Malloy: School Reform Needed for Economic Growth

Asking for boldness and big ideas, , urged lawmakers and business owners to come together and commit to “nothing less than a full-scale economic revival.”

One of the main elements of Malloy’s plan involves reforming schools to allow incentives for the best teachers, to restructure tenure so that it has to be continually earned and to provide more money to troubled schools.

“Today tenure is too easy to get and too hard to take away,” he said in prepared statements made available to the press. “I propose we do it a different way. I propose we hold every teacher to a standard of excellence.”

Under his proposed $128 million education agenda, 80 percent would go to the worst districts. In order for the schools to get the money, districts would have to “embrace key reforms,” with tenure changes being one of them.

“We cannot and will not fix what’s broken in our schools by scapegoating teachers. But nor can we fix it if we do not have the ability to remove teachers who don’t perform well in the classroom in a timely fashion,” he said. “In this new system, tenure will be a privilege, not a right. It will be earned and retained through effective teaching, not by counting years of service.”

Also, as part of his proposal to reform education from early childhood through college, Malloy announced an additional $50 million in Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) funding to schools.  "Nearly $40 million will go to newly-established Alliance Districts, made up of the state’s 30 lowest-performing school districts... an additional $4.5 million in competitive funding will be offered to all districts." 

Under the proposed FY2013 ECS funds, Branford will be receiving $1,824,612 – a difference of $65,517 over last year. Malloy's ECS allocation, see attached, reflects a 3.72 percent increase in ECS dollars for FY2013, which amounts to $19 per Branford pupil. 

Noting at Tuesday night that he was counting on historically flat ECS funding, Superintendent Hamlet Hernandez said on Wednesday evening following Malloy's announcement, "This is certainly a positive development and demonstrates the Governor’s commitment to education."

Hernandez has proposed a $50-million FY2013 budget for Branford schools, which is a 3.1 percent increase over last year. 

If local and state education funding interests you, consider attending tonight's at , 7 p.m.