century learning standards, more accurate and relevant student assessments and data systems that will promote comparability of student achievement and educational outcomes across state lines.

The third initiative, the Common Core State Standards Initiative, has initiated a collaborative, state-led process to develop and adopt common state learning standards across America.  Currently, each state has its own standards that yield a confused and sometimes conflicting set of expectations for students across the country.  Also, current state standards are so numerous that researchers have indicated that for any student to master all of one year's standards at each grade level it would take two and a half years of education.  The common core movement would streamline and focus the standards in Connecticut and the other states and help support increased student achievement.

All three of the Connecticut initiatives have higher student achievement as their goal.  Brookfield students consistently do well.  However, we know that we have several areas in which we can and need to do better.  Hopefully, funds and state support will help us to reach higher.