Allan Appel Photo
Math and science-literate students. A closed achievement gap. Better data on student performance. Help for parents to get involved in their kids’ schools.
Debra Hauser (pictured) said Tuesday that the state should focus on those four goals in improving public education. She promised to help make that happen if she gets elected state representative from the state General Assembly’s 96th District. Two-thirds of the district falls in east side New Haven neighborhoods; the rest falls in Hamden. Hauser is one of two New Haven Democrats seeking the seat, which incumbent State Rep. Cam Staples is vacating.
Hauser’s campaign issued an education policy statement Tuesday morning of which the four goals are the cornerstone. Read the statement here.
In the statement Hauser called for linking school aid to measurable results on student achievement. She called or creating a state “student/school performance database and a cost-benefit analysis for school funding” based on a system of “Results Based Accountability.”
Especially in lower-income communities, the state needs to help jump-start parental involvement in schools through supportive programs like such as the Family Learning Initiative, which “approaches student literacy as a family-school team effort,” Hauser said.
To prepare students for the workforce, she called for including businesses in crafting “strategic long-term” curriculum plans that emphasize “literacy, math, science, and technology.”
And she called for boosting early-intervention plans to close the achievement gap.
Paul Bass Photo
Hauser’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Roland Lemar (pictured), reacted by “welcoming” Hauser to the education debate, although he dismissed her release as “generic bullet points.”
“I’m thrilled that she’s actually engaging on the subject finally,” said Lemar, who claimed Hauser has been “relatively mute” on the subject in debates and on the trail.
“At the end of the day, this isn’t about who’s got the best plan on a website, or who wrote a press release,” said Lemar, but rather about “who’s got the ability to bring about the radical reform and changes that we need.”
Lemar has called for full state funding of the Educational Cost Sharing program, plugged New Haven’s school reform initiative, and backed a measure proposed by New Haven State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield and Bethel State Rep. Jason Bartlett aimed at bringing some New Haven-style reforms to a statewide plan to tackle the achievement gap.