Connecticut
Post posts about what is happening in the State of Connecticut.
#yelc09 – Joel Klein
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 14:30Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Department of Education provided the opening keynote address at the Yale Education Leadership Conference laid out the issue very concisely. He started off by quipping that the reason he is so controversial is that he’s too old not to be, and then proceeded to hit his three points. We have a crisis, we don’t have to, and “If we keep having the same dialog we’ve been having, we’re not going to be able to change it”.
He illustrated the crisis by asking how many people would be willing to allow him to place their children into any of the schools in New York City. No one would. The message is clear, that not every school in New York City, or New Haven, or many other places is good enough. He noted that only about 33% of the schools in New York City are schools where principals would be willing to place their own kids, and that is up from 20% when he started.
He spoke about the detrimental effect that skin color, poverty and zip code have on educational opportunities. By eighth grade black students from poor communities are typically already two to three grade levels behind their more affluent white counterparts. He noted that on top of this, U.S. achievement is falling behind achievement in other countries, producing a double achievement gap for the poor and people of color.
With this, he went to his second point. It doesn’t have to be this way. Too often, people suggest that you cannot fix education until you address the issue of poverty. Many people believe that the reason children fail to achieve is because of the effect poverty has on their lives. Klein suggests that it is actually the other way around. You will cannot fix the issue of poverty until you address the issue of education.
His key areas of focus to address the issue of education center around accountability, leadership and choice. He acknowledged issues measuring success. No measurement is perfect, but we need to go with the best we can get.
We all know about what a positive factor parental involvement is on education. He pointed that the starting point of all parental involvement is the choice about which school we send our children to. Those that can afford it chose to live in communities with good school districts or send our children to private schools. Yet for those who cannot afford it, there is little to no choice about which schools their children attend. Providing this basic level of choice is an important first step in increasing parental involvement.
With this, he ended off by calling those of us who are fortunate enough to get our kids a good education, to become ‘educational warriors’, voices for the voiceless, those who don’t have the opportunity to get a good education. It provided a great framework for the rest of the conference and he was given a standing ovation.
#yelc09 - Yale Education Leadership Conference – Prologue
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 11:47The Grand Ballroom at The Omni Hotel slowly fills up during registration and breakfast at the 2009 Yale Education Leadership Conference. A glance at the registration table looks like around four hundred people have registered. There are six members of the press. Five in the traditional media including the New York Times and NPR, and the one lone blogger.
At registration, I see Mayor Finch of Bridgeport. I want to get a word in about the economic stimulus package and what projects he thinks are most important to his city. However, we both are rushing in other directions and don’t really get a chance to talk. That can wait for a follow-up email.
The attendees are seem to be fairly well mixed in terms of age and gender, although it does seem to be slightly skewed to twenty-somethings. Just about everyone is well dressed and almost all of the men are wearing suits. Many people seem to know one another from other conferences.
I fire up the laptop and find that there is no apparent open WiFi. However, as I look around, I don’t see any other laptops. One person has a blackberry. I don’t know if they use Twitter or if anyone else will Twitter the conference. Without WiFi my twittering will be a bit curtailed. My thumbs just aren’t that fast on the cellphone. I will be using the hashtag, #yelc09.
Along with the lack of WiFi there aren’t many outlets, and my power cord crosses an area where people walk. Just about everyone manages to trip over it. The room continues to fill up and soon New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein will present the opening keynote. Hopefully, I can slip out and get a WiFi connection and put up a post or two during lunch time.
Stimulus Watch
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 19:20Last Saturday, I attended an Organizing for America discussion about President Obama’s Economic Recovery Plan. During a lively discussion, we talked about how we could make sure that the best projects get selected and that they get done in as effect a manner as possible. In my blog post, A Stimulating Discussion, I asked:
Can volunteers from Organizing for America and other groups gather and discuss projects that would be most beneficial for our country? Can they make these discussions available online so everyone can participate?
Well, a group of people have created a website called Stimulus Watch. The website lists 18,750 ‘shovel ready’ projects from the U.S. Conference of Mayors. You can use the website to find projects in the cities near where you live, comment on them and vote on them.
There are a few things I dislike about the site. You vote simply on whether a project is ‘critical’ or not. ‘Critical’ is a poor choice of words. Personally, I probably would not call any of the projects ‘critical’. ‘Important’, ‘beneficial’, or other words might work much better. In addition, it does not seem like it should be black or white. It isn’t ‘critical’ or ‘not critical’, the real question is how beneficial do people think a project is. A scale of one to five would probably make much more sense.
Beyond that, the voting appears to be anonymous. I’m not sure what is done to make sure that the system is not being gamed by people with certain political agendas.
The other thing I would like to see is ability to get other projects added. I’m sure that there are plenty of other projects from Connecticut, besides those from the fifteen cities participating in the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
In spite of the shortcomings of the project, please, take a look at some of the projects, and a little information and vote. We should get good discussions going about different projects.
A Stimulating Discussion
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 17:04It was with some reservation that I attended an Organizing for America event to discuss President Obama's Economic Recovery Plan. A week or so ago, Zephyr Teachout wrote Organizing for America Will, and Should, Fail which raised some very important issues about the direction Organizing for America needs to be heading if it is going to be successful. I’ve discussed the article with friends here in Connecticut and I wondered how the discussion would go today in New Haven.
I am pleased to say that it was much better than I feared it might be based on Zephyr’s article. Some of this is because people organizing the meeting wanted it to be much more than a call to lobby legislators, some of it is because they invited Lou Mangini, a Congressional Aide for Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, to speak about the recovery plan, and some of it was simply because it was a good group of energetic volunteers.
We started with a detailed overview of the Economic Recovery Plan. Mr. Mangini noted that economic stimulus plans have been a frequent tool of Congress during recessions. He explained where things are in the process of getting the plan passed and what it might look like as it gets implemented. He expressed gratification to see so many people gather to discuss an urgent legislative issue on a Saturday afternoon.
We then broke into small groups to discuss aspects that we were interested in. I joined a group talking about local issues around the plan and how it relates to grassroots organizing.
There were three key areas that we focused on. The first was getting it passed. Since it seems like there is strong support of the plan by the Connecticut delegation to Washington, we discussed contacting friends in states where the Senators and Representatives may not be as supportive. This does not mean supporting the plan as it is. There continues to be pressure to change the plan and we need to keep up the pressure to make sure that any changes will make the plan as effective as possible.
Beyond that, the issue of what projects will get funded needs key focus. Unlike other economic plans where specific projects are earmarked, this plan calls for the state and local governments to determine which plans will most effectively reach the goals of the stimulus package.
It is unclear exactly how many ‘shovel ready’ projects are waiting to be done with out the necessary funding to complete them. By ‘shovel ready’, what is meant is projects that have been designed and have the necessary permits. Some of the best projects may, in fact not be ‘shovel ready’, and there are separate issues about how to get such plans ‘shovel ready’ as quickly as possible.
It is also unclear exactly how much money will be made available to states for various projects. However, it is reasonable to assume that there are probably twice as many ‘shovel ready’ projects on the shelves waiting to be funded as there will be funding for.
So, who will decide what projects will be funded? This will go through typical existing agencies like councils of economic development or state transportation agencies. These agencies are not always as transparent as people would like, and may not always chose those projects that will be most effective in stimulating the economy.
Perhaps, if various projects can be listed online where people can discuss the pros and cons of each project, we will end up with better projects being funded.
Once these projects are selected, there will also need to be better transparency and oversight to make sure that they are done in as efficient and cost effective manner as possible.
Can volunteers from Organizing for America and other groups gather and discuss projects that would be most beneficial for our country? Can they make these discussions available online so everyone can participate?
Such discussions could help everyone in Organizing for America be part of the change that they worked so hard for during the election, and might, just might, address the concerns that Zephyr expressed, better than any one imaged was possible.
So, what projects are under consideration for funding where you are?
(Cross-posted at Greater Democracy.)
Yale Education Leadership Smackdown!
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 23:19On Friday, February 13, the Yale School of Management will sponsor the Yale Education Leadership Conference. Two years ago, the conference ended with Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For America, Dacia Toll, president of Achievement First, Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, chairman of the General Assembly’s Education Committee, and Steven Adamoski, Superindendent of the Hartford Public Schools talking about “Closing the Achievement Gap in the State of Connecticut”.
This year’s conference will include keynotes by Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education and Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent of the Miami-Dade Public Schools. One of the panels will have Rep. Fleichmann return, along with Congressman Chris Murphy, Chairman of the Connecticut State Board of Education Allan Taylor, and Connecticut State Department of Higher Education Commissioner Michael Meotti.
Concurrent with this, the Yale Law School’s Law and Media Program will be holding a conference, “The Future of Student Internet Speech: What Are We Teaching the Facebook Generation”. This conference will include a discussion of The Doninger v. Niehoff Case and how far school authority should extend.
It is unfortunate that these two events overlap since they cover related topics and I would love to be able to attend both. Meanwhile, I still need to write up my notes from the presentation of the proposed Woodbridge school budget and make it to the next committee meeting where we are discussing a three-year technology plan for the school district.
Against this backdrop, I am hearing people talking about Gov. Rell’s latest nominee for the State Board of Education. Today, Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), testified before a legislative committee. People have criticized the nomination arguing that WWE programs borders on pornographic. They have pointed out the issues with steroid use amongst WWE wrestlers and pondered what Ms. McMahon would have our children learn.
Others asked what her qualifications are, other than significant campaign contributions to numerous candidates. I have been more concerned about her unwillingness to accept interviews about her nomination and her inability to give anything beyond basic answers when asked about various educational issues. Somehow, I don’t expect to see her at any of the educational conferences coming up in the next few weeks.
Yet I don’t expect her to do significantly worse than any of the other members of the State Board of Education. After all, my cynical friends always point out to me, isn’t that how most political appointments are made, not on merit but on connections? Look at Gov. Rell, they point out. She was Gov. Rowland’s Lt. Governor for nearly ten years before Gov. Rowland’s resignation.
Now, Gov. Rell is campaigning on reducing the bloat in government. Perhaps the first place to start is by seeking nominees for political appointments based on their merit instead of how well connected they are. Until then, her comments about reducing bloat in government are going to sound awfully hollow or hypocritical.
