Superintendent Welcoming Education Reform

Is it the year for education reform in Connecticut?

It appears Governor Dannel Malloy is planning on it based on a letter he sent to the Connecticut General Assembly in December last year. Vernon Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway shared the letter with school board members so that they know the direction Hartford could be heading when the legislative session begins.

The Vernon Board of Education did not address the letter at its regular board meeting on Monday, but comment was sought via e-mail.

Vernon Board of Education Chairman Dean Houle responded, "The Vernon Board of Education is NOT going to comment on the Governors letter at this time.  I don't believe we (as a board) have enough detail about the kinds of legislative proposals that will come about as a results of the Governor's request."

Conway explained in a telephone interview that she welcomes the ideas the governor states is his letter and feels Vernon is in a place where education reform would support efforts already taking place in the district.

In fact, the board of education will be receiving its own "professional development" about the Education Transformation Project from the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, she said.

The project has been in the works for several years and looks at centering everything on the "learner," according to the CAPSS site.  It appears to have similarities to what Malloy is asking the legislature to consider this session. More information about the project can be found at http://www.ctnexted.org/.

"The biggest idea in the Education Transformation Project is the notion that education is the constant, not time," Conway said. "Time is the constant in how we do things now. If you set a standard and the students meet the standards, they should be moved on to the next standard. That is very different than the system we use now where we have 180 days to learn as much as we can. Having education be the constant could change everyone’s paradigm of education."

In his letter dated, December 20, Malloy outlined his frustration from traveling the state and hearing from employers that there are openings, but no qualified people to hire.

"These comments underscore the fact that our state’s economic future is dependent on our students' educational outcomes," Malloy stated in the letter. "We cannot prosper if we do not produce a work force equal to the task of keeping Connecticut’s companies competitive."

Malloy is seeking fundamental reforms to schools.

"Connecticut’s school system has a storied history of excellence," Malloy continued. “But over time, we have lost our edge as a state. Our performance on standardized assessments has stagnated, and students in other states have begun to catch and surpass ours.”

Malloy made the correlation that the state lost a bid for federal Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant monies because of Connecticut’s standings on performance tests. Connecticut’s poor and minority students are falling farther behind, according to Malloy and he wrote, "…our state has the largest achievement gap in the nation."

Malloy encouraged districts to see the "urgency" and make "bold strategies" to turn around the fall from the top. "We must create a system that focuses at every level on preparing our students for success in college and careers," Malloy wrote. "We must embrace performance-based accountability as a lever for continuous improvement."

Malloy wrote that the commissioner of education will develop a set of legislative proposals for the 2012 session. The proposals will be based on the following principles, according to Malloy’s letter:

• Enhance families’ access to high-quality early childhood education opportunities.

Conway agrees with Malloy that students need to be ready when they enter school. Vernon is currently reviewing and exploring its pre-kindergarten program. Conway went on to say that school readiness in Vernon includes students from pre-k to the second grade.

"These grades are a priority in Vernon," Conway said. "If we can get to students by the end of second grade, particularly having them reading at grade level or beyond. We’re going to have much more success in grades 3 through 12."

Vernon’s Community Plan recently released by the Vernon Community Network also shows that school readiness is a key factor that needs to be concentrated on, Conway pointed out.

"We get this from all over the place," she said.

• Authorize the intensive interventions and enable the supports necessary to turn around Connecticut’s lowest-performing schools and districts.

Vernon also is in the middle in terms of performance on standardized assessments, she said.

"We aren’t the lowest performing and not the highest," she said. "When you are talking about supports, tell me what you are talking about."

• Expand the availability of high-quality school models, including traditional schools, magnets, charters and others.

"I think this is a great idea. I don’t have a problem with this," Conway said. "We need to look regionally and work to share transportation and other services. I don’t have any angst when our families make other choices. If we were educating students regionally, Vernon would have just as many coming as we are sending. Other than our Vocational Agriculture program at Rockville High School, Vernon has no other magnet attraction. This is just another piece of looking at education differently."

• Unleash innovation by removing red tape and other barriers to success, especially in high-performing schools and districts.

Conway questioned how this will be accomplished. She pointed out that many of the higher performing schools are wealthier districts.

"If they are going to take resources away to do something else, I hope they tell me this is happening across districts," she said. Vernon does have somewhat of a tax base, Conway stated, to meet some of its responsibilities.

“Could we fall into it in terms of financing? Yes,” she said. “Vernon’s annual grand list is incredibly low. We are second from the bottom of the eight groups of District Reference Groups." DRGs are created by looking at family income, parental education, and parental occupation along with children living with single parents, percentage of children eligible for free and reduced lunch, and percentage of children whose families speak a language other than English, and finally enrollment of a district. Conway said she would like more clarification of what this actually means to a district such as Vernon.

• Ensure that our schools are home to the very best teachers and principals – working within a fair system that values their skill and effectiveness over seniority and tenure.

In Conway’s opinion, that bullet point deals the most with the education reform Malloy appears to be embarking on.

"What do we believe as a system has the greatest affect on a child’s education? That is high quality teachers," Conway said. That is not something Vernon takes lightly, she said. The district recently started offering instructional coaching through a federal job grant. The district also holds professional development, book studies and holds instructional rounds so that data can be collected and conversation can occur about quality instruction. Conway explained that both the district and union are “partners” in ensuring students in Vernon have quality teachers.

• Deliver more resources, targeted to districts with the greatest need – provided that they embrace key reforms that position our students for success.

Again Conway questioned what kind of supports Malloy is considering.

On Jan. 5, Malloy held a workshop to address education reform issues in Connecticut. Vernon educational leaders were invited but unable to attend. Conway said some administrators watched the workshop later because it was taped.

“It looks like this is the year for education,” Conway said. “We haven’t had that in I don’t know when.”