Connecticut –Friday, June 4, 2021, marks the 25th anniversary of Connecticut’s charter school law (PA 96-214), which changed public education in our state forever by establishing the framework for Connecticut’s public charter schools.
According to the State Department of Education, “public charter schools sought to catalyze innovation in Connecticut’s public schools, as well as establish another vehicle to reduce racial and economic gap of Connecticut’s public school students,”
In celebration of a quarter-century of school choice in our state, the Connecticut Charter Schools Association is kicking off a month-long celebration recognizing more than 11,000 public charter school students and our state’s 21 excellent public charter schools, which continue to deliver outstanding results for kids with little resources at their disposal.
“What began as an initial opportunity to spark innovation and create change has grown into a movement that is successfully delivering excellent education options to kids of all backgrounds throughout our state. Over the past 25 years, Connecticut’s public charter schools have brought life-changing educational opportunities to families. The Association looks forward to working alongside them for the next 25 as they continue to break down barriers for all children, especially those from marginalized communities, ” said Ruben Felipe, Executive Director of the Connecticut Charter Schools Association.
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About the Connecticut Charter Schools Association: The Connecticut Charter Schools Association is a nonprofit membership organization that serves as a unified voice for the 21 public charter schools, representing their interests at the state and local levels. To learn more, click here.
About Connecticut’s 21 Public Charter Schools: Since the passing of Connecticut’s public charter school law, these high-quality school options have successfully narrowed our state’s glaring achievement gap despite being significantly underfunded. What’s more, on the 2019 Smarter Balanced State Assessment, on average, public charter schools students in Connecticut met or exceeded grade-level expectations compared to students in districts with similar populations by nearly 15 percentage points in English Language Arts and by almost 13 percentage points in math. Additionally, due to their strong performance, several charter schools were named Schools of Distinction by Connecticut in 2017-2018, and Common Ground Charter School in New Haven was recognized as a Green Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education just this year! While our state’s charter schools have been successfully serving some of our state’s neediest children for a quarter of a century, our state has, and continues to, drastically underfund them and the children that they educate. In years past, Connecticut’s elected leaders have tried to excuse these funding disparities by pointing to the state of the state. Now, as the state deliberates its plan for the large surplus it currently has at its disposal, the state’s charter school community is continuing to fight for education justice by calling for equitable funding for our state’s neediest kids.