Rell Signs Education Reform Bill

That’s Governor Jodi Rell signing into law Senate Bill 438, An Act Concerning Education Reform in Connecticut. The sweeping package of legislation covers everything from higher standards for high school graduation and better teacher accountability, to Parental Governance councils for low performing schools.

Rell says the goal is to have the best educated students in the world:

"Today, we chart the course for our schools, for our teachers, and most importantly, for our students, and this directly leads to the top."

And in this case, the top is money, specifically, Race to the Top, President Obama’s initiative that awards multimillion dollar grants to states willing to systematically overhaul their schools.

With the Governor’s signature, the most important part of Connecticut’s application for the federal grant is in place, and it could be worth $175 million. Alex Johnston is CEO of New Haven-based education advocacy group ConnCann. He has been working with lawmakers for years to pass some of these measures with no success. He says what made the difference this year was Race to the Top:

"A number of these ideas are not new, but the fact that Race To The Top competition created a framework for which really there was a reason to come together and really push hard on some comprehensive education reform legislation."

And everyone agrees reform is needed. According to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Connecticut has the largest achievement gap between low income children and their classmates in the nation, a distinction that has dogged the state for years. State Education commissioner Mark McQuillan says while $175 million alone won’t close that gap, it ‘s a good start:

"I think of the work that we're trying to do to build a much more comprehensive longitudinal data system that will allow us to capture student information with our 3, 4 and 5 year-olds all the way through college, and to link that data with another set of data, and that's the teacher data. Couple that with the secondary school reform and all of the dollars that we're putting into place can fundamentally change how instruction proceeds."

This is the second round of Race to the Top grants. Connecticut’s application did not make the cut in the first round, and according to Mark McQuillan, they really didn’t expect to:

"We calculated that we would want to make the application the first time and have the advantage of having done a dress rehearsal. But at the same time, we also knew that if we weren't successful in the first round, we would use that period between the time that we had submitted and the time that we had information from the federal government to begin to craft a much more rigorous and expanded legislative package that would support our application longterm."

And so, McQuillan says lawmakers, advocates, and teacher's unions rolled up their sleeves, and crafted the Education Reform bill with the immediate goal of putting together a stronger application for the second round. The Connecticut Mirror's education reporter Robert Frahm says the package of measures signed by Governor Rell adequately addresses the four major criteria Race To The Top reviewers are looking for:

"Four categories really that the federal government. is looking at --- one has to do with standards in tests, exams and how you measure students, another has to do with collecting data. The third area has to do with getting better teachers, frankly, and the fourth, how states deal with failing schools, and how to turn them around and fix them. I don't know whether these reforms will be enough to put Connecticut over the top."

And that's the $175 million question --- will the school reforms be enough to move Connecticut up from 25th place in the first round, to the top 10 to 15, to even be considered for the second round? Alex Johnston is cautiously optimistic.

"I would be surprised, very surprised if our score didn't go up, but I think we should all certainly feel very good about the way in which Connecticut did move a comprehensive reform bill, that win or lose, in Race To The Top, will really be to the advantage of kids across the state."

For WNPR, I'm Ray Hardman.