Still More on Vocational and Technical Education

In case you missed it, the New York Times did  a long article on Saturday on the fate of Career and Technical Education schools: Tough Calculus as Technical Schools Face Deep Cuts.

Federal funding to vocational and technical schools could be cut by 20% in the next budget. In States like Connecticut, where state funding is disappearing as well, this could mean the closing of many technical high schools.

These cuts are baffling -- technical high schools have a much higher graduation success rate than general "comprehensive" high schools -- 90% for technical high schools v. 75% at a traditional high school.

And the success of these schools doesn't come by lowering standards. In fact, in a recent survey, employers were much happier with students coming from technical high schools than traditional ones.

And the Times article points to a Massachusetts analysis that technical high school graduates actually do better on reading and math tests than traditional high schools. With such a strong record of achievement, our elected leaders would do better increasing funding to technical high schools, rather than cutting it.

Malloy Gives Up On Fixing The School Funding Method

Governor Malloy's budget director gave up trying to get a "money follows the child" law passed this year. They will study it, despite admitting that the current school funding formula is broken and has been broken for years.

How broken is it? Well, when my son was in the 8th grade, he attended a magnet school in Hartford. One of his assignments in one of his classes was to actually read the funding formula law. Then students were to create their own funding formulas.

The one thing I remember both of us thinking at the end of the assignment was that the existing formula was so unbelievably complicated that it could not be explained to anyone.

My son is now in college and nothing has improved. The funding formula is opaque at best, and intentionally confusing at worst. There is nothing fair nor transparent about it.  Now that everyone admits that the funding formula is broken and unfair, and has been for a long time, how long before it is fixed?

Get Smart, Connecticut campaign

The ConnCAN organization has launched a big campaign to promote their legislative agenda. Many of the reforms the organization would like to see passed are leftover from last year. Things like -- money follows the child, teacher tenure, and the like.

The agenda is filled with common sense proposals -- things that many other states have already adopted. The school finance issue will mean big changes for Connecticut, if passed. There are so many interests opposed to the reforms, and there is no longer a "race to the top" carrot dangling out there for the state, the effort is unlikely to succeed.

New High School Graduation Requirements -- Should they be Voluntary?

The State has just realized that it is broke and really can't afford to pay for the sweeping new high school graduation requirements they passed last year into law. This new law will apply to kids that are currently in the fifth grade -- the class of 2018. To graduate from a public high school in CT, students will have to pass state tests in the subjects of english, math, science, and history, get at least a credit in a foreign language, and do a "capstone" project.

In the next 7 years, the State expected to do a lot of the prep work for implementing these standards -- things like deciding what would actually be on those exams, writing model curriculum, and defining what would be a capstone project. The State had counted on using all those federal dollars dangling out there in Race to the Top to pay for the new requirements.

The federal dollars never materialized. Connecticut's application for $175 million was rejected. Since then, other events have taken center stage. With the looming budget crisis, legislators appear to have noticed that all those laws they passed last year are still on the books, but there's no money to make them a reality.

One idea is to delay the requirements even later than 2018. Another is to do nothing and let the towns figure out how to pay for all the new things they'll have to do.

Here's a third idea -- make them voluntary. Some of the new high school graduation requirements are unproven with no research base behind them -- particularly former Commissioner McQuillan's "capstone" project. I've been uncomfortable with the whole capstone project requirement, even when it seemed possible that someone else (my federal tax dollars rather than my state or local property tax dollars) would pay for it.

But I've got some serious misgivings about the whole capstone project as it is. It might be a good idea, but there's little evidence at this point that it would do anything at all to prepare students for life after high school. So, keeping an open mind -- how about we make the new requirements voluntary and ask school districts to provide feedback instead.

Ask districts in their yearly reports to include a short description of whether they voluntarily implemented any of the new requirements and to describe their experiences.

I start with an assumption that the vast majority of citizens and towns would like to graduate students well prepared to achieve after high school. If they think this new capstone project is a good idea, some will try it. The towns that don't like it or can't afford it, can watch the experience of other towns. It could be a great big collaborative project where towns share their experiences and give each other feedback before we mandate it across the state.