Melissa Bailey Photo
After nearly seven years at the helm of the education watchdog group ConnCAN, New Haven school board member Alex Johnston is leaving in search of other ways to close the achievement gap.
Johnston (pictured), a founder and CEO of ConnCAN, said he plans to leave his job at the end of the calendar year. ConnCAN is launching a national search for his replacement, he said in an interview in the hallway of a school reform conference at the Omni Hotel Friday.
Johnston had just finished moderating a conversation between American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and the superintendents from New Haven and Baltimore.
An outside critic who stepped inside to help guide the city’s reform movement, Johnston has emerged as a leading voice in statewide education reform, promoting “money follows the child,” and a new formula for funding schools.
He said he remains dissatisfied with the pace of progress in American schools.
“We’re at least 20 years into the national reform movement, and student achievement hasn’t changed,” he said.
He said he’s leaving ConnCAN in search of a new type of advocacy.
“We’re not pulling all of the levers,” he said.
As a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, ConnCAN cannot directly get involved with the electoral process. Johnston declined to say if his new role will involve more political activity. He did say he intends to stay in New Haven and remain on the city’s school board.
“I’m going to be as involved in the Connecticut policy scene as I’ve ever been,” Johnston said.