Panel urges CT keep oversight of tech-ed system

Connecticut would be better off with continued state oversight of 30 technical high schools in order to upgrade future workers’ skills and not burden local school systems with more than $160 million in operating overhead, a blue-ribbon panel says.

The Connecticut Technical High School System (CTHSS) Task Force Tuesday released to the governor and state lawmakers its report outlining those and other recommendations designed to improve the system’s role in educating Connecticut’s workforce.

The task force was asked to study the finance, management and tech-high enrollment and the merits of transferring operating responsibility from the State Board of Education to local school systems.

The panel, chaired by Mark Ojakian, now chief of staff to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy,  said the tech-ed system continue to be operated by the state to maintain quality and statewide standards.

“We must ensure that all students have the strongest possible foundation – that is how Connecticut will regain competitiveness and strengthen our economy,” Malloy said in a statement.

“This report is our blueprint for moving forward,” Malloy said, “to make our technical high school system the best in the nation, and to prepare our students to enter the highly skilled and highly technical Connecticut workforce.”

The report makes several recommendations to improve the technical high school system, including recommendations to improve collaboration by state and private entities to prepare students for the jobs and skills needed by employers, and to make the system more efficient and fiscally accountable.

Among them:

•·         Continuing State operations of the CTHSS.

•·         Requiring the state Department of Education to develop CTHSS’s strategic plan in conjunction with the Departments of Labor, Economic and Community Development, Higher Education, and specific business and industry consortiums.     

•·         The state should establish a separate CTHSS board to set standards. The Superintendent would be accountable to the new CTHSS governing board.

•·         The education agency should endeavor to benchmark standards against international leaders.