The Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents has released its recommendations to transform public schools in the state to address achievement gaps.
The "Blueprint to Transform Connecticut's Public Schools" is a 15-year plan that addresses disparities in funding, educational access, curriculum, second-language and digital learning, special education, and assessment methods, among other topics, officials said.
There are 30 recommendations that the organization said it believes are critical to the state's public education over the next 15 years and beyond.
Included in the recommendations are topics that include:
- Overall state support for public education
- ECS predictability
- ECS improvements
- Special education
- School construction
- Adult education
- English language learning
- Early childhood
- Transportation
- Attacking structural racism and discrimination
- Improving virtual learning
- Student assessment
- State leadership in curriculum and instruction
- Student well being
- Disengaged and disenfranchised youth
- Teacher certification, development and evaluation
- Federal funds
- Municipal/non-education grants
- Debt and obligations
- Teacher retirement system
- State grant eliminations
- Minimum expenditure requirements (MER)
- Regional efficiencies
- Mandate waivers
- School district improvement grant
- Governance
- Public school choice
- Measuring success
- Student and staff health and safety
- More research needed
For more specific details on the recommendations, click here.
Local
The recommendations have an annual cost of approximately $78 million in additional state funding beyond what is already planned, according to President of CAPSS Paul Freeman.
“This represents only a 2.5 percent increase over CSDE’s current $3 billion general fund budget over five years. CAPSS believes this plan is both reasonable and responsible in light of the educational needs in our state,” Freeman said.
