Education: A Life-Long Learning Initiative
Education: A Life-Long Learning Initiative
Education is the key to...everything.
Often times you might hear a politician say "there is no silver bullet" or "I can't wave a magic wand" when they are saying there are no easy solutions to problems. In most cases, that is true. But the closest thing we have to a "magic wand," for improving people's lives, our society and our economy, is education.
Education has the power to transform a person's life and to transform a nation's economy. Education gives our children the skills and opportunity they need to achieve prosperity, to ensure that Connecticut's next generation is its best generation.
That's why we must create an educational system that prepares all of our children and adults to live and compete in a global economy, and establishes a fair and effective way of funding such a system. Investing in education is not only essential for the personal development of our citizens, it is essential for economic development as well and plays an increasingly important role in creating prosperity; no economic revitalization strategy would be complete without recognizing this long-term fuel that will power our economy and our communities for years to come. Investment in education has always had a tremendous impact on our economy - its been estimated for example that the GI Bill after World War II returned $7 for every $1 invested by the federal government - and investment in education can make a tremendous impact again now.
Our public schools have helped make this nation great, and Connecticut has a long tradition of high quality education. But in this rapidly-changing global economy, we know that the old ways of doing things just aren't enough any more - and it is true for education as well. The challenges that lie ahead - and the risk that if we stand still other states and countries will pass us by -demand a renewed commitment to public education, and new approaches to learning.
We know that our children today face tougher challenges than we did even just a generation ago. Today, Connecticut's children are no longer just competing with children from other states but with children from other countries. And in an age where our economy is rapidly changing we also now know that education must be a life-long process: the jobs we have depended on for generations are disappearing, and the "new economy" jobs we can attract to replace them often demand different skills.
That's why we must commit Connecticut to support of "life-long learning" - providing the tools and opportunities to achieve prosperity. That means making a commitment to expanding early childhood education; increasing the number of students who graduate from high school; making college possible for all, not just the wealthy; providing job re-training programs for workers caught in a time of economic transition; and investing in our teachers.
I have made a commitment to education as mayor of Stamford, where I established the state's first universal pre-school program for 4 year olds, invested more than $225 million in capital improvement projects, and dramatically increased the percentage of our budget dedicated to education.
Investing in education and expanding opportunities for all is a commitment I've lived up to as Mayor, and one I'll continue as Governor.
Dan Malloy's Plan for Education: Support for Life-Long Learning
As Governor I will implement a 5-point plan to enhance educational opportunities in our state. My plan will:
1. Provide an opportunity for every child to have access to early childhood education and attend pre-Kindergarten programs.
2. Better prepare our students for college and work by strengthening connections between high school and college and broaden opportunities for high school students to gain work experience.
3. Ensure that our colleges are affordable in order to improve the chances that all Connecticut students will have an opportunity to attend and graduate from college.
4. Increase workforce investment and job training.
5. Support the teaching profession from recruitment through retirement.
(1) Provide an opportunity for every child to have access to early childhood education and attend pre-Kindergarten programs.
To ensure that Connecticut's children can meet their potential, Connecticut must make an unequivocal commitment to ensuring that every single child in Connecticut has access to early-childhood education. Every child in Connecticut must have the opportunity to attend at least one and hopefully two years of pre-kindergarten education.
Under my administration, Stamford was the first city in Connecticut to offer universal access to pre-school. We have offered every four-year old access to pre-school and we are working hard to extend universal access to three-year olds. As Governor, I will continue these efforts statewide.
Pre-schools are becoming a necessary extension of our traditional elementary schools. Studies have shown for years that children who received pre-kindergarten education are more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to repeat a grade or need special education classes, and less likely to be disruptive in the classroom and hinder teaching.[1] One of the most extensive of these studies tracked students who attended pre-school in the 1960s and found when they reached age 40 those "who had attended the preschool program had higher earnings, were more likely to hold a job, had committed fewer crimes, and were more likely to have graduated from high school than adults who did not have preschool."[2] Clearly, the investment we make in pre-K education pays of dramatically in cost savings from reduced education expenditures later in life, fewer social service costs, and higher economic earning capacity. [3]
In addition, we must adopt quality enhancement strategies that ensure that more pre-school teachers complete degrees in early childhood education and care. We should also provide for early childhood teacher certification.
(2) Better prepare our students for college and work by strengthening connections between high school and college; broaden opportunities for high school students to gain work experience.
The next generation to graduate from our high schools will need to master the skills necessary to compete in a global economy. With young adults in New Delhi competing for the same jobs as young adults in New Haven, students' future opportunities will depend on their educational attainment. They will need literacy earlier in order to master higher levels of math, science and technology by graduation. Simply put, every year students will have more to accomplish by 12th grade than the students before.
We also know that in today's demanding global job market, most students will need to continue their education beyond high school in order to be successful. It was not too long ago when a high school diploma was the gateway to a decent job and way of life; that's no longer the case. Today the gateway to prosperity is a college degree. The difference in wages between those who graduate from college and those who do not is staggering: adult workers with a Bachelor's degree earn on average $51,206 a year, compared to $27,915 for those with only a high school diploma - a gap of more than $1 million over a lifetime.[4] And among high school drop outs the situation is even more dire: nearly half of drop outs between ages 16-24 are without jobs.[5]
And yet even as college education is becoming essential in this economy, most students in America leave high school without the skills they need to continue on in school or enter the workforce. In fact, one recent national survey suggests that nearly 40% of high school graduates feel inadequately prepared for college or the workplace.[6]
Here in Connecticut, while the times and the demands of the economy have changed, our State's level of college attainment has not kept pace: in 1990, Connecticut was tied with Massachusetts for first in the nation in college attainment - since then our state has slipped to 7th in the nation, as other states have passed us by.[7]
Connecticut must act now or forever play catch-up.
That's why we must restructure our curriculum to teach the skills and knowledge needed for 21st century employment, why we must improve the high school graduation rates, and why we must set the goal of making a college degree as universal as a high school diploma is today.
Overall we need to better prepare all students for the demands of community college, the workplace, or full time higher education. Part of my solution includes providing more opportunities for high school students to participate in apprenticeship training, earn community-college credit, or gain real workplace experience. Better connecting our high schools to college - especially our community-colleges - is one effective way to transition more high school students into higher education. If we better connect our schools to the adult community of work and education, dropouts will be reduced and greater opportunities will be afforded to our all our high school graduates.
As Governor, I will work to build better connections between high schools and colleges to ensure more opportunities for students to transition into higher education by:
* Offering guaranteed admission - to state colleges or universities for students in the top 20% of their class. This sends a signal to all children that college can be an option if they work hard at school.
* Creating a Community-College outreach program - to provide on-site college credit courses to students in their neighborhood schools.
* Providing "First-in-Family" scholarships - to students who are the first member of their family to attend college.
* Institute a Math, Science, and Technology Campaign - for our high schools. Math proficiency is an increasingly critical building block to opportunities in the sciences and in the technology-intensive companies that are the most important ingredient in the State's recipe for prosperity. My Math, Science, and Technology plan will encourage more high school students to graduate with advanced math skills; enroll in college math and science courses before graduating high school; and participate in innovative partnerships with businesses that promote hands-on math and science learning
(3) Ensure that our colleges are affordable in order to improve the chances that all Connecticut students will have an opportunity to attend and graduate from college.
Even for our students who do go on to college, they still face hurdles: less than a fifth of all community-college students graduate and fewer than 40% of state university students leave their schools with a degree.[8] Rising tuition costs and worsening staffing ratios have pushed students out at a time when educational attainment has never meant more. We need to reverse these trends and improve our commitment to education.
This means not only recommitting our state to funding our colleges and universities, but also ensuring aid and funding are distributed equitably, with a focus on those who demonstrate the most need. It is patently unfair and economically unsound to perpetuate barriers to affordable higher education, and as Governor, I will work to improve the support structures and resources provided to all students attending our institutions of higher education.
* Restoring our State Commitment to Higher Education
We must also reverse the disinvestment in higher education that has been a trademark of the Rowland and Rell administrations. Since 2001, the State's investment in higher education has gone from 4.5% of the state budget to 3.9% for FY06 and FY07. As Governor, I will propose a law requiring the state to restore its commitment to higher education and set as a goal, increasing higher education funding to 4.5% of the state budget by 2010 and 6% by 2015.
* Increasing Access and Affordability
Connecticut must better control tuition prices if higher education if we want our colleges and universities to be accessible to Connecticut's young adults and attractive for out-of-state students. We must establish incentives that will encourage higher education institutions to:
¨ Freeze Tuition - across the board by restoring higher education's share of our state budget to the levels before the Rowland and Rell administrations.
¨ Institute Seasonal Pricing - for those students who want to take summer and winter semester courses, which could potentially reduce the number of years to graduation, and increase the number of spaces available at our schools.
¨ Offer Tuition Rebates - to create capacity and make it easier for others to gain access, any student that graduates in 4 years or less with a B+ or better will be eligible for a $1,000 rebate on tuition.
(4) Increase workforce investment and job retraining
As part of our support for life-long learning, we must recognize that in this new economy workers will need opportunities to learn new skills long after they graduate. While a generation ago a worker might have stayed in one job for their entire working life, today changing jobs and careers has become a fact of work life. In fact, today the average American will have had 10 jobs between the ages of 18 and 38 alone![9]
As I detailed in my economic development proposal - Every Job Matters - I propose a more responsive and integrated rapid reemployment and job training infrastructure, including:
* Emergency Workforce Training Credits
Connecticut needs to do a better job of quickly connecting dislocated workers to the training and services that will help them turn a setback for them into a step forward for everyone. As Governor, I will work to establish emergency training credits that help dislocated workers immediately begin the process of acquiring skills to help them obtain employment in Connecticut's most promising industries. Workers who are identified through the State's rapid response teams (a program that responds to impending and actual mass layoffs) will be eligible for training credits redeemable at any accredited degree-granting institution in the state. Our rapid response teams are simply overwhelmed and we need to provide them with the resources to reach more workers who need them.
* Customized and Incumbent Worker Training
To better protect against jobs leaving our state, my administration will partner with business and labor, and educational facilities and training centers to establish a true state-of-the-art customized job training program statewide. For business in Connecticut to compete with businesses elsewhere, we need to do more to level the playing field. Job training under the Rell and Rowland administrations has been haphazard and inconsistent. And, that just won't do. I will implement a customized job training program that gives Connecticut a real edge over our competitors worldwide and I will invest in incumbent worker training programs that provide timely training for workers to improve their skills.
(5) Support the teaching profession from recruitment through retirement
None of these ideas will be successful without our teachers. Whether children are making their first step, or their next step, toward opportunity, our teachers are one of the keys to ensuring that all students maximize their potential. We must also support the goals of life-long learning for our educators as well, by inspiring the next generation of college graduates to become teachers, enhancing opportunities for professional development for those in the profession today, and by supporting our retirees.
That's why I will work to recruit high quality school teachers and create a "Teach for Connecticut" student loan reimbursement program, modeled on our successful Minority Teacher Recruitment program. This will help us attract highly skilled graduates to obtain certification and teach in areas where the state experiences teacher shortages.
I will also support our retired teachers. After a lifetime of living up to their commitment and dedicating themselves to educating our children, its time the State of Connecticut lived up to its commitment to teacher retirees. That's why I support constitutional amendment to fully fund teacher pensions.
Notes on the cost of the Life-Long Learning Initiative
My education plan to support life-long learning is an investment in our future. We've seen many examples of the benefit of investment in education on our economy and society, perhaps most dramatically following World War II when we adopted the GI Bill which helped create the middle class in America. Economists estimate that every $1 the federal government invested in that program returned $7 back to our economy.
Similarly, my plan to invest in pre-K education will also yield great returns on our investment. The estimated cost to the state per child who participates is $7,900, with the state would assist families with those costs on a sliding scale based on income. However, recent studies on the fiscal impacts on universal pre-K suggest that the investment in early childhood education is offset by the reduced costs in education later in life - including fewer students repeating grades and fewer students in special education classes.[10] In addition, lower costs in other areas that result from universal early education (including lower criminal justice and social service cost), and the benefit to the economy of producing higher wage earners make this a very sound investment.
An important element of my plan to connect high school to colleges involves no new costs - guaranteeing admission to our state colleges and universities to our top students in every school. The cost of instituting a Math, Science and Technology campaign is approximately $500,000.
The higher education initiatives I proposed include a $10 million to restore our commitment to higher education to the pre Rowland and Rell levels, $20 million to reduce tuitions, $1 million to institute seasonal pricing, and $1 million in tuition rebates.
As detailed in my plan for jobs and the economy - Every Job Matters - the costs of Emergency Workforce Training Credits will be $3 million, and incumbent worker training will be $3 million.
Finally, as part of my effort to ensure life-long learning for teachers and encourage college students to join the profession, I am proposing an additional $500,000 for "Teach for Connecticut" scholarships. I have also previously called for fully funding our teacher pension fund.
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