Recently, I saw a former Hartford politician who asked me, "Did you figure out what to do with MLK?" The person got a mean side eye and a question. What happens when you wrecklessly expand privately-managed state charter schools, interdistrict magnet schools, destabilize the other schools with other neoliberal education "reforms", and resist raising revenue for public … Continue reading What You Need to Know about Hartford’s Martin Luther King School: Part 1 →

Hometowns of Students that Attend 1 Interdistrict Magnet School   Last week, parents in the Hartford area learned of the results of local and regional school choice lotteries. As our readers may already know, the Regional School Choice Office (RSCO) conducts a few lotteries each spring to determine school assignment in inter-district magnet school and … Continue reading Hartford-Area Parents Get Results of School Choice Lotteries: Joy and Frustration →

The Hartford Courant's Kathy Megan reported that yesterday the State Board of Education (all gubernatorial appointees) granted a three-year approval to the Achievement First - Hartford charter school (rather than 5 years) and a one year probation for ongoing problems of violating teacher certification laws, poor culture and climate, and excessive suspensions of children. As I've … Continue reading Achievement First – Hartford Charter Renewal: The Accountability is Still Always Flexible →

Have a question, comment, or concern about the Hartford Public Schools and City of Hartford (CT) education budget? Update: On Wednesday, May 4, 2016, there will be a meeting where the City Council and the Hartford Board of Education speak on the proposed budget. (Here are the other meetings for City Council.) The final budget … Continue reading Hartford Public School Budget Hearing and Resources 2016-17 →

Update: On December 29, 2016 (between Christmas and New Year's Eve), the CT Mirror reported that the Malloy administration would cut education cost sharing and municipal aid grants (capital improvement) mid-way through the year. The largest education grant (ECS) cuts will most directly impact public schools in more affluent towns, while the cuts to municipal … Continue reading Betraying educational cost sharing in Connecticut? (Updated) →

The Hartford Public Schools uses a very unusual funding system called "student-based budgeting" (SBB). In other districts across the country, they use the term "weighted student funding" (WSF) rather than SBB. Many Black and Latino majority school districts are moving towards this funding scheme and with scant evidence that "SBB/WSF" improves overall resources, equity, or educational … Continue reading A Conversation on “SBB” School Funding in Hartford →

Several months ago, former Hartford school board member Dr. Shelley Best posted a photo of herself with a handful of white teachers and an administrator in the background. Dr. Best, a Black woman, took the "selfie" photo at a district workshop about the "achievement gap". In the caption of her Facebook post with the photo, she … Continue reading Where did Black & Latin@ teachers in Hartford go? →

The State Department of Education has recommended to the State Board that six existing charter schools get renewed. Today, Wednesday, May 6, 2015, the State Board of Education will vote to approve (or not) those recommendations to renew the charters of six existing state charter schools in Connecticut. My quick reading is that charter school … Continue reading CT Charter Renewal Update: The Accountability is Still Flexible →

When it comes to standardized testing, there are a number of stories we can tell. One of the dominant stories about education goes something like this: 'Kids must take standardized tests every year or else we can't hold adult accountable for learning - all kids, every year, in all schools. Parents need to know how … Continue reading Connecticut Schools Excelling without Testing? →