Long Timers Backyard Block Party

All Dressed Up For The Boombox Parade

Willimantic Cafe/Willi Brew all dressed up and waiting for the BOOMBOX Parade

Cost of a High School Diploma: Over Half Million Bucks

Ct News Junkie Photo

It ain't cheap to educate a Windham student. According to a study released by Raising Hale, a media project of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy it cost $258,565.33 to educate a Windham student, from kindergarten through high school graduation. The average Connecticut school district spends $165,000.

Windham Schools rank forth most expensive in Connecticut, only behind Hartford ($283,482.00), New Britain ($274.364.00) and New Haven ($267,897.00)

Over a quarter million dollars spent educating each student, $93,565 per student more then the average school district. And what do we get for this $258,565.00 investment?

Not much, Windham's graduation rate (61%) is the second lowest in Connecticut. Bridgeport graduates even fewer. Windham's Cap proficiency tests are the second lowest in Connecticut  New Britain has the distinction of having the lowest.

Colchester educated its students most efficiently of the 111 districts reviewed, spending only $129,099 over13 years.

See full report with links below

Cost of Connecticut high school diploma: $165,000

June 14, 2013 at 2:07 PM| 17 days Ago by Zachary Janowsk
Raising Hale Blog

The average cost of educating a child from kindergarten through high school graduation in Connecticut is about $165,000, up nearly 10 percent from last year.

According to Department of Education data, Hartford spent the most for each student who received a high school diploma, $283,482.

Colchester educated its students most efficiently of the 111 districts reviewed, spending only $129,099 over 13 years.

This measure of cost per graduate includes 13 years of per pupil costs divided by the graduation rate to adjust for students who the district paid to teach but who did not graduate.

New Britain, New Haven, Windham and New London are the next most expensive school districts.

The Glastonbury, Tolland, Wolcott and Suffield school districts joined Colchester as the most efficient in the state. They accomplished this by combining relatively low total costs per student and high graduation rates.

Madison ranked as seventh-most efficient school district, yet it has the highest average performance on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test.

Especially in wealthy districts, spending and test results don’t have a clear relationship. In a number of the comparison groups established by the state, more efficient districts have test results that are indistinguishable from their peers.

Ridgefield has similar outcomes to Westport, yet spent $40,000 less on the career of each student. Glastonbury outperforms Greenwich on the CAPT, yet spent $70,000 less on each student.

Raising Hale has done similar rankings in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The Department of Education changed the way it calculates graduation rates two years ago. Since there is a two-year lag in the data, this change is reflected for the first time in 2012.

Under the new method of calculating graduation rates – by cohort, or incoming freshman class – many graduation rates are lower than under the old method.

The change in methodology makes it difficult to compare 2011 and 2012 data. However, the data for 2012 and 2013 are comparable.

2013 Data

Sorted by Rank | DRG| Alphabetical

Highest-cost districts
1. Hartford School District $283,482
2. New Britain School District $274,361
3. New Haven School District $267,897
4. Windham School District $258,565
5. New London School District $255,988
Average cost: $164,672
Lowest-cost districts
107. Glastonbury School District $131,679
108. Tolland School District $130,311
109. Wolcott School District $129,254
110. Suffield School District $129,178
111. Colchester School District $129,099

Methodology:

To calculate the cost per graduate, the Yankee Institute took data from the Connecticut Department of Education for average annual expenditures per student going back 13 years, representing kindergarten through 12th grade. After totaling the cost, it was divided by the graduation rate to come up with the lifetime cost per graduate. The 13th year is the 2010-2011 school year, and data is not adjusted for inflation, so the real cost of 2012 graduates is higher than calculated. Communities with high annual costs, more drop outs and lower graduation rates end up with the more expensive graduates. Some regional school districts, districts with less than 13 years of data, charter schools and other non-traditional schools were left out of the calculations to keep the data consistent for the greatest number of schools.

Also, the calculations do not include costs for school construction or teacher pensions,

Town Manager Beets Appears Out In Harwich

Beets was one of three finalist for the town administration position in Harwich Mass.

Read Cape Cod Times Report

The Circus Comes to Town

Have always wanted to watch the Big Top go up. This year I contacted Cole Brothers before their Willimantic arrival. I was told to be on Jillson Square June 24th at 7:30 Monday morning. Of course I was late and the Big Top was nearly up. I did catch many photos of the circus staff finishing up.

Enjoy

Take a look at the photos, when finished come back and click on the movie. It's a lot better then the photos and many of the scenes were filmed in Willimantic

Big Top almost up

Pounding Steaks

Man hanging from stanchion installing lights

Truck full of chairs

Bring in the bleachers

Bring in the bleachers

Dressing rooms

Biggest canon in the world

Lions napping

Putting together motorcycle show

Circus coming togeather

Elephant stools but no elephants

Pony's and baby carriages

Setting up the dinning tent

Circus fire truck

Breakfast almost ready

Almost show time

Concessions facility

Finishing up  the main entrance

Big top up, bleachers being built

Big top nearly ready

Circus business is good. Two luxuary buses each hauling
trailers carrying
 golf carts and two new Mercedes

Come on down

Saturday in the Park

Camping out  at Lauter Park

Yesterday, June 20th an event for the Willimantic No Freeze Hostility Center was held at
Willimantic's Lauter Park. A combination sleep over/fund raiser, campers enjoyed swimming, fishing. the skate board and the splash park. There was singing, story telling, marsh mellow roasting and a pancake and fresh fruit breakfast on Sunday mourning.

 Pictures of the park are amazing, (Thank you Annie Clark for sharing) not having visited, in years, I am pleasantly surprised how Lauter Park has matured over time. With the splash park and the newer skate park, Lauter Park has truly become a destination in Eastern Connecticut.

Eastern Does Best on Study for Education

Clock Tower, ECSU

Some state teacher programs rated mediocre
Linda Conner Lambeck
Published 10:17 pm, Tuesday, June 18, 2013
From: Connecticut Post
Eastern Out performs UConn's Neag Ed School








More Information
Number of stars, out of 4, Connecticut teacher prep programs received:*
Program Stars

Central CSU undergraduate elementary 2
Central CSU undergraduate secondary 1.5

Eastern CSU undergraduate elementary 2
Eastern CSU undergraduate secondary 2.5

Sacred Heart University undergraduate elementary 1

Southern CSU undergraduate elementary 1
Southern CSU undergraduate secondary 2
Southern CSU graduate elementary 1
Southern CSU graduate secondary 3

University of Connecticut graduate elementary 1.5
University of Connecticut graduate secondary 1

Western CSU undergraduate elementary 1
Western CSU undergraduate secondary 1.5

*not all programs in state were ranked because not all supplied data
according to the National Center for Teacher Quality

A long-awaited and stinging critique of teacher-preparation programs released Tuesday brands a number of education schools in the state as mediocre.In turn, those on the receiving end of the low grades -- among them the University of Connecticut, Sacred Heart University in Fairfield and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury -- called the study flawed and questioned the motives of the groups behind the study.

"Suppose you were ill and decided to research the doctor you were going to," said Thomas C. DeFranco, dean of UConn's Neag School of Education, who noted that the study included no visits to the campus. "Would you just look at the courses he took or would you talk to other doctors and patients."

The National Center for Teacher Quality, a national think-tank, produced the report using $4.8 million in contributions from the Gates Foundation and 64 other groups that support data-driven instruction. NCTQ worked with U.S. News & World Report to rate 1,130 teacher-preparation programs at more than 600 colleges nationwide including 13 programs in Connecticut.

Using a four-star scale, the group looked at admission standards, curriculum and measures such as student teaching experiences.

The study concluded it is far too easy to get into teacher-preparation programs and that not enough schools are preparing teachers for the new Common Core State Standards. It says too little student teaching is required and that programs should do more to train new teachers in classroom management and to teach all students how to read.

One bright spot in the Connecticut report is that Southern Connecticut State University's graduate education program made the "honor role," a distinction awarded to only one in 10 programs nationwide.

Braden Hosch, director of policy and research and interim director of academic affairs for Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, which includes Southern, said he appreciates the attention that NCTQ brings to teacher-preparation programs. Though provocative, Hosch called NCTQ's report consistent with other calls to action.

"It recognizes that the quality of teacher-prep programs is a national imperative," he said.

In Connecticut, home to the largest achievement gap in the nation, efforts have been made to improve teacher colleges. A statewide group formed last year looked at ways to tie the programs to teacher performance and student outcomes. The work continues.

A January 2013 survey of 819 new teachers conducted by the Connecticut Education Association found more than half wish they had entered the classroom armed with more classroom management skills and 44 percent wish they had more time to observe other teachers.

Elsa Nunez, president of Eastern Connecticut State University, said she thought the report offered a helpful outside perspective. Eastern's undergraduate program earned a 2.5, the highest for undergrad programs in the state.

"We should all be getting 4s," she said.

Still, some say the NCTQ is plain wrong. Jim Carl, dean of Sacred Heart's Farrington College of Education, challenged the report's methodology.

"In contrast to the major accrediting organizations that measure the outcomes of teacher-preparation programs, the NCTQ methodology relies largely on superficial inputs such as the content of syllabi and program descriptions," he said. "There is also a widely held view in the education community that NCTQ's tactics are aggressive, self-serving and that the results seem to support pre-determined conclusions."

A day before the report's release, the American Federation of Teachers called the report rankings "a gimmick."

In Connecticut, the report found that none of the elementary or secondary programs in the state restrict admissions to the top half of the college-going population, compared to 28 percent nationwide. DeFranco, said if NCTQ had looked deeper they would have found that the average grade-point average of UConn's teacher candidates is 3.5.

He also found it ironic that US News & World Report could rank UConn's school of Education 17th in the nation last fall, then mediocre in this new study.

Sandi Jacobs, a NCTQ vice president, said the new report is a closer examination that "looks under the hood" of teacher-prep programs.

"We don't disagree there are missing pieces, but right now we are very limited," she said. "So what we look at is the program design, what we see as the essential building blocks to a good program," she said.

http://www.ctpost.com/default/article/Critique-rates-some-state-programs-mediocre-4608368.php

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