Taking On

Educational Reform

There is so much urgency in the world that keeping focus on our most fundamental responsibilities as a society is nearly impossible. Connecticut’s legislators hardly know where to start. Last month’s special session on jobs tried to jumpstart hiring in a state coming off two decades of zero net jobs growth with a $626 million jobs growth bill. There is talk now of another special session before Christmas to address Connecticut Light & Power’s lackluster response in the aftermath of the freak Halloween snowstorm that left wide swaths of Connecticut without power for more than a week. The regular legislative session convenes in February after the distractions of the holidays and whatever new crises may befall us between now and then. Governor Dannel P. Malloy has promised to return Hartford’s focus this winter to one of those fundamental responsibilities overshadowed by the urgency of recent weeks and months — education.

Last week, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS), hoping to set the agenda on the school reform debate, issued a report with 134 school recommendations. Some of those recommendations were pro forma platitudes (“foster a partnership for success among parents, schools and communities”) and some were sea-change departures from tradition, including the elimination of lifetime tenure for teachers in favor of five-year contracts for educators who show “outstanding performance in student learning.” Overall, the report conveyed the seriousness with which the school administrators view the need for reform in a state that has some of the best schools in the nation — and some of the worst. Connecticut has the nation’s largest educational achievement gap between poor and wealthy school districts.

The emphasis in the superintendents’ report, and we hope in any legislative reform initiatives, is on results rather than process. Flexibility is the key, according to state’s new Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, who told the Hartford Courant, “Some districts may require a higher level of support and even state involvement … some districts may perform at a more optimal level if they are freed from bureaucratic restraints.”

The commissioner was in Meriden on Monday, touring one of those “optimal” elementary schools, the Thomas Hooker School. The school was singled out because of the close attention it pays to assessments and data on individual student performance and the cooperation of the teachers union and school administration in making adjustments in classroom time and schedules to accommodate efforts to address deficiencies and enhance success. It is a simple formula: More bullish teamwork, fewer sacred cows.

The Malloy administration and state legislators may not get educational reform right. And if they do, some school districts may not get it right, but this initial commitment to putting student success at the center of the discussion, above union prerogatives or administrative process, is a sign that we are at least starting out this uncertain journey to educational reform on the right path.